Jess Haines - Enslaved By the Others

I started pacing, needing to work off some of my jittery energy so I could focus. Alternately flexing and clenching my fingers, I ignored the others as they scattered. Their fear of me wasn’t helping my concentration.

Max obviously wanted something from me, but how he intended to make me an obedient little puppet and what he thought I might be able to do for him or give him was anyone’s guess. Chances were, he was either going to use me as bait or to hurt Royce again. Or, seeing as he had taken so much interest in the Sunstrikers, he might think my connection to the werewolves would give him a way to make another attempt at taking control of New York.

If I was going to get out of this mess, I had to be smart about it and come up with a way to fool Max into thinking I was beaten and cowed.

The trick would be maintaining what was left of my sanity and not falling into the trap of being beaten into submission. Somehow I would have to fool him into thinking he was exerting his will over me while holding on to my plans of escape and revenge. If he managed to break me down enough to truly control me, or lost his temper and gave me another taste of his blood to bind me to him permanently, I might as well already be dead.

Max came back for me a few hours later, though he took a different approach. He entered the room, scanning the stricken faces of his captives until he spotted me. The smile that curved his lips could have been considered charming if it wasn’t so devious.

Instead of making a grab for me or using his mind-mojo to order me around, he stayed by the door and held his hand out to me.

“Shiarra, come with me. I won’t harm you.”

I eyed the outstretched hand with open distrust. Yeah, right. And I’ve got some beachfront property in Kansas to sell you. Though I bit my lip to keep from saying the words out loud, I couldn’t bring myself to move any closer to him. Pretending to be cowed wasn’t that hard since he scared the shit out of me. Pretending to be obedient was something else entirely.

Irritation flashed over his features once it sank in that I wasn’t about to jump to obey. He started to move forward before thinking better of it, staying by the door and gesturing sharply for me to come closer.

“Would you like to be returned to that room in the basement? I’m not in the habit of rewarding insolence, girl.”

As badly as I wanted to bristle at his tone, the last thing I wanted was to be trapped underground again. At least in here I could see daylight, and I wasn’t completely alone.

Resigned, I trudged over, though I didn’t take his outstretched hand. The vampire’s fingers locked around my wrist. It wasn’t just the chill of his touch that made me shiver, goose bumps breaking out over my skin.

He led me out of his bedroom and through a winding corridor, then downstairs to a large room with one door, two fold-out chairs, and nothing else. The windowless walls were whitewashed, the chill from the floor tile nipping at my toes as we shuffled inside. The drain and slight dip in the floor didn’t bode well for this place’s purpose. Compared to the opulence of the rest of this palace, the austere surroundings were at once both striking and imposing. He let me go, seating himself in the nearer chair to watch me with cold detachment as I stood there like an idiot, nervously fidgeting with the hem of my robe, waiting for him to say something.

When it became obvious that no explanations were forthcoming, I inched over to the other chair and sat down. Slow, careful, just in case it wasn’t here for me—but he didn’t stop me, and still didn’t say anything. I adjusted the robe as much as I could to keep it from gaping open.

The silence was unnerving the hell out of me. “Why am I here?”

“Patience. You’ll see.”

Well. That was helpful. I fished again, curious if he’d spill anything useful.

“Why did you take me?”

Max glanced at me, one brow arching as his expression turned quizzical. “Why would I not take you when the opportunity presented itself? You are valuable in the eyes of my enemy.”

It made a twisted kind of sense, but it didn’t give me any clues about why I was in this room or what his plans were for me. Not knowing with certainty why he kept threatening me with binding without following through was driving me around the bend. There had to be a reason for it. Like Royce had when I first met him, Max was manipulating my fears to make me do what he wanted. It didn’t mean his threats were empty, but it did mean he was avoiding the easy way of controlling me—through a permanent bond of blood—for reasons he wasn’t putting on the table.

Though I wasn’t hopeful he would answer, I figured it couldn’t hurt more than it already did to ask.

“So what am I here for? What are you going to do to me?”

He smirked, his tone droll. “I suppose you’re afraid of being ill-used.”

“Yeah, you know, this whole master-slave thing you’ve got going on has put some really unnerving mental images of chains and leather junk holders in my head. Can’t imagine why.”

His blank expression told me my admittedly twisted and inappropriate humor was lost on him.

“Look,” I said, “I don’t know what you want, and I don’t really want to die.”

Max shook his head, his brows knitting and mouth twisting into a frown. Bordering on irritated. “I believe I have already expressed that you are worth more to me alive than dead. For the moment, all I want is for you to obey when given an order.”

“Come on, that’s not what I mean. Chances are, if you don’t tell me what’s expected of me, I’ll piss you off and bad things will happen. To me. A lot. I don’t like that idea, and I’d like to avoid that scenario of me being a whipping post as much as possible. Can you give me some clues here? Please?”

“Your fear is understandable.” He rose, stalking closer on light feet. There wasn’t any point in running away, but I was too cowardly to hold my ground. I rose and scooched away until my back hit the wall.

I closed my eyes so I wouldn’t meet his gaze. It took every ounce of self-control I had not to flail and scream when his hand closed over my throat. Not that I could have managed a sound once his fingers tightened. The pressure startled me enough to open my eyes, if only to slits, as my own hands came up to his wrist to try to pull him off of me.

“Don’t fret, my dear,” he said, breathing the words in a low, menacing hiss. “It’s not your place to worry about these things. You’re still under the impression you have free will. Until you’re convinced of your place, we’ll take it one command at a time. Relax and be still. Just do as you are told and you’ll find it is not so terrible to be mine.”

Not so terrible. Says the mass-murdering, slave-trading, misogynistic sociopath. His total confidence that I would be “convinced of my place” made my muscles quiver and twitch, but if doing what he said would save me some pain, then I would make an effort to play along—for now. I stopped pulling at his wrist, loosening my grip. As I did, so did he, his hand withdrawing to rest against my cheek instead. Though I gasped for breath, I stayed where I was, not wanting to provoke him into doing something else to hurt me.

On the bright side, since I was both human and a girl, maybe at some point he would underestimate me in a way I could use to my advantage.

His fingers lingered on my chin, drifting up to run the pad of his thumb over my lower lip. Resolution to play along or no, I flinched and slapped his hand away, turning my head to the side and bracing for the inevitable retaliatory blow.

It never came. Instead, he laughed.