by Jess Haines
Max had taken me far away from Los Angeles. It didn’t look anything like this in Southern California. Though it had been chilly enough for light jackets at night in LA, it certainly hadn’t been cold enough to herald snow before Fabian’s pet necromancer put me under. The type of greenery visible under the layer of snow on the distant hills spoke of something much farther north.
I sank down onto a poolside chair, pressing a hand to my forehead. I was far away from home, God knew where. Trapped. Even if I managed to make it outside by some miracle, I wouldn’t last long in that cold without more suitable clothing. Max probably had a long coat or something I could steal out of his wardrobe, but the idea of running barefoot through the snow and woods with nothing more than my undies and bra ... ouch. If I couldn’t find shelter, frostbite and exposure would kill me, assuming Max didn’t find me and snap my neck first.
A panic attack wouldn’t help anything, but it sure felt like a good time to give in to one.
“You should do as he told you,” said a clear, ringing voice from behind me. I glanced over, not particularly interested, but soon found myself unable to look away.
A gorgeous woman stood there, draped in diaphanous silks that did nothing to hide the perfection of skin that somehow managed to be paler than mine and yet appeared to glow in the sunlight. Hair like spun gold trailed nearly to her waist, and her eyes glittered with an unnatural greenish hue, brighter than emeralds and shining with some inner fae light. The only thing marring that perfect beauty was the slight discoloration of the skin around the edges of a golden collar locked around her throat.
“Please,” she said. “He makes it harder on all of us when one disobeys.”
I decided not to antagonize my new roommate. She looked fit and toned and, considering those glowing eyes and skin, was clearly Other. Likely she had the strength to snap me in two if I ticked her off.
“Sure,” I replied, resigned. “Give me a sec to get my wind back.”
She watched, curious and unblinking, as I slowly levered to my feet. My ribs still ached from Max’s unwanted bear hug. The dizziness passed after a moment, and I followed her back inside. Once in the bathroom, she stepped in when she saw I was having trouble peeling off my clothes. As much as it would have bothered me at any other time, by that point I was far too tired to care.
The shower helped wake me up, but the lady had left with my underthings while I was washing. A towel and a short satin robe had been left on the marble sink for me. After drying off, I wrapped the robe around myself and edged back into the room with the chaises and beds, a little afraid of what I might find waiting for me.
The woman with the green eyes beckoned me to one of the beds, where I settled in silent misery, curling up into a ball as she drew a blanket over me. I hated that this place was so opulent, that it felt so good to sink into the plush softness of that bed and find comfort in the heady lavender scent of a familiar fabric softener wafting up from the sheets. No matter how good it felt, this place wasn’t safe, and all the luxuries in the world wouldn’t change the fact that I was imprisoned against my will.
Words in a language I didn’t know spilled from the Other’s lips, singing me into a deep, dreamless sleep.
But before I went to that dark place, I could have sworn I heard the rustle of wings.
Chapter Four
I woke up to the sound of screaming. I rolled, falling off the bed in my haste and landing painfully on my hands and knees.
A few other people were huddled back against the walls or hiding behind furniture. I peered over the edge of the bed, gaping at the sight of Max pressing the green-eyed woman against the wall. Her skin reddened wherever his bare skin touched her, and she was crying out in pain.
He pulled her wrist up to his lips, holding her fast as she writhed in agony. When his fangs broke through, some of her blood escaped in a thin, golden trickle down his chin, and a sick-sweet scent like overripe peaches wafted from her skin. Somehow, I knew the source was that weird liquid in her veins, though it didn’t smell anything like the normal copper-tainted human, vampire, or Were blood.
As he had with me, he took his time, though he had to know he was causing her an excruciating amount of pain. When he withdrew, he let his hands linger, his fingers leaving a trail of ugly red welts behind. As he loosened his grip, she slumped to her knees at his feet, panting and sobbing, eyes squeezed tightly shut as she cradled her bitten wrist against her chest, tucking the fist under her chin.
“The next time you disobey me, I will take you to my bed again. Understood?”
She nodded, her hair falling in a shining curtain to obscure her features—but not so much that I couldn’t see the mixed burning hatred and horror glittering in her gaze as her eyes opened to slits.
He turned to me, his eyes blazing red. I struggled to my feet as he approached, but dizziness and a touch of nausea would’ve sent me tumbling back on my ass if he hadn’t grabbed my wrist before I fell, yanking me against his chest.
I scrabbled for something—anything—to use to defend myself. He drew me to him as my fingers closed around the neck of a nearby table lamp. There wasn’t a lot I could do against his strength, but I did swing the lamp I’d grabbed at his head. The bulb shattered and the metal stand bent against the arm he threw up to block it. He wrenched the makeshift weapon out of my hand and tossed it aside, then pulled me closer.
I focused intently on his chin so I wouldn’t meet his eyes, panting as I struggled to get out of his grip. An odd scent, mixed vampire musk and the sickly sweet blood of the woman, had my eyes tearing up. Not enough for me to miss the light film of liquid gold at the corner of his lips, more of it staining his teeth—which I saw all too well when he snarled at me.
Pure, unadulterated terror shot through me, but his hand tangling in my hair and forcing my head back made it impossible for me to do anything about it. I squeezed my eyes shut before he could bespell me again.
“You are mine,” he snapped, grip tightening to the point where I was straining to breathe. “You do not obey or answer to that creature or her dead, false god! Do you understand me?”
Not really.
I felt the distinct bite of claws against my scalp when I hesitated.
“Yes,” I gasped.
“You do not,” he said. “You say so out of fear, not understanding.”
Couldn’t argue with that, even if I had the breath for it.
He stiffened, then abruptly shifted his grip, loosening his hold on me so that he was supporting instead of asphyxiating me. The claws retracted, replaced by the gentle stroke of his fingertips. If I didn’t know any better, I’d have called his touch an attempt at being soothing. All he accomplished was creeping me the fuck out.
“Tell me, Shiarra, what was Alec Royce’s plan for you? Do you know?”
Unable to stop shivering, I shook my head. With our bodies crushed together like this, I was learning far more about the hard, muscled frame beneath the immaculate suit than I wanted to. Not to mention I was really, really hoping that his clear excitement pressed against my thigh didn’t have anything to do with me.
“Pity,” he said. “Who is his second now that John is gone?”
I shook my head again, too afraid to speak. His gentle stroking of my hair became a shade more forceful, hinting at his displeasure.
“I don’t know,” I said, stammering. Why was he asking me something he must already know? Considering how Max had turned Royce’s former second-in-command against him, I found it hard to believe he didn’t have other spies in place to tell him these things. Maybe confirming his suspicions? Testing the depths of my knowledge or just how willing I was to betray my lover? “He doesn’t talk to me about his business.”
“Little liar,” he breathed, whispering in my ear as he tangled his fingers in my hair again and drew my head back. “Someone had to take his place, and Rhathos does not let his new pets stray. You were there. You know something. Stop trying my patience and tell me.”
&nbs
p; Panting, I clutched at his shoulders, trying to push him away as he leaned in. My voice broke on a scream as his fangs scraped over my jugular. I was dimly aware of other voices rising in terror, people rushing around us to hide in the other rooms.
“Please, I’m not lying! I don’t know, I don’t, I swear!”
He growled—a soft, dangerous sound I might not have heard if I hadn’t been pressed so close against him. I was glad I didn’t know anything about Royce’s business, because I knew I wasn’t strong enough to withstand whatever Max might do to drag information out of me. He was quiet save for that low rumbling, and with his fingers tightening on my hair, I was afraid that he was contemplating either snapping my neck or draining me dry.
“He must have fortified his defenses since I attacked. Who were the replacements for the guards who were killed?”
I wracked my brains for something to tell Max. I didn’t want to betray Royce, but I didn’t want to die for him, either. When Max’s fangs pricked my throat, threatening to puncture my skin, I stammered out a response.
“M-m-mouse is s-s-still there, and Angus, Clarisse, Wesley, Reece, and Ken. I don’t know the other vampires by name—”
“How many are there? Describe them.”
I did. He made the occasional thoughtful sound when I described the handful of other vampires I had met in Royce’s apartment building, but he didn’t interrupt. When I was done, he said nothing for a time. His grip on me gradually loosened, but he didn’t let me go. I stayed still and quiet, hoping against hope that he was losing interest in interrogating me and would leave me alone.
Instead, he blindsided me with a question I wasn’t expecting.
“The werewolves he keeps—do they have any relation to the pack you are allied with? The Sunstrikers? Who fought with him when I was in New York?”
He interpreted my astonishment as deliberate hesitation. The silky way he spoke told me better than words that I was in deep shit.
“Choose your words wisely, pet. Lie to me one more time, and I will bind you to me again, offers for you be damned. Taste my blood again and you’ll tell me everything, and worship me while you do it.”
Oh, fuck that noise. I squirmed desperately. For a crazy second, I wished I had the hunter’s belt with its stakes and the enhancements it might give me, even if it meant risking losing my body in the process to the dead mage whose spirit fueled the magic.
Max shook me until I subsided, then removed his hand from my hair long enough to run one of his nails over his throat. While I was busy gaping at the self-inflicted wound, he shifted his hand back behind my head to pull me closer. The slice was sluggishly dripping what looked like tar with gold flakes in it. I shrieked my response, shoving my arm up under his jaw to keep from being forced to drink. Cold liquid slid along and clung to my skin like an oil slick when my bare arm touched his neck. Eww.
“I don’t know! I didn’t even know he was working with Weres! Please, I don’t know anything about it!”
He shook me again until I was grabbing at his shirt to stay steady. That conveniently made it easier for him to draw my head to his shoulder, that much closer to the seeping wound. He tilted his head, his lips brushing against my ear as he spoke in those low, silken tones, the promise of my death in his voice.
“Listen to me, little girl, and listen well. I have limited time, and even less patience. You will obey me, and you will tell me everything that you know. Binding you to me means that, after I wring information from you, you will become useless to me. If I cannot sell you to another and must resort to force to get what I ask, I will keep you by my side until time ends. I will make every day you live a waking nightmare. I will sire you if only to have the eternal pleasure of making you experience exquisite agony from dusk till dawn.”
Tears sprang into my eyes as he yanked my head back again. I wished I knew what to say to make him stop, to leave me alone, but no words could escape past my fear-closed throat.
“The only way you will ever be free of me is to submit, and once you do, you will be sold to someone who will most likely bind you to them for what remains of your pathetic, insignificant life. Choose your path, my pet—the hard road of servitude or eternal pain. Your choice.”
Though I wish I could say I was brave in the face of danger, this was like nothing I’d ever faced before. Royce wasn’t here to protect me. I was too far away for him to “feel” my location, so no one knew where I was. I didn’t have the chance of a fart in a windstorm of finding a way out of here. Max cutting himself removed any doubts of my coming out of this predicament intact. Before, I might have been able to pray and hope and lie to myself that everything would be okay. I’d outwit Max and escape somehow, or Royce would figure out where I was and save me. That I was so close to being turned into a mindless puppet again drove home just how unutterably screwed I was.
“Tick-tock, pet. Make your choice before I must choose for you.”
A life of indentured slavery with the unknown looked a shade better than an unlife devoted to torture. Heart heavy, I choked out a few words, my stomach twisted with sickness and a bitter taste on my tongue at my own weakness.
“No, the werewolves with him aren’t Sunstrikers. I don’t know of any alliance between the Sunstrikers and any vampires. The ones who helped in the battle against you were there because my ex-boyfriend was their leader, and he asked them to come. They were there for my sake, not for Royce.”
He stilled, and I discovered I had a whole new reason to be afraid. Something about what I’d said was important. Important enough that he flung me aside—with enough care that I landed on a nearby couch, thankfully not breaking anything in the process—and stormed off without another word.
What the hell had I just done?
Chapter Five
Max left me alone for a while. Long enough for the other donors or prisoners or whatever they were to creep back into the room, though they all avoided me like the plague. There were just shy of a dozen of them, all trapped in here with me.
Well, all of them except for the Other with glowing green eyes, so like the Los Angeles necromancer’s that the sudden reminder of that backstabbing little shit made me shiver.
She sat down next to me on the couch, that borderline-rotting peaches scent wafting from her like perfume. Her skin showed no sign of the damage that Max’s touch had done to her earlier, save for two tiny puncture wounds that were wreathed with red rings of what probably passed on her for infection. Her blood had dried into twin lines of pale golden film, staining the collar of her robe. She didn’t appear to care about that, or that the thin material was gaping open.
“One day,” she said, voice low and oddly calm, “I will kill him.”
“If you have any ideas how to go about it, I’m all ears.”
Her eyes glowed—literally glowed—when she turned to me, one hand curled around her collar. “If I had an answer to that, I would have done it by now.”
I scooted away, putting more space between us.
The glow dimmed, her features twisting into a rueful, far more human smile. “My apologies. The others have no heart to defend themselves. I thought you ...”
The way she trailed off made me worry about hearing her complete the thought. Whatever she might think, I wasn’t crazy enough to attack Max Carlyle without a hell of a weapon and an army at my back. Hell, if I had the option, I’d nuke him from orbit. Just to be sure.
“Your name is Shiarra?”
At my nod, she removed the hand from her collar to place over her heart. I couldn’t help but notice as she shifted her hand that her palm and fingers looked burned, like she’d left it on a hot stove. “I prefer the name Iana.”
I nodded again, not feeling particularly chatty.
“Is it true? Did he successfully depose Clyde Seabreeze?”
Frowning down at my fists clenched in my lap, I thought about not answering. It probably wasn’t in my best interests to alienate this woman, but this wasn’t a safe topic for casual c
onversation. Tone curt, I hoped she got the hint that I wasn’t going to give any details. “Yes, I guess he did. Fabian is running Los Angeles now.”
Her tone became urgent, demanding. “You must not tell him how to reach your wolves. He will use them to speed his plans to take New York away from Rhathos of Thessaly. Ian Taft barely clings to Boston. Too many bow to his whims, or turn a blind eye to his machinations. New York cannot fall. There will be no one left on this continent to keep him in check if that happens.”
“I’m doing my best,” I muttered, embarrassed for no reason I could readily put my finger on. “What do you mean, anyway? Who is Ian Taft?”
“The Master of Boston. The one who replaced Euphron of Sicyon as commander of the northern colonies after Rhathos drove him out. Euphron will take this land. All of it, if he’s not stopped. If I could only get rid of this”—she tugged at the collar again, grimacing—“I could lay waste to this gods’-forsaken place.”
“Don’t start that again,” one of the others hissed from across the room. “If he finds out, he’ll get mad and hurt the rest of us. You know he will.”
Iana quieted, hands clenching into fists. Though I wasn’t totally comfortable making direct contact, I liked the idea of her being able to do something to destroy this place. Whatever she was, it must have been something powerful if Max kept her in a collar that suppressed magic or shapeshifting. If he couldn’t face her as she was, maybe finding a way to free her could be my ticket out of this hellhole. Light, careful, I touched her shoulder, flinching a little from the intensity of the gaze she leveled on me.
“Why can’t you take it off ?”
