Jess Haines - Enslaved By the Others

After that I flipped off the security camera above the door and stalked outside. Now all I had to keep me company was a vast sense of helplessness and a desire to control or unleash whatever was making my blood turn black. After refusing to acknowledge what I might be turning into for so long, it was strangely easy to accept my new abilities now that I wanted to use them. If I could summon those heightened senses and make that increased strength appear at will instead of only when I was angry, maybe I could use them to escape this mess.

So far, making the claws come out was pretty easy. If I concentrated on the thought of danger, they formed with little more than a tingle, growing out of the nail bed. Making them go away was harder, and they almost hurt as they slipped back under the skin.

Aside from the claws, I had no way of knowing for sure if concentrating was making anything else happen. I didn’t want to break any furniture testing my strength and I wasn’t about to ask Iana to be a sparring partner. Even with whatever edge the Other side might have given me, collar or no, I was sure she could wipe the floor with me.

She appeared, as if summoned by my thoughts, inches away the next time I turned around. Smothering a startled gasp, I suppressed the urge to hit her for scaring me. I ran at the mouth instead.

“First thing we do when we get out of here is buy a bell for that collar.”

She smiled, though there was little humor in it, then gestured at my hands. “I wouldn’t do that. If he catches you, he may declaw you.”

She wasn’t kidding. I raised a hand to eye level, staring at my fingertips. A massive shudder rolled down my spine. “Well, this place keeps getting better and better.”

She inclined her head, a subtle glow building in the depths of her eyes. “You have a better chance of escape than I do, and my freedom hinges on yours. If you compromise that, I will be very displeased.”

Awesome. Like I said, better and better.

Rather than risk pissing off her or Max or anyone else, I stalked over to the nearest empty pool chair and rested my elbows on my knees, cupping my chin in my hands. The sparkle of sunlight on the pristine carpet of snow outside our prison felt like a taunt, reminding me of the freedom I’d lost.

Iana pressed a hand to my shoulder, sending a jolt of heat through the thin silk of my robe to seep into my skin. I did my best not to flinch away, turning my head to look at her out of the corner of my eye.

“There is ... something new. Something dark in you. What did they do while you were gone?”

Oh, that was a pleasant thought. Just what did Gideon do to me when he touched me? “I don’t know. There was a necromancer—”

Iana made a sharp, hissing sound, her hand moving in a gesture that looked something like what I’d seen Arnold do when casting freehand spells. As I stumbled away from her, putting distance between us, she cried out in pain as nothing but a few fizzling blue-white sparks trickled from her fingertips just before she clutched at her collar. The skin around her throat and on her palms and fingertips where she grabbed at the metal was reddening.

When I reached for her, her hand shot out, slapping my own away. The sting was nothing compared to the mixed fear and loathing on her face. I wasn’t totally sure if it was directed at me or at my mention of Gideon, but it wasn’t pleasant to have that fierce, glowing gaze focused on me. Never mind if that collar protected me from her magic—there was nothing to say she might not use her supernatural strength to snap my neck if she wanted.

“A necromancer,” she said, staring into nothing. “I thought they ... never mind. If you’ve garnered that thing’s attention, there is nothing I can do to help you. Not like this.”

“What’s wrong with me? What do you mean, ‘not like this’?”

“It’s in you. In your blood. In your head. You’re cursed. Without the collar I might be able to get it out, but this ...” She tugged at the creepy fashion accessory, a low growl of frustration telling me better than words what she meant. She couldn’t cast a damned thing with that circle of metal cutting her off from wherever her power came from. It was still there. The sparks, even if they signaled the spell fizzling, told me as much. She just couldn’t do whatever it was she needed to in order to complete casting.

If only I could be sure she intended to help me, not destroy me, when she was trying to cast that spell on me.

I had already committed to finding a way of freeing her from Max if I managed to do the same. Now it looked like I’d be putting myself back in danger if I did find a way to free her. If I could have, I would have throttled Gideon for messing with my head and complicating this mess. Even if he was my best shot at finding a way out, who was to say he wasn’t doing it to find a way to have me under his thumb himself?

“Look, Iana, I’m sorry it scares you. Gideon saved my best friend’s life. He hinted he wants to get us out of here. He’s not a good guy—okay, he really is a bad guy—but I’m not sure his motives for being here are evil.”

She gave me a look that told me clearer than words she thought I was being hopelessly naïve.

Okay. Maybe I was. I sometimes had a hard time believing the worst about people, and never mind that I was a private investigator who regularly saw the ugly underbelly of “polite” society. Gideon had already proven more than once that he was two-faced. He was good at sneaking under defenses and manipulating people. He’d managed to get close enough to Sara to nearly kill her, sucking her energy or her soul or who knew what out through the blood runes carved into her arm by the long-dead sorcerer, David Borowsky. We’d trusted Gideon to keep his word when he promised to get rid of the runes. I wondered what he’d really done. They weren’t visible on her skin anymore, but if what he’d said was true, he might have done something to key the runes to himself instead of leaving her open to any mage who wanted to steal a bit of her.

If Sara’s mage boyfriend, Arnold, ever found out, he’d probably kill Gideon with his bare hands.

I wondered if Arnold had any idea we were in trouble. He hadn’t answered my last message, left when I was still with the White Hats—humans who fancied themselves vigilante supernatural hunters—in Los Angeles. Maybe he’d team up with Royce and ride in to save the day once they figured out where we were.

And maybe I’d win the lottery, too.

Iana stared at me, intent, like she was peeling away the layers of whatever she saw on my face to read the truths hiding in the dark corners of my mind. Maybe she was assessing whatever Gideon had done to me in some way I couldn’t see or understand. Either way, the two of them gave me the heebie-jeebies.

“You do realize how foolish that makes you sound, do you not? You should be afraid of it. Necromancers are things of darkness and corruption. Everything they come into contact with dies, quick or slow.”

I snorted. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

That probably wasn’t the right thing to say, judging by the murderous look she gave me. I held my hands up in surrender. “Okay, okay. Sorry. I know he isn’t all sweetness and light, and he’s definitely got something up his sleeve, but right now nothing scares me more than Max and what he might do to my friend Sara. They have her. He’s using her to make me do what he wants.”

“That doesn’t mean you need to play along. It’s probably using your feelings for her to goad you into doing what it wants. That’s how their tricks work.”

“No kidding. You think I don’t know that?” Scowling, I folded my arms. “I wish you wouldn’t call him an it. He might not be human, but I don’t think he merits an ‘it.’”