Dangerous Lovers

by Becca Vincenza

  “Audrey.” It came out so quiet even I didn’t hear it.

  “Audrey,” he said slowly as if savoring it on his tongue. “Please, your feet.” I passed out when they took out the first shard.

  Chapter Six

  Stone

  For some reason, I kept her name a secret. But, I felt bad for only a moment as I savored it like the fey do. One of the human doctors attended to her. I watched them sedate her again. Since we didn’t know what she was, we didn’t want to take any risks. Some of the other doctors used strange herbs. Those could be poisonous to certain paranormals, but damn, they were a lot better than seeing her in pain.

  “What did she say tae you?” Marcus said. I wouldn’t–couldn’t–tell him her name.

  “Not much. She kept asking me why. Elijah thinks she’s so abused that our kindness is her torture.” I could still see the pleading in her eyes. The fear.

  “Maybe th' wraith is right,” Marcus said, watching her closely. “Damn shame about those scars. Probably what fucked 'er up so much.” He leaned closer. “It looks like 'er skin grew around th' scars.” Marcus paused, his iridescent yellow eyes studying her. “What’s yer name, sweetheart?”

  Though I had the satisfaction of knowing her name, and knowing I was the only one that she trusted enough to share it with, I hated how much I savored that exclusive knowledge.

  “Stone.” Jacobs barked my name, breaking my attention away from Marcus and Audrey. “What the hell happened?” Each word clipped.

  “I came to switch with Elijah when we heard a crash. We came in to find the bathroom door locked. She had smashed the mirror.” Jacobs looked at his son, then at Elijah.

  “Doc, how long will she be out?”

  “Maybe another hour or two.”

  “We need to move her somewhere more confined and secure.” Jacobs started to pace. It was a werewolf trait to be restless under stress but Jacobs took it to a whole new level. He glared at Audrey.

  Jacobs ran his hand through his light strands of hair. He kept muttering, “But where?”

  “The cells.” Elijah was still watching her with dark, pitiless eyes. I felt a growl deep down, but didn’t release it. Jacobs stopped at the sound of the wraith’s voice.

  “No.” There was such finality in it.

  “That’s where she’d be most at ease. She wouldn’t be able to harm herself there.”

  She would feel like a prisoner again. I thought for a moment Elijah was giving in to his dark side. That he wanted to taste her fear and feast on her pain. The contract he’d formed with the Braden clan–our clan-said he would abstain from feeding too much. Feeding could become an addiction for them. Marcus laid his hand on my shoulder, and I realized how close I was to attacking Elijah. That primal instinct kicking in again. Protect.

  “I said no.” Jacobs wasn’t an Alpha. Alpha’s had packs. Jacobs only had us. But he had the voice of an Alpha. I saw Dallas flinch just slightly. Damn, I was glad I had no ties to Jacob like he did. No fey knew my real name, and I was no werewolf.

  “We could put her in one of the overnight rooms,” Dallas said as he stood in alone off to the side. He’d spent time with his own kind last night, and I could tell he wanted to be on a team with more werewolves. They were social creatures that liked to be around their own kind. Jacobs wanted the best and he was unique. Jacobs may not be “the highest ranking,” but he was well-liked and highly respected. He usually got what he wanted. I watched Jacobs as he stopped pacing and appeared to actually consider Dallas’s idea.

  The overnight rooms were small, containing only a bed and a small dresser. There was one problem with the rooms, though. They didn’t lock. The rooms were meant for anyone passing through who needed a place to stay. Most would stay for the night and leave. Some would stay for a week but no more than that.

  Jacobs started to pace again, probably thinking about the lockless rooms. The doctor finished pulling the glass out and started to wrap her feet. I looked at her as a sound of pure fear tore from her lips. I knew she was just dreaming, but I wanted to help her.

  “Stone.” Marcus nudged me.

  “What?” I pulled my gaze away from her.

  “I asked if you still had that padlock from when you were so damn concerned about Dallas taking your bike out.” Jacobs growled.

  I wanted to laugh. Jacobs didn’t want his son driving my motorcycle as much as I didn’t want him to. I nodded.

  “Good. Dallas, go install it. Marcus, best go with him.” Apparently he caught onto his son’s mood. As Jacobs’s special team, we left on a lot of missions. “Stone, you and Elijah take her to the room. Don’t leave until the lock is installed.”

  The doctor finished with her hand and I picked her up, again hating how light she felt in my arms. We headed down the elevator to the main floor. I saw another fault in the room and figured that Jacobs was probably considering it as well. It was an easy escape. The elevators could take her right to the entrance. Though the main floor tended to be busy with people coming and going, she would stand out to say the least. If she somehow managed to get out of her room, she wouldn’t get far. Someone would see her and grab her before she got too far.

  Elijah opened the farthest door, and I set her on the bed. As I moved away, her eyes started to flutter open. Apparently they were wrong about the sedative. What was she?

  Chapter Seven

  Audrey

  My face was in unexplainable agony. Ripping. Tearing. My attacker was faceless, but I knew him. I’d always known him. I didn’t scream. I never screamed outside of my dreams. Before I could recall forgotten memories, my eyes were opening of their own accord. Stone stood over me. Why had I told him my name? That was the first time I had said it out loud in five years and…I’d lost days, hours… This room was different, smaller and safer. Too small with two strange people in it with me. I tried to pull my feet in, but stopped abruptly. They were strangely wrapped and sore.

  “Hey, you’re okay, now. Your feet didn’t need any stitches.” His voice was the same. His features were as I remembered, but not his eyes. A calming blue had replaced the red. I looked to the one they called a wraith. He had black, black hair that dropped right above his eyes. His skin was sickly pale. He didn’t quite reach Stone’s height and he wasn’t as broad as Stone, but I could see his defined muscles. That was when I looked at his eyes. They were completely black, bottomless pits as if black ink had seeped into the white of his eyes and took over. My breath caught. I couldn’t look away from those eyes.

  “Hey.” Stone moved closer. “Audrey? Are you okay? I told you before, Elijah is a wraith, but you’re safe.” There was that word again. I shook my head. Elijah tilted his head. A small knowing smile appeared on his lips. It was small, barely noticeable at all. I tried to breathe, but I couldn’t. I saw this strange person perfectly. Most people’s eyes had different shifts of color, like different hues. His were blacker than black, voids.

  “You won’t find any color there.” No emotion heightened or strained his voice. Dead.

  Stone glanced at the wraith as if he realized once more that he was still there.

  “She knows more than she thinks. The more color, or hues, in one’s eyes, the more she can tell about them. But of course, you haven’t used that skill in years.”

  “Elijah.” Stone’s voice held a warning.

  I turned to him. His eyes were that amber-red color again. I was feeling overwhelmed. I still couldn’t breathe right. I wanted my isolation back. I wanted my white walls. I started to mumble, holding myself closer. I hadn’t held on this tightly and desperately for years. I was hoping for comfort. The one with the dead voice and black eyes watched me uncaringly. I couldn’t look at the other one.

  “Are you enjoying her pain?” Stone asked. There was a growl behind his words.

  “What’s a wraith?” I couldn’t believe my mouth betrayed me, forming words of my deep thoughts. Stone turned toward me and I winced away. His eyes were too expressive. It was too much to proc
ess. He turned back to Elijah, who still had that tiny knowing smile. I knew that smile, because nameless men who had come for me four years ago gave me that smile. I remembered that because the four years that followed had nothing, but the same torturous day repeated.

  “Elijah.” Another warning. Stone pulled the wraith out of the room. Two others were out there as well.

  I was left alone again. It should have been a relief, but all I felt was the sudden pain of loneliness. This was what they were planning all along. To tease me with their voices, their touch, and then abandon me again. I had known it would come. Yes I’d known. Still, I silently begged for their unfamiliar presence. I took in shaky, uneven breaths. Tears fell. Cruelty was their specialty.

  Chapter Eight

  Stone

  Audrey kept glancing over at Elijah. She looked comfortable in her fear.

  “What’s a wraith?”

  When she regarded me, I could tell that she couldn’t believe she actually spoke. I stared at Elijah and realized he wasn’t savoring her fear; he was speaking to her as if he knew her or knew something about her. For some reason that pissed me off to no end. I could barely control myself. My skin itched, and my muscles expanded.

  “Elijah.” I wanted his attention off of her so badly that I didn’t even notice my voice came out as more of a growl. Marcus and Dallas were still fixing the lock when I forced Elijah out of the room by his shoulder.

  Pushing past them, I called out, “Marcus, Dallas. One of you should go in there and keep an eye on her.” Dallas moved past us, but I kept my eyes on the wraith in front of me. He wasn’t looking toward the door, only at me.

  “You don’t know, do you?” Elijah rarely smiled, but when he did, it honestly scared the hell out of me.

  I was used to Elijah’s cryptic words, but his game was starting to piss me off. He might have caught on something from her mind, but why not tell us? My fist had tightened over my knuckles. My teeth bared as another growl rumbled from my chest. Marcus noticed and stood up. A fierce fey, brimming with power…for once appearing his actual age.

  “What’s going on?” His usually musical voice held no warmth.

  I was losing control. The growl still lingered in my voice. The muscles I tried so hard to control were shifting, my bones were expanding. I needed to get a grip. Confronting Elijah would do no good. There was still so much about wraiths none of us knew. “She doesn’t know what a wraith is.”

  “Well, I would call 'er lucky.” Marcus’ attempt at lighthearted, fell short.

  Elijah finally looked away from me.

  “No, Marcus. She doesn’t know anything.” His words felt like a snake coiling around us. Marcus became utterly still.

  “Is she human?” Marcus asked.

  “Jacobs and Dallas would have been able to tell if she was human when we found her.” Not only that but Jacobs hadn’t sounded surprised when I had called my find in. He had to know something more. We were silent for a moment then Dallas came out.

  “What the hell doesn’t she know?” Dallas asked as he shut the door behind him.

  “Anything. This is why I ordered you not to talk to her.” Jacobs strode down the hall in one of his many suits. All of us came to attention except Elijah, he turned his focus to the door. The small smile slipped from his face.

  “She is curious.” Elijah concentrated on the door as if he could see through it, and maybe he could.

  “The best of the best, my ass. Get out of here, all of you, before you ruin everything.” Jacobs appeared restless again. “Elijah, stay.”

  I almost stopped in fear. The higher-ups wouldn’t command Jacobs to use a wraith on her, would they? I stayed with the others, hoping I’d be able to find other friends of mine who would know.

  Chapter Nine

  Audrey

  After Dallas, the old one and the one with pitiless eyes came in, I had tipped the bed on its side and pushed it toward the door to use it as a sort of barrier. Behind its protection, I curled against the wall. Why wouldn’t they leave me alone? None of them had tried to hurt me yet and the waiting, the expecting…it was a new type of torture.

  Jacobs looked at me with sad brown eyes that were the same odd amber color that Dallas had. There was too much to see in those eyes. They were older than the body they lived in.

  “Will you say your name?” The old one, Jacobs, asked. I shook my head once. “Audrey, right?”

  My head shot up. Stone had told them. I shouldn’t have trusted him. He told them. No one else knew it, no one else had muttered in years. Four years, three days, and about 6 hours. I had been referred to as “the little monster”, “creature”, or “it” when I first arrived. Those bodiless voices. A sad smile spread across his face.

  “Yes, that is what we thought.”

  I wanted to ask who “we” were. I wanted to ask if they knew. Did they know I was a monster? But something else came out instead.

  “When am I going to die?”

  The older one gasped. Jacobs’ watched me as he spoke.

  “You are a rarity, my dear. We are not going to kill you.”

  I feared that the most. My body started to quake. Tremors shook me to my very core.

  “Audrey, we won’t hurt you. You have nothing to fear from us. Unfortunately, you do have a lot to learn.”

  I wouldn’t meet his eyes. He was a liar. All of them were.

  “What was the one pleasure they gave you?” the black eyed one, Elijah, asked, his voice still utterly flat. How could he know that? How could anyone know that? And yet, I found myself willing to answer.

  “I got to shower.” Once a month, they came and took me, blindfolded, to a shower. They washed me, dried me, and combed the tangles from my hair. My skin would be pink and clean, my legs smooth. I would touch them forever. These people took me before my next day.

  Elijah stepped closer to me. He sat on the bed only three feet away. He didn’t seem to be looking at me.

  “How?” I couldn’t understand how he knew that they had given me one kindness.

  He turned to me and smiled, revealing dangerously sharp teeth.

  “Magic.” It was the first time I heard a semblance of emotion in his voice. I almost forgot about the older one, who paced the room.

  “You’re the loud one’s father,” I stated, watching him. He stopped pacing and looked at me.

  “Yes, Dallas is my son. My name is Jacobs.” There was a hint of a lie in his eyes. I was comfortable with lies. “If we allowed you to shower, would you try to hurt yourself?”

  “No. I’d probably try to kill myself.” Another smile lifed Elijah’s lips. “A razor’s too slow. Your gun would be faster, but I don’t suppose I would shower with that. No more cutting.”

  The idea of being clean, the idea I could do it without foreign hands, gave me something I hadn’t had in years. Hope. I did not like this.

  Jacobs seemed stunned by my explanation, but he continued to pace.

  “Would you mind? I need to read your intentions; the best way is physical contact.” Elijah held his hand out, this time facing me. His offered hand was a great temptation. If it was being offered, how could I possibly refuse? I was already hoping to be clean, why not hope for contact? I gave him my hand. He closed his eyes. His hand was cold and held no tenderness, but it was real. It made me feel alive. For once I wasn’t scared of someone’s touch. Suddenly images flashed in my mind. I gasped.

  I was looking at myself from Elijah’s point of view. Then, I was in the hallway with Stone, whose eyes kept changing. Then, I was in darkness, Elijah was in there, and he knew we weren’t alone. Words were coming at him, but I didn’t understand them. These weren’t my thoughts, they weren’t my memories. Elijah pulled his hand from mine, and I realized I was crying. I started to feel his pain.

  “How did you do that?” Anger clipped his words short and his face twisted into a scowl.

  “I don’t know.” That had never happened when I touched another person before. I recalled slight
touches from Dallas and Stone. Nothing had happened with them. I could feel his black eyes on me as I stared at the ground. I waited for his next question, the one when he would ask me what kind of thing I was. I was a monster.

  “Jacobs, she won’t hurt herself if you allow her to shower.” With that, Elijah stood and left.

  “I’m sorry I had him invade your thoughts, but I needed to be certain you wouldn’t harm yourself. I’ll send down one of the girls. She’ll help you.” Jacobs left as well.

  I could tell he felt uncomfortable, but my mind was stuck on the invasion of my memories. Maybe I’d done the same to Elijah, but then different information attacked my mind. Jacobs was sending someone new. I cringed, folding closer to myself and closed my eyes, trying to find a moment’s peace.

  • • •

  I don’t know how long I slept in my corner, but I felt eyes on me. I jerked my eyes open and scooted to the wall. Dallas leaned casually on the door, looking bored, but his eyes weren’t on me. An unnaturally beautiful girl with deep seaweed-green hair sat on the bed. Her eyes were a shade of coral and her skin had a hint of green in its otherwise pale complexion. I swallowed at her closeness. She was only two feet from me, but her long legs almost touched me. There was something odd about her legs when I looked at them - like the air around them wavered. It looked like a ripple of water in the air. She clapped her hands when she saw me awake.

  “Hello!” Her voice sounded more like liquid. It was hauntingly exquisite. “I love, LOVE meeting new people. I am Nixie. What’s your name?” Nixie practically squirmed in her seat, which made me feel very uncomfortable.