Lilith Saintcrow - Taken

What the hell? “You’re not nobody.” There was a rock in his throat; he managed to clear it and she almost flinched. So he pressed forward again, holding her still. “If you’ll be quiet, and sit down, I’ll explain a few things. We’re Carcajou. We were born different, and sometimes we come across people like you. We call you found shamans. You’re different, too, just a little bit. You can keep us calm, make us better.” He inhaled, drawing the smell of her all the way down into the bottom of his lungs. And I don’t know how to tell you this, but you’re mine. Fight it all you want, but we’ll come to some sort of understanding. Sooner or later. “I’m the alpha now. The boy you saw get unzipped fighting that thing—the upir —that was my brother. I let him take the alpha because…” Shame rose hot and tight in his throat. “Because I was afraid, and because of…other things.” Inch by inch, his bones creaking in protest, he eased away from her, his flesh still holding the sensation of hers. “Now you know something none of them knows. You know I let him take it, even though he wasn’t strong enough. I suppose that makes me a coward, but I’m done with that.” I have to be done with that. There’s nobody else left.

Another deep breath. She was still afraid, and the taint of blood still maddened the thing crouching in the floor of his mind. His eyes traveled up her arms, her thin wrists caught in his fingers, pale against the darker tone of his skin.

That was where the maddening tang of blood had come from. Her fingertips were raw, probably from working the towel rack out of its holder. She must’ve been damn motivated to get it free, disregarding the damage to her skin.

“Goddamn, girl. Look what you did to yourself.” He brought her hands down, flipped them palms up, studied the ragged, bloody edges. “Jesus. What were you going to do after you brained me with that thing, huh?”

She swallowed, her throat moving. Her glasses were smudged, knocked astray, and she was biting her lower lip so hard he thought she might start bleeding from there, too.

If she did there was going to be even more of a problem. But her teeth eased free, thank God.

“I was going to dial 9-1-1 and get the hell out of here. Let the police come and keep you busy while I ran.” She sounded steadier, calmer, but hoarse. This was a fragile peace, the eye of the hurricane. If he handled her carefully enough now he might be able to make her understand a few things.

“Good plan. It would have delayed us for about half an hour. Then we would have tracked you and brought you back. You’re ours now. Get used to it.” The sooner we get that through your head, the sooner we can all breathe easier.

He realized just a little too late that sheer stubborn repetition might not be the best way to handle a terrified woman who flinched at all the wrong times. If he’d had a hand free he might’ve been tempted to smack himself in the forehead.

But it was too late. Her chin lifted a little, stubbornly. Then, the dam burst. “What was that thing? It killed Lucy, goddammit! And you—you’re not normal! None of you are normal! You don’t even smell human!”

Perceptive of her. “The thing that killed your Lucy was upir . That’s what we call it. They…you can call ’em vampires, if you want. We kill them where we find them and they return the favor, only most of them stay out of our way unless they’re stupid or rabid. That one was probably rabid. They go nuts if they get a batch of bad blood, and they act just like dogs foaming at the mouth.” He dragged in another deep breath, still holding her wrists. Come on, Zach. Give her something reasonable to hold on to. “We aren’t human, not like you are. Score one for you. We’re different but we’re still people. And we need you. I’m sorry I haven’t been nice about it, but—”

“ Nice? You fucking kidnapped me!” Her eyes were all but spitting sparks. She drew herself up to her full height—still a little too short to be anything but adorable—and gave him a glare that would have done even Dad, the old alpha, proud. “You’re holding me hostage! ”

“No, we’re not. We’re not asking anyone to pay for you.” It was out of his mouth before he could stop himself, taking refuge in the reflex of sarcasm. “Is there anyone who would?”

“The only person who might have is dead in a fucking alley—let go of me!” She wrenched her hands away and he let her. Her chest heaved, tears slicking her cheeks, and the sudden urge to press her against the wall again was stunning. It warred with the urge to put his arms around her and tell her everything was going to be all right. “I have a job. I have a life. It’s not much of a life but it’s mine, and I worked too hard for it to let you or anyone else take it away! I started out with nothing! And I’m not going to do it again, you hear me? You’d better let me go. You’d just…” She almost ran out of steam, put her shoulders back and her chin up. “You’d just better .”

That’s good. It gave him more to work with, and if she was angry she wasn’t crying or afraid of him. Anger he could deal with.

Anger he could understand. “All right, so you had a life. You want to go back to it? Work with us. We’d like a life, too. You think we want to live this way?”

“It looks like you like it, especially if you’re kidnapping innocent women.” She clutched her bleeding hands together. Her eyes were still glowing.

What? That makes absolutely no sense. “Well, we don’t. We lost our brother, our alpha, killing the thing that killed your friend. You could cut us a little slack here.” He suddenly began to get the idea he wasn’t controlling this situation nearly as well as he thought he was. “We don’t like this. We want to settle down. Once I know I can trust you, we can go back to your city and do it there. How about it?”

“Are you insane? ” Her voice hit a pitch right under “scream,” and the ice-and-moonlight smell intensified. A flush spread up her throat, blooming in her cheeks, and he could smell the balance of her internal chemistry shifting. It was like smelling Julia’s sudden drift of estrogen once a month. Only much, much nicer.

Bingo. She was triggered. High emotion and proximity to Carcajou pheromones setting off latent potential. By midnight she’d be a Carcajou shaman, and it would take weeks to shift her to another Tribe. By next morning she’d be their shaman, and it would take months to shift her. The first critical step had happened.

Everything else would follow. It had to. She was their only chance, and he couldn’t fail this one last test like he’d failed all the others. There was nobody else around to take the fall for this one.

And God, how he hated what that said about him. He had to get this one right.

Her hands had curled into fists. “You’ve kidnapped me.” A very low, dangerous tone, stroking his skin until he felt the urge to shiver. “What you’re doing is illegal and wrong. You let me leave right now and I won’t go to the police. I’ll go home and forget about this, and go to work Monday morning. If you don’t, I swear to God I’ll—”

You’ll do what? Leave us to die one by one? His temper almost snapped. “What? Try to kill me? We can hold you for years until you calm down, shaman. Play nice with us. You said yourself nobody would pay for you. What the hell is back in that city you want so much? Your husband, maybe?”

Her immediate flinch, and the sharp note of fear cutting through her scent, warned him just before the animal lunged for freedom again. Her eyes turned big and wounded; her hands pulled back toward her chest and raised a little as if to ward off a blow—