Jess Haines - Enslaved By the Others

The others started doing the same. Iana and I did the most damage. In addition to being soundproofed and tinted, the damned windows must have been bulletproof or something. Hairline cracks were the best we could do, even with supernatural strength, but I was betting the noise might attract attention if we kept it up.

Gideon didn’t try to stop us, but he did turn a newly appraising eye in my direction when I glanced at him over my shoulder.

The rest of us continued our assault on the windows, doing everything we could to make noise. That is, until someone smacked me on the back of the head hard enough that my forehead snapped forward to hit the chair, momentarily knocking me senseless. I fell to the floor and the chair landed on my chest hard enough that I was sure there would be a huge bruise on my ribs and stomach later.

Breathless and stunned, once I blinked the blurriness out of my vision and could do more than gasp air into my constricted lungs, I stared up at the angry guard looming over me. It was the guy with the eye patch and scar, whose bandage-covered nose I had probably broken when I busted out of my first holding cell. His face was reddened and twisted with fury as he glared down at me with his one good eye. A couple of other guards in their sharp suits were driving back the other women, yanking chairs out of their hands and shoving them away from the bars. Most of the ladies fled immediately, two or three screaming in terror, but Iana and Na’man stood their ground.

“You are one stupid girl,” Scar-face said, giving me a kick in the ribs that knocked the little breath in my lungs right back out.

Sara flung herself at him, snarling, but was thrust stumbling back, landing on her ass with a smack loud enough for me to grimace in sympathy. She didn’t have the benefit of my strength or reflexes, and was still dealing with blood loss to boot, but she didn’t look too badly hurt. She winced a bit, struggling to get to her feet, but I hadn’t recovered enough to help her.

“Move!”

I might have said something caustic to the guy if I had the breath for it. Instead, I stayed right where I was, flailing a bit as I tried to figure out how to make my everything stop hurting and get away from the asshole. He grabbed one of my arms and slid me closer, flipping me on my stomach to slap a pair of handcuffs around my wrists before yanking me up to my feet. I stumbled along with him as he pulled me by the arm. Gideon gave me a little finger wave and a smirk as Scar-face dragged me past him. I stuck my tongue out at the necromancer in return since I couldn’t give him a one-finger salute.

The guy pulled me along with him, past a couple more guards keeping an eye on the door who watched with dull curiosity as we passed. He took me into Max’s room, pulling me to one of the upholstered benches. Rather than let me sit on it, he put a foot on the back of one of my calves, sending me to my knees on the carpet, then sat down on the bench himself.

Rude, inconsiderate bastard.

I resettled myself as comfortably as I could under the circumstances, muttering under my breath the whole time. Scar-face didn’t say anything, though he did look a bit too pleased with himself for me to think that whatever Max had in store for me was over yet.

A little while later, the other two guards brought the chairs and stools from the pool room into Max’s room, leaving them next to the door. The flunkies glanced at me curiously once or twice, but for the most part concentrated on their task.

Once it looked like all of the chairs were out, the lot of them shuffled into Max’s room. Two of them stayed on their feet while the rest sat in the chairs, playing with cell phones or staring with obvious boredom into space.

One of them called out to Scar-face. “How much longer?”

“Dunno. Top floor is done, but they’ve still got a lot of ground to cover before they’ll ’ave searched the whole grounds. Pull out a pack of cards or something. We’re going to be here for a while.”

The other guardsmen grumbled a bit, but didn’t argue. The one who had asked how much longer went back into my gilded prison only to return a couple of minutes later with a book in hand. Catch-22. Of course.

Time passed. It got dark outside. The men took turns grabbing dinner from inside. Though I got pretty hungry and thirsty during the wait, I didn’t bother asking for anything and nobody offered to get me anything.

A crackle of static from a radio I hadn’t seen was followed by a voice I didn’t recognize. “We’re clear. Move the chairs to the basement, then report in. Stokes, stay with the girl.”

Everyone but Scar-face got up and cleared out, each of them carrying a couple of chairs. There were three chairs left behind, but I doubted any of them would come back to finish the job. Scar-face—Stokes—had eaten and resumed his seat on the bench, though he didn’t seem very pleased to be left with babysitting detail. To be fair, I wasn’t too pleased about it, either.

We waited in uncompanionable silence for what felt like hours but was probably only twenty minutes. Max stalked in, moving with the liquid grace of a hunter on the prowl. His eyes gleamed with predatory intent, the tension in his shoulders and the thin lines around his mouth making his agitation obvious. One sharp gesture was all it took for Stokes to get up and hightail it out of the room.

I might have laughed at how nervous the guy got and the wide berth he gave Max as he nearly ran from us, but now I was alone with an angry, probably hungry, vampire.

Once the door shut behind Stokes, Max closed the distance between us. He didn’t say a word, but the weight of his displeasure was palpable. The subtle gleam in his eyes turned into a fierce, red glow and the pressure of him digging into my mind to take control was so sudden and painful that I could barely breathe.

I was in such deep shit.

Max didn’t have to touch me to make me hurt. I couldn’t move as he used our locked gazes as a channel to bring memories to the surface. One, of his progeny pinning me to a bed in a cold, damp room, making sure it hurt as he sucked the life out of me. Another, of being held in Max’s arms, of the disgust and revulsion that had wracked me once I realized how much I wanted him to keep biting me. And another, of just how good it felt to be bound, to bend to his will, the warm glow of basking in his praise—and the pain in my heart when he was disappointed with me, the aching burn of loss when Royce and his minions wouldn’t let me go so I could return to his side.

It was like living it again. Re-experiencing those memories in all their Technicolor glory. Feeling it all over again.

And all the while I knew he was there, seeing and feeling it, too. Somehow I knew he was that deep inside, taking all my secret shame and making it his.

He let out an audible hiss before he turned away from me, breaking the mental connection between us. The loss of him was nearly as painful as the claws he’d hooked into my brain, leaving me gasping with shock. Wide-eyed and open-mouthed, I stared up at him from my knees, pulling back as much as I could.

The vampire turned his gaze heavenward in a gesture that looked more like something my parents did when they were annoyed with me than I cared to think about. He then hooked a chair with his foot, pulling it closer so he could take a seat across from me. This time I thought better of meeting his eyes and ducked my head, bracing for whatever he might do to me. Yell at me, send me to bed without dinner, take away my TV privileges ... The facetious thoughts were the only thing I could cling to in an effort not to go mad with terror that Max might dig into my thoughts again.