Jess Haines - Enslaved By the Others

It felt like forever until she set me down, leaving me to sink into a pile of soft cushions. Spent from the combined exhaustion and pain, I barely managed to note that there were indeed four walls around the couch that was now the center of my universe.

I closed my eyes and was gone.

The distant jangle of a phone jarred me out of sleep. I woke up to watery sunshine on my face, the rest of me cocooned like a blanket burrito. I was filled with warmth and a thousand tiny aches all over my body. Oh, and one hot, dull throb from my hip.

“Good morning. Or afternoon, technically.”

Kumiho was far too cheerful. But I smelled coffee, and that lured me out of my burrito-shaped hideout.

“Where are we?” My voice sounded like I had swallowed about a pound of wet sand followed by a gravel chaser.

I had to squint against the sunlight streaming in from some rather large picture windows overlooking an ice-rimmed lake and snow-dusted trees. The room was a strange conglomeration of Eastern-influenced furniture and artwork depicting some fox-like creature with many tails, mixed with a couple of custom neon signs and what I thought might be framed K-pop band posters on the pale yellow walls. Kumiho was visible beyond the breakfast bar, puttering around in a large kitchen full of new-but-made-to-look-old appliances, apparently content to ignore the phone ringing in another room. It cut off before long, probably going to voicemail.

“Welcome to my humble abode. You’re lucky Mr. Royce sent me to be your hostess, tour guide, and guardian for your stay in my little slice of paradise.” She grinned, saluting me with a mug. “Here’s to rich benefactors, eh? Come on, up and at ’em. Get some food in you and then I’ll show you to the shower. We need to get you cleaned up and into some new clothes because, girl, I hate to tell you, but white is so not your color.”

That startled a laugh out of me, followed by a brief coughing fit. Once I got my breath back, I rearranged the fuzzy—need I say it?—hot pink blanket, swinging my legs around. Though the pull and burn was sharp, and my muscles protested every step of the way, I managed to get to my feet under my own power and pad across the heated tile floor to the breakfast bar. Getting up on one of the stools was a little much for me to manage, so I stood there, blistered feet aching, leaning heavily against the counter.

“I’m not really the Betty Homemaker type, so I hope you don’t mind a simple dish. I was making hoeddeok . It’s a little like pancakes.”

I nodded, taking the cup of coffee she offered me as she turned back to prepare me a plate.

“That sounds great. Thanks for the coffee and everything.” I sipped, closing my eyes in bliss as the rich, sweet taste rolled over my tongue. “And thank you for coming to my rescue,” I belatedly remembered to add.

“Hey, anytime. This is a drop in the bucket compared to what I owe your master.”

That gave me a start. “Whoa, now. He’s not—”

“Oh, sorry. Slip of the tongue,” she said, though I got the impression from the light in her eyes and the sly twist of her lips that she had meant exactly what she said. “I forget what the PC term is for it these days. What is that ridiculous word ... Your host?”

My cheeks warmed, but I met and held her challenging stare as she pulled the plastic wrap off of a bowl and reached inside to roll a handful of some kind of dough in her hands. “I’m not a blood donor, if that’s what you’re implying.” Not really. I hoped. Maybe just that once—but that didn’t make the title stick. Did it?

“Funny, that’s not what the newshounds say. And he is awfully fond of you, if the number of phone calls I’ve received from him since last night are any indication.”

That filled me with an altogether different kind of warmth. Was it possible the vampire had deeper feelings for me than my bruised and battered ego dared hope? When he sent me to stay with Clyde in Los Angeles, I had done my best to make myself believe that he was doing it for my own safety. Royce must have had a good reason for sending me away, and that reason couldn’t have had anything to do with being dissatisfied with my performance in the sack after I finally grew a pair and admitted I wanted him to do every dirty thing to me I had ever read about in those romance novels I hid from my mom as a teen.

Don’t judge me.

The guy had done everything I had hoped and more, fulfilling fantasies I hadn’t even known I’d had. Things that made me flush just to recall. To be sent away on the heels of experiencing the kind of afterglow that Chaz, my alpha werewolf cheating scumbag of an ex-boyfriend, had never been able to give me, may have made me a bit paranoid that Royce was not as enamored of me as I now was of him. My many worries about Royce’s motives and what he really wanted from me took a backseat after the night we had shared.

Kumiho’s sly, knowing smile made it hard for me to come up with a way of explaining my relationship with Royce that didn’t make me feel like I was giving up a state secret. After my awkward silence extended a bit too long, she laughed and placed the ball of dough on the flour-dusted counter.

“It’s all over your face, sweetie. I know what it’s like to fall under his spell. I’m just surprised you managed to snare him, that’s all.”

Somehow I managed to keep my tone neutral. “Oh? Why is that?”

She didn’t miss a beat, rolling out more circles of dough while her gaze and widening smile were focused intently on me. “He’s always been a regular Don Juan. Using his looks and his money and everything else to get what he wants, only to leave his lovers once he’s had what he was after. Don’t look so shocked. It’s the nature of the beast when dealing with vampires. I just find it fascinating that you’re the one who melted one of the coldest, most jaded hearts I’ve ever encountered.”

I fiddled with my coffee mug, staring down at the contents so I wouldn’t have to look her in the eye anymore. Though I hardly expected him to be a saint, I didn’t want to think about Royce’s “conquests” before I came along, either. Considering how he oozed sex appeal like the world’s most effective cologne, I shouldn’t have been surprised.

“Hey,” she said, tapping the back of my hand with a flour-coated finger. “Sometimes I let my mouth run. Don’t worry about any of that. He’s a damned fine catch, and word on the grapevine says he’s a wonder in the sack. A walking, talking wet dream, as one of my friends put it. Ride it while the riding’s good!”

My mouth dropped open, and I’m pretty sure my cheeks matched the color of my fire engine red curls.

Humming some jaunty tune under her breath, Kumiho focused on whatever she was making, driving her thumbs into the center of each ball, using a spoon to dump a mixture of what looked like brown sugar and some kind of crushed nut in the center before rolling them back shut.

In minutes, she had the balls frying in a pan, flattening them with a spatula in one hand as she shook an admonishing finger from the other at me when she caught me staring. “Don’t look at me like that. You Americans and your hang-ups on relationships and sex are so beyond me, you know that? Don’t question a good thing. Enjoy what you have with him while it lasts. I may not live in New York anymore, but I remember enough of what he was like to know that he must feel more than just a bit of tingling in his dangly bits for you to go to as much trouble as he has. Here, eat this while it’s hot.”

She set a plate before me with a large, thick pancake in the center. I took advantage of this ready-made excuse not to put my foot in my mouth by filling it with something else. Picking up the pancake with my fingers since she didn’t give me any utensils with the plate, I took a big bite. Though it scalded my tongue, the outside was crunchy and the inside tasted like sweet, gooey, cinnamon-sugar heaven.