Wicked Hunt (Dark Hearts Book 3)

by Cari Silverwood

  No sounds penetrated the silence. No one spoke. I stared at nothing, knowing somehow that I was fucked. My anger had been dowsed, drip-fed calmness and peace.

  A radio came on and some pop tune danced in my skull. Someone hummed. Before my sleepy, half-shadowed eyes, the brown buttons on a man’s shirt vibrated with the bumps of the journey.

  I flexed my fingers and felt again the band of tightness on my wrists. Drool collected in my stoppered mouth.

  “We’ve got her.” Foreign words followed and I tuned out.

  There was nothing to be done except wait.

  Knife, I had a knife...somewhere. I held onto that precious thought. Knife.

  Chapter 16

  Mavros

  The text message came through when I was in the middle of phoning Grimm. Dread prickled my skin. I aborted my call and instead I found and read the text.

  2 late. Someone has her. Normals maybe. Get your men down here in a car. Street. Front of hotel. Will text wher she is. I cn feel her. M using a taxi. Will send street names.

  The door was closing, the maid leaving.

  “Grant!” I shot from the chair and sprinted to the door, shoving it open when it was an inch from clicking shut.

  “I need you and him...” I nodded and jabbed toward the second guard then, while my heart bumped out several excruciating and deliberate beats, I waited for the maid to walk a few more steps away and out of earshot. “Armed and out the front of the hotel with our car. I’ll meet you.”

  Grimm had the two other men with him. They were armed discreetly with pistols from the safe in the car. If only assault rifles weren’t so hard to conceal and hotels weren’t so averse to men wandering about with guns. Fucking terrorist threats.

  Then I ducked back in to grab my second phone and my wallet. I wished I had a weapon but it wasn’t something I was good at doing anyway – shooting. If I caught up to anyone I’d just kick their brains in.

  “Bastarde!” I shoved everything in my pockets. Zorie – I’d only just got her safe. “Gamiméno bastarde!” The depth of my anger shocked me.

  They’d pay. My revenge wasn’t done. I’d get her back and safe, and they would pay. Grimm and I would make it so.

  That was when I saw, in that terrible moment, that I valued both her and Grimm more than anyone else in my life.

  Oh the irony.

  I also wanted to kick Grimm’s head in for letting her be grabbed. Balls too maybe. Definitely his balls.

  Chapter 17

  Zorie

  Whatever they’d done, they let it lapse somewhat as they dragged me into what seemed an abandoned warehouse.

  Dust and cobwebs. Dust and cobwebs.

  I stared up at the shafts of sunlight coming in through rows of smeared windows high above.

  “Here.” A blow slammed my face sideways and I tasted blood.

  “Hehehe. So subtle, Reynolds.” French, I noted, blinking away grit and drooling blood.

  “Hey, Thierry. What can I say. This is what you’d call a singular pleasure.”

  British, that one. Someone was on either side of me, holding me up by grips under my shoulders.

  I wanted to weep but I was concentrating. Anger, I needed that. Shit. Not if I was tied up. It wouldn’t help me if I was tied. My wrists were still bound at my back with what seemed plastic strips. My feet...I could register them, could stand. I raised my head to see three men before me.

  “Let ’er go,” said the one called Reynolds. “Go watch the front.” He was a bald, slightly pudgy man with hands as big as a sledgehammer head. Or maybe that was the blurring of my vision. “Ruddy hired help.” He spat to the side. “Don’t trust them farther than I can throw ’em.”

  “They did their job.” Thierry was a man like an eagle – narrow eyed, narrow face. Predatory. He stalked forward and halted when almost in my face.

  I shook my head, coughed up phlegm then found the support gone from my arms and I slowly folded to my knees on the concrete. Least the floor was warm, but this was India.

  “We’re going to fuck you over, girl. How many of us did you kill? Ten? Twenty? Think you got away with it. Ey?” Polish accent, or something like it. He came closer and thumped his foot into my ribs, just hard enough to topple me and make me cough. Jeans and black T-shirt, and construction worker boots. Blond with a scarred face.

  All of them mesmers. I was proud I could still calculate and think but that didn’t hold back the terror of being alone and in their hands. Afraid didn’t come close to describing this body-paralyzing fear. Where was Grimm? I remembered getting into the car. Three mesmers could command me with their wills. I’d wondered if that could happen, now I knew.

  “We sticking to the plan?” said Reynolds. “One hour to make her hurt then kill ’er and get out of here?”

  “Oui. I see no reason to alter that. Her friends won’t find her easily. Once dead, she’s going to not even register as a collectable on their consciousness. Bury her somewhere. Let them wonder what happened.” The Frenchmen grabbed my throat and hauled me upright.

  I had to use my legs, or choke. I scrambled to get my feet under me, then swayed, newly dizzy.

  “She’s not talking much.”

  “At all.”

  Someone laughed.

  “We’ll get her screaming soon. I’m going to enjoy this.”

  “We fucking her?”

  “With something, yeah.”

  More laughter.

  I thought of spitting in their faces but no, I’d save my efforts. If they were going to hurt me, I’d not provoke them.

  My knife? I spotted it yards away, tossed aside along with everything else that’d been in my handbag. To use it, I needed hands. Free hands. I wriggled my numb fingers. Keep the circulation going or I’d have no chance.

  “Over here. Bring her to the post. I want to fucking nail her.”

  My heart was beating so fast and hard I wondered if it’d fail from the stress.

  Nail, that wasn’t what I thought. Was it?

  They meant to kill me. An hour wasn’t long.

  Grimm was coming. He must be.

  I heard tinkling, metal against metal. My dread rose to such heights.

  Reynolds laughed. I’d lost track of who was where as they dragged me along with a grip in my hair that made strands of hair rip loose. One of them dumped a chain to the ground. It landed in a heap to the left of the base of a thick timber post. My gaze travelled upward as they shoved me against the post.

  They cut the plastic on my wrists, in one snip, and I reacted like a crazied spider dosed on bug spray. I screeched and flailed, struggling to rip from their grasp and run, somewhere. I fell to my knees, free, got one leg under me ready to leap between their legs only to find the sari tripping me and both my hands were grabbed yet again and towed upward, making me stretch up and up.

  “Fuck.”

  “Wriggly slut.”

  Their laughter punctuated my panting. Sweat dribbled into my eyes as my chin was forced upward by the timber they held me against.

  The sari was torn away, leaving abrasions on my sides and neck, then the bra and panties.

  “Nice cunt.”

  “Pity.”

  “We can fuck her raw. An hour is enough.”

  “Yeah.”

  My head was made to turn and I found the Polish man there, beside me, holding up what I was scared they had – hammer and nails. Long nails. As long as a finger.

  “Look at this. These are for you.”

  Cloth was balled up and jammed in my mouth then taped over. I could breathe, but barely. My nose seemed clogged by blood. My tongue writhed in my mouth, pushing at the cloth. If the cloth shifted backward and went deeper, I’d die earlier than they thought.

  Not being able to breathe was my starkest fear. I desperately snorted and swallowed to get enough air, tried not to swallow cloth. When you’re suffocating and were already naked, dignity meant nothing.

  For these mesmers, there was no need to comfort me wit
h orgasms. They left me bare and defenseless, wanted my pain.

  “Now, let’s see how you scream with a gag in your cakehole.” Reynolds was easily amused, as he chuckled while the other two pressed my palms open and flat to the pole. The bodyweight and muscles of two men left me no way to resist. I tried, though. I tried. A nail poked at the back of one hand and I sobbed as Reynolds drew back the hammer in a big swing.

  He brought it down fast then stopped. “Joking.”

  “’Uck you,” I said through the gag, blinking away tears, and drawing a smile from him.

  Shadows carved out chasms on his face, pit-holes for his eyes. “Surprise!” He banged the hammer in, one, two, three.

  I screamed a high-pitched but muffled shriek that went on and on as he hammered in more nails. Both hands were lit with fire.

  They said it didn’t hurt if trauma was fast. They lied. They fucking lied.

  When they let me go, I began to slump only to be brought up short by the nails in my hands.

  I screamed again then, and maybe fainted for a few seconds.

  When I revived, someone was prying apart my ass cheeks and holding me up by my hair.

  My hands were a throbbing mess and seemed inches thicker than they should be. Warm blood trailed over my cold and shaking wrists.

  Needed to stop shaking. It’d cause more damage.

  Did it matter?

  I was going to die here. I was. Some things were inescapable. This was one of them.

  “A broom handle will fit. If not, I’ll make it.”

  “I’m using that knife on her once you get it in. I bet she killed with that pigsticker.”

  “Good fucking idea.”

  “Yes, so’s fucking her with this.”

  “Wait. I brought these for the aperitif. Darts. We’ll tie her like this so she can watch.”

  Reynolds roped my face to the post, so I was looking past it – running the hard hemp rope around and around, squashing my ear, my forehead, my neck with the loops. Then he drew the other men away, handing them each a few metal darts, like the ones guys threw at boards in pubs.

  “Extra points if you get her eyes or her tits.”

  Oh god. I screwed my eyes shut then open, shut, open, unable to not look. I wanted to dodge but the ropes held me there, tight. I refused to beg. They would love to hear me babble past the gag.

  A door swung open behind them, highlighting them in sunlight, three black silhouettes. Shadows from beyond made the light from the door flutter.

  They all began to turn...

  “Get away from her!” A new voice – stark and vicious – it cut the atmosphere like a blunt machete.

  Shots racketed through the room. My torturers crumpled. All three were down. I squeezed shut my eyes, gasping through the intensifying pin from the nails, staggering on the balls of my feet. They had me almost on tiptoes. It was that or drag the metal of the nails through my hands.

  Who was this?

  I dared to look again, squinting at the bright rectangle of light from the opened door. These men were coming from the opposite direction from which I’d entered.

  Which meant my first kidnappers would be alive.

  Grimm, I saw him, walking toward me and I sobbed.

  Thank all the fucking gods in all the heavens.

  “The front!” I said, but the gag tuned it into garble. I tried to jerk my head backward and made noises.

  Grimm stopped a yard from me, stared. “The men at the front? They’re dead. Go look again anyway,” he snarled to his two men, spit flying. “Don’t come back. I need privacy.” He stepped closer and felt for my hands. “Where’s the bloody hammer they must’ve used?”

  “Here, sir.” One of the security guys handed Grimm a hammer. “The others are arriving soon. We should protect you, wait for them before sweeping the building. We can watch the entry possibilities. She doesn’t look hurt except for the hands.”

  “I said, get the fuck out of here.”

  His eyes were dark, his voice so harsh it brought the fear back. His teeth showed. And here I was hanging from a post by nails through my hands.

  The men scattered. A door creaked open. All was silent, except for my breathing and whimpers, and Grimm’s rasping breaths. He un-did the rope on my face, ripped off the tape over my mouth, and dug out the soaked ball of cloth, leaving the tape hanging from my skin. I gasped as the pain ratcheted up a notch.

  “Grimm. The nails. Please.”

  “You were naked. In front of those men. Fuck. Don’t you... Don’t you...”

  His anger was incomprehensible.

  He circled me, came in from behind, covered me with his body as he felt for the nails, holding me up with his weight. His fingers played over my hands, locating nail entry points.

  There was a screech, a crack, and a tumult of new pain as a nail was wrenched out.

  “More. More. How many,” he muttered. “Fuck. You’re mine. How dare they hurt you, show you naked. Mine.”

  Another nail squealed as it came out, I echoed the sound, whimpering and gasping. Two more, I figured one each hand. I could stand this. I clamped my jaw shut.

  “Mine.” The pain ebbed, flowed away like liquid silver. Mesmer powers. I welcomed them in – an opiate that brought a cool, relaxing peace.

  Until Grimm bit down on my neck, taking bigger and bigger mouthfuls with every morsel of a second.

  “No. Grimm. Grimm? What are you doing?” My hands were numb but fastened still.

  The hardness of an erection pushed at me from behind and I felt him yank down his pants.

  “No!”

  A wave of heat tumbled and roared in leaving thoughts bobbing...debris on a lost ocean, and I felt myself grow wet, impossibly wet.

  A cock prodded at my asshole, then slid along the groove of my pussy, picking up ample moisture, turning me on until I spread my thighs and moaned.

  Nails, I reminded myself. There are...nails.

  Lust swamped my pain. I registered the push against my tight muscles and the widening then the inexorable shove of Grimm’s dick penetrating me as he took what was his.

  “Mine,” he rasped again, his mouth on my neck then in my hair, as he shoved himself up and inside me, as far as he could go.

  The thickness inside me throbbed, pulsed, moved out a dirty fraction, then in again as he sucked on my skin. My clit responded, throbbing in sympathy.

  “Oh fuck,” I whispered. “This is so dirty...”

  His only answer – to fuck me some more.

  My feet teetered. My hands were there above, but numb.

  I stuck out my butt, relishing the invasion and giving access, letting this male fuck me. Grimm was orchestrating this Neanderthal act and it felt good, impossibly so.. He thrust into me, pumping, squashing me into the timber, my breasts either side...an eternal and primitive unwinding of my very self. I climbed toward a massive orgasm that rocked me and blew me apart into shattered pieces.

  “Fucking mine.”

  My gasps were half-choked as he came.

  The swell of his come had the marks of triumph of man over woman.

  This beast had fucked me, mainlining me with raw fucking desire that ripped through my veins.

  A new, angry voice interrupted. “Grimm! What have you done?”

  His cock withdrew from me, his body weight lifted. I keened at the instant detonation of pain blotting me from existence.

  Through the fog I recognized Mavros.

  The stalk of a man’s boots crushed grit on concrete.

  “Stop.”

  The rapid, hard, and repetitive smack of fist to flesh sounded, ending with a louder thump and a satisfied grunt. Then Grimm was back levering out nails.

  I tensed, expecting myself to scream. The hurt became distant and thin.

  One gone.

  Two.

  The pain arched then ebbed, washing in and out, burning my hands until Grimm again carried it away with his touch. I shouldn’t want him when I was hurting. Shouldn’t.


  What he’d done, insane.

  My response, ditto.

  There were bodies everywhere, lying everywhere on the floor. Bleeding ones, still ones, breathing ones. My torturers and a man I knew.

  “Mavros.” I gaped. He was one of the breathing ones, sprawled face down. With the sticky tape still dangling from my lip, I staggered sideways then went to walk to him.

  Grimm pulled me to a halt with a hand on the back of my neck.

  “We’re leaving.” He stared intently into my eyes, swallowed as if distraught at what he saw, then he wiped away my tears with his thumb. “There are clothes on a line outside. A taxi waiting up an alley. Come.”

  Naked, I stumbled after him. With his grip shifted to my forearm he guided me along.

  “Where are we going?”

  I could feel his cum leaking from me. Devastation had taken the first spot in the queue for my recovering brain. I was so adrift, I could only follow my depraved and possibly insane rescuer, but then he wasn’t just holding my arm.

  A tendril of will connected us and my rage had gone on holidays.

  The sun scorched my eyes and I waited, with a bloody forearm across my eyes. Grimm dragged clothes over me and did them up. Then he quickly wrapped my hands with something soft. Rags maybe. I blinked and looked. Yes.

  “Come.”

  He paid the taxi driver with a large wad of cash, silencing his protests. When I only stared back at the man, he turned to the steering wheel and drove us away.

  Where were we going? I knew where we should go. Grimm was out of control. He’d knocked out Mavros and fucked me while I was nailed to a post. Whatever the mesmer bug was doing to him, it was getting worse.

  Sensible me would shove open the door and roll out, run away fast.

  And what about the real me? The me that chased after men with a hairpin because she hated what they did...what was that me going to do?

  I frown-stared at Grimm, who’d sat next to me, parking himself like a lump. A solid lump. The seat upholstery was squashed down as if he was made of lead. I’d seen his muscles, knew he was bigger than before, but Mavros wasn’t a small or easily overcome man. He also wasn’t weird beastman crazy like Grimm.