by Joy Nash
Careful not to draw his attention with any sudden motion, she eased herself upright. Gritting her teeth against the pain in her hip and ribs, she rolled into a crouch by the side of the bed. Arthur, peering intently at the window, didn’t seem to notice.
He muttered a string of words, low and throaty, in a language she didn’t recognize. He needed to wake up. Heart pounding, she rounded the bed to his side. Inching as close as she dared, she laid a soft hand on his shoulder.
“Arthur? Can you hear me?” She squeezed gently. “Whatever you’re seeing, it’s not real. You’re asleep. Wake up.”
He moved so quickly, she didn’t even see him do it. She was on her back on the bed. His fist was in her hair, his arm across her throat, his lower body pinned her to the mattress. His cock was hard. He glared down at her, eyes aglow and teeth bared.
She lay utterly still, not even daring to blink. Her heart battered her ribs so loudly she was sure he could hear it. Their gazes locked. His eyes, burning red, regarded her with unnerving hatred. What—or who—did he think she was?
She licked her lips. His eyes followed the movement. His grip in her hair tightened.
“Arthur.” She struggled to speak through the pressure on her windpipe. “Let me go.”
When he didn’t answer, she tried again. “Let. Me. Go.” She swallowed. “Please.”
His answer guttered low in his throat. “Break...your fucking...neck.”
She forced all the authority she could muster into her voice. “Don’t you dare.”
Doubt crept into his eyes. “No?”
“No.”
He frowned. “Why not?”
“Because...because I’m Cybele. You’d never—never—hurt me.”
“I wouldn’t?”
“No. You love me.”
His brows shot up at that. “I do?”
“Yes.”
He seemed to consider the information. “I...love...you?” He tested each word on his tongue.
The pressure of his arm eased fractionally. She drew in a breath. “Yes.”
Something came into his eyes. A glimmer of awareness. Not full recognition, not yet. A willingness to believe, perhaps.
“Let me go, Arthur.”
“Yes.” His voice was oddly mechanical. “Let you go.”
Cybele expelled stale air from her lungs as she watched Arthur come back to himself. It happened by slow degrees. First, he took his arm from her throat. Then his fingers loosened and slid out of her hair. His gaze ran over her face, her neck, her body. Not with any lascivious intent. It was more like he was taking inventory, checking her against some internal mental standard. Eventually, his attention returned to her face, and showed a glimmer of true recognition.
It was followed by an expression of pure, unadulterated horror.
“Fuck!”
He threw himself backward. He fell, sprawled on his ass on the floor. The next instant he was on his feet, stumbling toward the door.
Cybele jumped up. Her body protested. Ouch.
“Arthur, wait!”
He spun about. His eyes were wild, filled with self-loathing. His fists clenched and unclenched at his sides. “I’ve got...to get out.”
“No.” Pain shot through her hip. She stumbled, hissing through her teeth as she grabbed for the wall.
“What?” Arthur was by her side in an instant. He reached for her, but when she regained her balance on her own, he stopped short of touching her. “What is it?”
“Nothing.” She clutched at his arm. “Just...my hip. I must’ve pulled a muscle or something. Help me sit down.”
He lowered her to the mattress. His gaze swept over her naked body. Retrieving the blanket from the floor, he shook it out and draped it over her shoulders.
She looked up at him. “Thanks.”
He scowled at the bed. “Did I do that?”
“We did it together,” she said.
“Bullshit.” He turned to face her. “There are—” He swallowed. “Bruises. Finger marks. On your arms and legs. And teeth marks...” He closed his eyes briefly. “Fuck.” He moved away.
“Arthur—”
“I don’t remember the bed breaking,” he said. “I don’t remember biting you. I don’t remember...much of anything after I started to come.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
He gave a short laugh. “Doesn’t it?” He looked toward the door.
“Don’t you dare leave.”
“I can’t stay.” His voice was tight.
“Yes, you can. We need to talk about it.”
He turned and leaned against the wall, regarding her with a dark expression. “That’s a nasty bite I gave you. Right here.” He circled his finger over his left breast.
She brought the edges of the blanket together. “Forget it.”
“Forget that I hurt you? Not likely.”
She made a face at him. “Don’t be so dramatic. See those red lines on your shoulders? Claw marks. I did that. They were even bleeding earlier, before the Nephil healing kicked in.”
“Your bruises aren’t going to heal that quickly.”
“They’ll be gone soon enough.”
“They shouldn’t be there at all. We shouldn’t have had sex. I told you—”
“I’m glad we had sex. Dang it all, Arthur, it was freaking glorious.”
“Won’t be glorious when it kills you,” he muttered.
“Well, it didn’t.”
“It could have. I thought you were...” His gaze dropped.
“What? You thought I was what?”
“I don’t know. I saw something...some memory, I think. Centuries old.” He shook his head slightly. “Whatever it was, it’s gone now.”
“It’ll come back.”
“Maybe,” he said. “And maybe if it does I’ll just forget it again.”
She blew out a breath. “You’re being ridiculous.”
“I’m not.” He stalked across the room and bent to grab his jeans off the floor. “This magic...I might never be able to control it.” He shoved one leg, then the other, into his pants. “I can handle it a little when I’m calm, but when I’m not—” He pulled up the zipper. “My brain—it goes blank. Everything goes wrong, and I can’t remember how. Or why. Or even what I’ve done.”
“You just need time to get used to it.”
He found a shirt, one of the extras she’d brought from Texas. He crumpled it into a ball in his hands. “Maybe. In the meantime, you—”
“I’m not going anywhere,” she said. “And you’re not leaving me here alone.”
He sighed. “No. Of course not. But we can’t have sex again. It’s too dangerous.”
She hesitated. “We could be more careful.”
“Cybele, I was being careful. My ‘careful’ nearly broke you in two.”
She opened her mouth to argue, then, abruptly, shut it. “Okaaay,” she said slowly. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe we should chill on the sex. For now.”
His brows shot up. “You’re actually agreeing with me?”
She huffed. “You say that like I’ve never agreed with you before.”
“You haven’t. Or, at least, if you have, I can’t remember when.”
She injected a hint of humor into her voice. “Are you kidding me? I give in to you all the time.” This was a bald-faced lie and a running joke between them.
He gave the answer he always did. “In what universe?”
She laughed, and he did, too. She was so relieved to see him smile, she nearly started crying. Which would’ve really alarmed him. She didn’t cry.
She scooted to the edge of the mattress and fished her blouse off the floor. Abandoning the blanket, she shoved her arms through the sleeves, and kept her tone casual. “Just tell me one thing. Did you like it?”
“Arguing with you?” He shook out his crumpled tee.
“No, of course not. Did you like what we did? The sex? Um...what you remember of it?”
He paused in the motion of pulling
on his shirt. “Now who’s being ridiculous?”
“I’m not. You’re an adept now, and I’m still just a dormant. I can’t—”
“Cybele.” He looked up, his eyes searching the ceiling as if reading something written up there. “You have to know by now that you’re everything to me. Life and breath and heart and...well, if the Nephilim had souls, you’d be that, too.”
She never cried. So why was her vision suddenly all blurry? “What did the Ordeal do to you? Scramble your brains?”
He pulled his shirt over his head. When he faced her again, a red flush burnished his cheeks. “Damn it, Cybele. Aren’t you always telling me I should be more romantic?”
“Well, yes. But I didn’t really think you had it in you.”
“I’ve always felt this way. I’ve just never had the guts to tell you.”
“You don’t need to tell me. I know. Oh, Arthur, I was so afraid when you left. Afraid you wouldn’t survive the overdose. Or if you did, you wouldn’t survive the Ordeal. And if you did get through it, I was afraid it would change you.”
“It did change me. But not in that way. Nothing in this life could change my feelings for you.” His gaze slid away. “It’s only—”
“Only what?”
“I don’t know how long that life’s going to be.” He met her gaze squarely. “I don’t know if I can defeat Mab.”
***
Luc’s thrallstone began to burn even before Zephyr disappeared into the brush.
The ruby lay, at all times, in unbroken contact with his skin. Mab had closed the twisted wood collar around Luc’s neck before allowing him to exit his Ordeal. From that moment, his life had been hers to command. The stone, aided by the oak, made his magic her own.
Until it happened, Luc hadn’t believed Mab would enthrall him. She’d promised not to. Despite Arthur’s warnings, despite Cybele’s pleas to listen, he’d stubbornly refused to consider the possibility she was lying. Why should he risk facing the Ordeal alone, as Arthur had urged? He’d already been in Mab’s bed, where she’d let him do whatever he’d wanted to her. In his lustful stupidity, he’d believed he’d mastered her.
How could he have been so naïve? Mab’s docility had been another one of her illusions, and Luc, like an idiot, had fallen for it. He was damn glad Arthur hadn’t been in Demon’s Hollow when Luc returned with Mab’s thrall collar around his neck. Cybele’s horror, and the pity in her eyes, had been almost too much to bear.
His shoulders tensed at the thought of his twin. Where was she? Didn’t take half a brain to know that she’d run after Arthur, but did that mean Arthur had survived his Ordeal? Or had Cybele only hoped he had?
He couldn’t blame her for leaving Demon’s Hollow, Arthur or no Arthur. Cybele had always had more than her share of spunk. It was no secret that Mab had chosen her favorite thrall, Rand, to guide Cybele’s Ordeal. Rand was a snakebit son of a bitch if Luc had ever known one. Of course she’d run.
What was amazing was that she’d gotten away with it.
The thrallstone burned hotter, sizzling like a branding iron. The pain was getting bad, real bad, but he fought it as long as he could. He wasn’t sure why he still bothered. It was a pointless rebellion, one Mab could snap like kindling wood. And yet he kept at it.
Eventually, the compulsion to go to her overpowered his resistance. His feet moved him, against his will, to the north wing of the main house. Even though Mab spent little enough time in Demon’s Hollow, no one dared enter her exclusive domain uninvited. Luc approached the shining black door, dread twisting his insides into knots. He hadn’t been on the other side of that door since before his Ordeal.
His fear disgusted him. What could Mab possibly do to him that was worse than what he’d already endured? Plenty, a malicious voice in his brain whispered. And you know it. A cold sweat broke out on his brow.
He rapped on the cool steel. The door swung open into a room of red velvet, black leather, and shining chrome. Hunter, another of Mab’s favorites, stood with his hand on the doorknob, smirking. When Luc stepped past him, he shut the door and turned the lock.
“‘Bout time you got your ass here. Not smart, making her wait. She’s madder than a rattler now, and I can’t say as I blame her. Why in hell didya let Cybele get away?”
Luc gave no reply.
“Sure. Go ahead with the bullshit strong, silent act. Won’t do you no good with her.”
Luc’s thrallstone flared so hotly, he couldn’t suppress a gasp. Hunter laughed. “She’s in the bedroom.” Grabbing Luc’s upper arm, he shoved him roughly toward a second black door. “I’m sure you remember the way.”
Luc’s hand shook as he turned the knob. He stepped into a larger room, one which could have easily held twenty people or more. Right now, it was empty. It was all the more threatening because of it.
A collage of oversized photos covered the walls from floor to ceiling. The subject was pornographic, with a general theme of bondage, punishment, and humiliation. Mab’s personal toys hung on hooks or sat on shelves among the naked figures. Floggers, whips, rope, blindfolds, ball gags, anal plugs, collars, clamps. Leather cuffs, attached to gleaming chains, dangled from the ceiling and were attached to rings in the floor.
There was a room very much like this one in Club Tartarus. Luc had spent a good deal of the time since his Ordeal in that room, acting as Mab’s submissive as well as taking a dominant role in the fantasies of some of the club’s favored clients. The toys were only part of it. Illusion, terrifying illusion, was another part. And then there were the times Mab had turned her illusions into reality...
If not for his thrallstone, Luc would’ve turned tail and fled. Since that wasn’t an option, he set his jaw and crossed the room. A second door was tucked in a corner. It led to a short hallway. Two more doors, to his right and left, were closed. The one at the end of the hall, facing him, was open.
He walked through it.
Mab sat cross-legged in the center of her massive bed, on top of a sable fur coverlet. A soft white spotlight shone down on her. Even knowing what she was, and what she was capable of, Luc couldn’t help his body’s reaction to his alpha’s harsh, erotic beauty. There wasn’t a straight man alive—except, maybe, Arthur—who wouldn’t want to fuck her.
Her complexion was pale, her skin flawless. Brilliant blue eyes, framed by sooty lashes, gave her a sultry appearance, one accentuated by high cheekbones and full red lips. Black hair, pin straight and shining, fell to her waist.
She was very tall, of course, like all Nephilim. Her figure was proportioned to match, with generous breasts and hips. A black leather corset constricted her waist to almost waspish proportions, creating an illusion of delicacy.
Her massive ruby hung from its wooden chain. The stone nestled in her cleavage, pulsing like a heartbeat. Luc’s thrallstone responded to its mother stone, matching its rhythm with its own burning throb.
Mab unfolded her legs. They were about a damn mile long, encased in black lace as far as her thighs. She rose to kneel on one knee, the opposite leg splayed wide, offering Luc a prime view. A blood red stiletto heel, propped on the bed, sank into black fur.
The room smelled like sex. Sweaty, explosive sex, recently completed. One whiff of the scent was a potent aphrodisiac. Instantly, Luc was hard and aching for it. Warmth crept into his face. He’d known both pleasure and humiliation at Mab’s hands. Even though the bad had far outweighed the good, he was helpless to prevent his cock from near-combusting with lust for the sadistic bitch. It was the thrallstone, controlling his reaction. He knew that beyond a doubt. The knowledge didn’t stop him from hating himself.
A figure separated itself from the shadows. Rand, a crystal tumbler in hand, strolled out of a dark corner of the room. He was naked, his penis half-erect. The ruby in his thrall collar was dark. That was a sign of his mistress’s favor, but ultimately, Luc knew, it was but another illusion. Rand wasn’t nearly as independent as he believed.
He saluted Luc with his whiskey.
Ice clinked against the glass. “Howdy, cousin.” He grinned as if he’d uttered a sly joke.
Mab waved a negligent hand. “Leave us, sugar.”
Rand’s smile turned to a scowl. No doubt he’d been looking forward to the party Mab had planned for Luc. He made no protest, however. With a respectful nod in his mistress’s direction, he strode from the room.
Mab’s eyes, in that unnerving shade of blue, raked over Luc. Responding to the slightest flick of her finger, Luc’s thrallstone delivered an electric jolt to his throat. His muscles went rigid.
Her whisper vibrated both inside and outside his skull. “Where is Cybele?”
“I don’t know, Mistress.”
Her gaze narrowed. “Don’t insult me.”
Luc lowered his gaze to the floor. Black stone, polished to a dull shine. “I wouldn’t dare, ma’am.” That was true enough. What would be the point? Mab knew when he was lying.
“Sometimes I wonder.” She swung her long legs over the side of the bed and rose. She smiled as she lifted an object from a low table.
It was a jeweled whip handle, carved from yew wood. The stones embedded in the shaft—gems of various colors and sizes—had once belonged to Arthur’s kin, the British Druids who had come to Texas in the wake of Tristan’s death. After Magnus had lost the duel, the rest of the British line had been left no option but to accept Mab as their new alpha. Along with their pledges of fealty, Mab had demanded they give up their touchstones. In exchange, they had each been given a fragment of Mab’s ruby, to be kept on their persons at all times.
The stolen jewels blazed to life. Mab twirled the handle once, like a baton. She smiled.
Luc knew that smile.
The bottom fell out of his stomach. The alpha tapped the butt end of her toy against one thigh. She moved closer, stiletto heels tapping on stone. When she passed to the left of him and circled behind, Luc kept his eyes trained forward.
“I don’t know where Cybele went.” He was ashamed of his trembling voice. He tried to force a semblance of confidence into his tone. “She’d hardly cozy up to me, now, would she? We’ve hardly even spoken in months.”
“You don’t need to talk to her, sugar, to know what she’s up to.”