by Kiersten Fay
She marched down the darkened street.
——
Cora jerked awake as fresh pain sliced up her arm.
Another injection? What was he giving her now?
Fear roiled uncontrollably, and the acidic tang of bile rose in her throat.
The doctor removed the needle and studied her for a quiet moment.
She glared up at him, baring her teeth.
His lips twitch. “Don’t be angry, dove. This will all be worth it. Trust me.”
“Trust you?” She spat, fidgeting against the kindling furnace that had begun burning in her arm where he’d stuck her. A string of curses poured out of her mouth. The fire was crawling toward her neck, flooding her brain, stealing her breath. “What are you doing”—gasp—“to me?”
A repugnant warmth bloomed, calling forth a carnal hunger. Just as before, it reminded her of the effects of drinking too much of Mace’s blood, but more off-putting, more nauseating, more sever. Excessive. Consuming. Wrong.
Her vision faltered, and then suddenly everything was too bright. The lights stabbed her eyes, even when she smashed her eyelids closed.
She heard scuffling; the doctor crossing back to his desk? Whatever he’d injected her with was working quickly. Her head lulled, and her limbs turned soft. Gravity seemed to double in pressure, smashing her down into the hard mat of the gurney. Her heart stuttered, pounding hard one moment and lagging the next as if it couldn’t decide on the proper pace…
Finally, her mind began to dim till it blanked entirely.
……
Her eyes fluttered, and then tightened against the harsh brightness. The world rolled in every direction as if she were on the inside of a hamster ball.
She smacked her lips, the dryness in her mouth rough and gritty.
She was so thirsty!
She should get up and fetch a glass of water…in a moment. Maybe a couple more minutes of sleep first. Too tired…
Darkness descended.
……
Desire ambushed her. Muscles aching, she tried to roll over, but the blankets were too heavy. And they were hot, too, making her sweat, but she couldn’t muster the strength to lift her tired arms to throw them off. Perspiration pooled in the bowl of her neck…
She called out for Mace, needing him with desperate abandon.
Her right arm stung as though something had bit her, and then it was like someone poured boiling acid over it. In the next instant, the pain flooded her entire body, drowning her in agony. She felt so damp and sticky, lying in a pool of her own sweat, and the agony continued to grow…
The dark void took her once more.
……
Her body convulsed with great shudders, but her eyes remained closed. It seemed she was unable to open them. Were they weighed down by something? Exhaustion? She felt utterly drained of energy…of will power. Thought was a dark, murky cloud. She couldn’t recall where she was. Her pain was intense, and a part of her wondered if this was what it felt like to die. Was there still a hole through her chest where that man had shot her? Was she still on the floor of the cottage bleeding out? Instead of her life flashing before her eyes, as people claim to happen at the point of death, had she lived a fantasy future where Knox had saved her life?
Her throat was sore and swollen. She began to gag and gasp and convulse violently. Her air supply was suddenly cut off.
This was it. This was the end.
A set of hands rolled her to the side, and someone shoved something flat and tough into her mouth for her to bite down on. The tang of leather coated her mouth…
Darkness slammed into her.
……
Her body shot iron-rod stiff with a scream. She had the sensation of a million needles pierced her everywhere, every pore, every nerve ending. Fresh tears billowed and the salt chafed the already raw, tender skin of her cheeks.
Every muscle in her body protested the slightest movement, but she couldn’t help but strain against the torment crawling under her skin. The grueling lust, the pain, combined with…something else.
Hunger.
Death was taking his time with her, making her final moments last.
No one but the reaper himself would be so cruel.
She wheezed and huffed, her mouth so dry it hurt to breathe. Surely it wouldn’t be long now. This agony couldn’t last forever.
She had always pictured Death as an ominous figure in a dark cloak, cowl up, masking his features in impenetrable obscurity, but that wasn’t right at all. Death was a British doctor with bad hair.
And just before she succumbed once more to darkness, she realized he wasn’t anywhere near finished with her.
Chapter 14
“Would you please shut the hell up already?” Knox complained over the noise of Mace’s yelling. “Clearly the witch isn’t listening.”
“She can’t ignore us forever.” Mace’s gaze swirled around the room as if some previously unseen escape route might jump out at him.
“Sure she can.”
Mace once more gripped the bars, pulling and pushing on them with all his strength, ignoring his flesh sizzling at the contact. When he could take no more, he ripped his hands away. After a while, his palms would heal, but right now they were bright red and some of the skin had already blistered.
“Dammit!”
“Oh, I know,” Knox said obnoxiously. “Why don’t you try grabbing those bars again? Twelfth times a charm. This time try hitting them with your face. Maybe that’s the trick.”
Mace pinched the bridge of his nose, seeking patience. “Don’t you ever tire of being a dick?”
Knox lifted his hands, mimicking a scale. “Meh.” Then he dropped his arms and jerked his chin at the bars. “Perhaps the answer is a big sloppy kiss. Come on, give it a go. And let’s see some tongue.”
“Why don’t you kiss my ass?”
“I didn’t think you swung that way. In any case, I don’t think that would work.”
Mace let out a fierce holler. “Of all the people to be stuck in a room with!”
“You wouldn’t be my first choice either.”
“You wouldn’t be anyone’s choice.”
Knox looked away. “I prefer it that way.”
Mace studied him for a moment. “You didn’t used to.”
All humor left Knox as he glared at Mace, his voice dangerously low. “You really don’t want to get into that right now.”
He was right. Talking about Elizabeth was the last thing Mace wanted to do. “Let me ask you this. If something happens to me, will you do what you can for Cora? Protect her?”
A pit of rage flared in Knox’s eyes. “Protect her yourself. Oh wait, you can’t. You got yourself stuck in a box.”
“And whose fault is that?”
“Damn sure isn’t my fault. You’re the one who invited witches into your life. Got all cozy with them and dragged me into it.”
“Are you still trying to convince yourself of that? You got yourself into this the night you refused to leave the cottage.”
Knox shot to his feet and took a threatening step toward Mace. “I was there first!”
“You were being childish, just like you are now, just like when you left the clan.”
The rageful-flare grew to an inferno. “I left the clan because I couldn’t stand to look at you. And if I had stayed, I’d have killed you.”
“How long are you going to keep blaming me?”
“Till you figure out a way to change the past.”
“It wasn’t me who killed Lizza!” Mace instantly regretted his careless words.
Knox’s tone went low as his expression turned dangerous. “You failed to protect her.”
Mace winced as the angry words gouged out his heart—
Wait, that pain hadn’t been from guilt.
He gripped his chest when what felt like the backside of a hammer tried to shimmy out his heart like an unwanted nail. The markings along his neck flared to life. In the next instant, agony stole his breath
just before slipped into unconsciousness.
——
Cora awoke, merging from yet another fitful nightmare—to one of painfully realistic terror.
She was still strapped down, tiny razors under her skin teasing her nerves. How long had her torture persisted? She couldn’t say. She didn’t even know the duration between awake and unconscious. Or how often she’d received the doctor’s treatments.
She opened her puffy eyes to see the doctor strolling away from her, that hated syringe in hand, now emptied. He placed the object in the stainless steel sink to be sterilized later, then took his seat at his workspace and leaned over his scattered notes.
Those first few days were all but lost to Cora, like a black hole had sucked away a hefty chunk of her brain, leaving behind only blurred glimpses of remembrance.
Unfortunately, she was beginning to retain her faculties. Still, she could only guess what the doctor was doing to her, and why.
When he glanced up and saw her watching him, he smiled.
She bared her teeth.
“How are we feeling?” he asked sweetly.
Cora answered by way of a ripe curse and a finger gesture.
“My, you’re grumpy today.” He cocked his head thoughtfully. “I wonder if that’s a good sign.” He made a swift note on his paper and then stood to approach, grabbing a stopwatch on his way.
She cringed, a burst of alarm making her squirm. What next?
When he came around the side of her gurney, where the tray of gruesome tools remained constantly at her bedside, he stretched out his hand and plucked a scalpel between thin nimble fingers.
Holding it up, he said, “I must say, I’m excited to see how well you heal now.”
Buried memories bubbled up from the back of her mind. The doctor slicing her open…just to watch her heal? He’d been enthralled, a kind of mad fascination lighting his eyes. She couldn’t recall his results, only the sickening glee in his expression.
At the start of these tests, the weak part of her, the part that had already relinquished hope, half destroyed by the prolonged pain, wished he’d make a mistake, find a deep artery, and end her suffering. And, after countless hours of horror, pain, and torture, the other, stronger part that wanted to survive, the part that could still envision a rescue, was seriously considering switching teams.
The cold blade of the scalpel bit into the tender flesh of her upper arm, bisecting skin and muscle. She cried out. Tears wisped down her cheeks. The doctor’s eyes glazed over with that terrible exhilaration.
He started the timer.
Finally her two opposing sides converged as one, a common goal uniting them.
Arm throbbing, blood pouring onto the red-stained floor beneath her, she glared up at the doctor with only one thought in her mind. No longer did she wish for death and its ultimate release. Now she wished for life…so that she could make the mad doctor pay with his.
——
Today, for the first time, Cora came awake slowly, instead of from the familiar jab of agony compounded by a melee of pain, superhuman lust, and lethargy.
A bit of sense crept into her brain, and she remembered where she was.
Hell’s waiting room.
Her eyes slit open, anticipating the bite from the overhead lights. By degrees, the stinging lessened as her eyes became acquainted.
With minimal movements she glanced around, hoping not to alert the doctor she was conscious. Her caution was unnecessary. He didn’t seem to be in the room at the moment.
Thank the goddess!
To be sure, she lifted her head for a better look. Her muscles twisted and screamed against the slightest movement. She let her skull drop. How long had she been in and out of consciousness? How long had she been strapped to this miserable gurney? It felt as though she hadn’t used her limbs in weeks.
She was still dressed the same white button down, decorated now by sweat stains, tears, and blood. A lightweight sheet had been draped over her bare legs. Her hair felt matted and grungy, and her scalp itched like mad, worsened by the fact that she could do nothing to scratch it.
She tested her restraints. Tight as ever. Maybe even tighter than before. Still, she pulled against the leather cuffs until the skin around her wrists hurt; almost certainly a bruise would soon decorate their circumference.
This was Edgar all over again, only she’d been mostly conscious back then, and cuffed to an exposed pipe next to her makeshift pallet.
Oh, where was Mace? Why hadn’t he found her yet?
She gulped.
What if Devon had captured him too? Would she sense that? She thought she would, at least if he were near. But would they risk bringing him here so close to where she was?
She doubted it.
In fact, why keep him alive at all? They’d probably just kill him on sight.
She cringed, rejecting the notion.
He had to be alive. She’d be able to tell if he wasn’t, right? She’d feel it through the bond.
So if he was alive, could that mean he was unable to find her? She had hoped he’d followed behind Devon, but if so, he’d have stormed this stronghold by now, a reluctant Knox at his side. Probably would have recruited Trent or his other clan mates as well. Even now she would be with him, somewhere safe, and he’d be caring for her.
The lust that had been her near constant companion stoked. She struggled to ignore it.
What if Mace hadn’t rebounded from the effects of that curse? What if he was still, at this moment, back in their room bellowing in pain? She recalled the dreadful sound he’d made, his face grimacing as he’d clutched his chest.
Why would Ms. Windshaw place such a horrid spell on him?
Cora went still as a memory assailed her. Sadira…turning to admire her work. Enjoying the look of Mace writhing in front of her.
Because of her curse.
Cora recalled it now; the moment when Sadira had struck at Mace with her power just before Saraphine had banished her from Cora’s body.
In that moment, Sadira’s seething hatred had pierced Cora as if through the heart.
So if it was Sadira’s curse that plagued Mace, what was the purpose of Ms. Windshaw’s spell?
Although she hadn’t known Ms. Windshaw very long, the old woman hadn’t seemed the type to callously curse another individual for no apparent reason. On the other hand, Ms. Windshaw had freely admitted to placing a spell on Mace, even refused to remove it.
Cora pushed out an aggravated breath. None of this mattered if she didn’t get free, and clearly she couldn’t rely on an army of vampire liberators.
She’d have to get herself out of this and find Mace as soon as possible. He did need her. She felt it all the way to the molecules of her being.
She glanced around for ideas. Her gaze landed on the tray of surgical instruments next to her: a set of scissors with tiny blades for precision cutting, forceps, something that bent like a strange looking spoon at the end, and various sharp medical items that had no business being in a dank underground, unsanitary cavern.
She spied the scalpel, too.
The straps around her wrists only allowed an inch or two of give, and the tray was maybe four inches out of reach. But if her fingers could make up the distance, she could grab the edge of the tray and tilt it so the scalpel might roll into her grasp.
She reached out, splaying her fingers wide. Her restraints pulled taut where they attached to the side of the gurney, the leather groaning softly.
Scant millimeters separated her from the tray. She willed her fingers farther, but it was no use.
She relaxed back into the mat, already breathing heavily. A wave of renewed exhaustion threatened to drag her down into the helpless oblivion she grown accustomed to embracing.
She fought the urge to close her eyes. She couldn’t give up. Didn’t think she’d last much longer under the doctor’s care.
She clutched either side of the gurney with both hands. Then, using her weight, she thrust her body in
the direction of the cart, managing to displace the gurney ever so slightly. Her tired muscles screamed from misuse, but she did it again, closing in another fraction. Five more agonizing jerks had her barely within reach. The tip of her middle finger grazed one corner of the tray, stretching…stretching.
Got it!
She began inching the tray closer so she could get a better hold. When she was able, she pressed the buds of her fingers down on the tray’s upturned edge. The opposite side lifted and a few of the tools skidded closer.
Blocked by a dam of instruments, the scalpel halted its progress.
She allowed the tray to drop and then brought it back up with more force. A few of the items jumped from the jolt and tumbled to the floor with a tink and clunk. There went the forceps and the spoon-thing. Good riddance. She was now able to reach one loop of the scissors and move the tool out of the way. If the scissors had a set of larger blades, she might have attempted to use them to cut her way free, but they were small for their weight, meant for delicate work inside a body, not for cutting through thick leather straps, which was what she needed.
One last time, she tilted the tray and the scalpel rolled toward her. As soon as she palmed the handle, voices drifted from outside the room.
Her mind reeled, and then her hand jumped into action.
Twirling the knife-end toward her straps, she began slicing. The first few cuts were arduous, the angle she had to work with awkward. The leather refused to give more than a few tiny scores in its hide, but she continued to work, yanking the blade in gawky movements. Soon scores turned to gouges, gouges to a unified slit. Already her hand was growing tired and cramped, but she would not allow herself to pause for a second.
The voices came nearer.
Another slice, another thrumming heartbeat pounding in her ear, escalating the adrenaline that urged her on, even though part of her already recognized she wasn’t going to make it.
Halfway through!
“What the…?” The doctor paused in the doorway, surveying the scattered instruments with unhindered bemusement. Then his gaze darted to the scalpel in her fist.