Tall, Dark & Furious (A Pyte/Sentinel Novel Book 6)

by R. L. Mathewson

  She laid there for several long minutes as she waited for the throbbing pain to subside. When she tried to move, it was only to find her hands and feet bound. It took a minute before it all came back to her and when it did…

  Her eyes flew open to find a young man with sandy brown hair kneeling in front of her. She had to squint against the bright ceiling light above her head that let her know that someone had switched out the fuses and turned the power back on.

  “She’s awake, Richard,” he announced, looking over his shoulder at the red-headed man who was now shirtless and covered in white dust.

  Richard wiped his brow with the back of his hand and shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. We’ll have to kill her when we’re done here,” he said in a bored tone that terrified her more than if he had yelled it. He was so damn calm about it, letting her know that killing her wouldn’t be a problem.

  She felt her heart pound against her chest as she opened her mouth to plead with him only to discover that her mouth had been taped shut. Frustrated tears rolled down her face as she struggled against her binds.

  “Don’t waste your energy,” the young man in front of her said. “You’re not going anywhere.” He looked back at the men tearing the basement wall apart before looking back down at her and drew out a large buck knife from the sheath on his leather belt. “If you want, we can get this over with now,” he offered quietly.

  Samantha quickly shook her head. She didn’t want to get this over with now. She didn’t want to get this over with at all. He shrugged as he got to his feet. “Suit yourself,” he said, returning to the group of men as they tore several rocks away from the wall, revealing a large black hole.

  Her eyes darted to the cellar doors only to find them closed. Not that she really thought Charlie would defend her, but it would have been a nice distraction that she might have been able to use to her advantage. A loud grunt had her looking back at the men as they removed a large rock, making her wonder what they were looking for.

  One of the men looked over at her as he wiped the sweat off his forehead with the back of his arm. “What do you want to do with her body?”

  She whimpered against the tape.

  Richard gestured lazily to the hole they were clearing. “We’ll put her in there with him.”

  Her eyes widened in horror as she looked at the hole. This really could not be happening. They were wrong about a body being in there just like they were wrong about this basement. They’d never been here before. It was impossible. They’d realize their mistake soon and hopefully, leave. But she knew that once they discovered their mistake, they’d simply kill her and throw her in that hole they’d just made.

  Oh, god...

  She was staring at her tomb.

  This time when the darkness threatened to take over her, she didn’t fight it. She welcomed it, praying that when she woke up, this would all just be a bad dream.

  *-*-*-*

  “There he is!” someone shouted, once again rousing Samantha from a peaceful bliss that she never wanted to leave and threw her back into this nightmare.

  Slowly, she opened her eyes, doing her best to ignore the throbbing pain tearing her head apart and watched as several large men slapped each other on the back and laughed as they pointed at something inside the large hole. It took her a moment before realization hit and when it did, she tried frantically to break free from her bonds.

  “I told you that he was still in there. I don’t know why the fuck you had to drag everyone back to this shithole,” a man with short blond hair said, gesturing angrily towards something in the large hole in the wall. “We should have just ditched that bitch and hung out in Germany for a month.”

  “Would have been a hell of a lot more fun than this,” one of the men grumbled.

  “Anything would be more fun than being that bitch’s errand boy,” the man who’d offered to kill her earlier said.

  “Shut the fuck up,” Richard said, glaring at his men. “I promised my mate I’d take care of this unfinished business and that’s exactly what we’re going to do.”

  The man with the blonde hair snorted. “How in the hell was this unfinished business? We all knew the little bastard was dead when we stuffed him in there. If she was so damned concerned about it, she should have gotten off her pampered ass and come taken a look for herself.”

  “It’s the least that bitch could do since she started all this shit. I’m so fucking sick of dodging that crazy leech. I say we let him have her so-”

  Whatever the man was about to say was cut off when Richard grabbed him by his neck and raised him off the ground. Samantha’s eyes widened as she watched Richard slam him against the wall.

  “I’m sick of repeating myself,” Richard said coldly. “We are not going to hand over my mate. Do you understand?”

  The man nodded jerkily as he tried to pry Richard’s hand off his throat. Richard looked at the other men expectantly. “Understood?” After a slight pause, the rest of the men reluctantly agreed.

  “Good. Now let’s stop this bullshit and make sure the little bastard is really dead.”

  “What about the leech? Maybe we should give him the body so that he’ll finally leave us alone,” a man with a large tribal tattoo on his neck suggested.

  “You’re a fucking idiot!” Richard spat. “We give him proof that we killed the little bastard and he’ll make what he did to us in 1849 look like a fucking picnic. Our only hope is to try and catch him when he comes back to the area.”

  The man rubbing his neck asked, “How do we know he really comes back here? For all we know, this could be a trap he set to finally kill the rest of us off.”

  “It’s a chance we’ll have to take,” Richard said, turning back around and leaning against the edge of the hole while he spoke to the other men. “After we kill the human, we’ll stuff her body in there with him and reseal it. Then we’ll stay here and wait for him to show up in town.”

  A fresh wave of fear took over, but this time it wasn’t for her. Nathan would be coming back in a few weeks. Frustrated tears ran down her face as she struggled again, wishing there was some way that she could warn her brother to stay away. She no longer cared about what they did to her as long as Nathan was okay. She’d do anything to keep him safe. She prayed they removed her gag before killing her so that she could try to convince them to leave the house and give Nathan a chance.

  “Fine,” the man who’d offered to kill her earlier said, sighing heavily, “let’s kill her and get it over with. I’m fucking starving, and Henry’s is having a two for one deal on hot wings and beer tonight.”

  If Samantha hadn’t been so worried about what they would do to her brother, she would have been outraged over how callously they were discussing killing her. Ignoring the throbbing pain at the back of her skull and her temple, she tried to turn over so that she could sit up, praying that she could manage to hide or get free, anything to buy herself some time.

  Just when she’d managed to roll over onto her back someone grabbed her by her hair and dragged her to her feet. The piece of duct tape covering her mouth muffled her scream of agony as she was forced to stay on her feet when a wave of dizziness threatened to make her legs give out. The rope around her ankles was sliced off and then she was moving, stumbling as she tried to pull free.

  “Should we shoot her or slit her throat?” the man dragging her towards the hole asked.

  “Break her neck or just stuff her in there. Cleaning up the blood will take too fucking long,” Richard said, sounding bored.

  Samantha screamed against the tape as she was dragged closer to Richard and that large hole they planned on shoving her in. She forced herself to breathe through the pain even as her brain begged her to shut down. If she blacked out this time, her only chance to save Nathan would be gone. She needed to find a way out of this.

  When she was only a few feet from Richard and the rest of the men, she began to kick out, hoping to piss them off enough that they just threw her in the hol
e without killing her so that she could try and claw her way back out. She knew that Nathan would have already found a way out of this, but she wasn’t him, and she was too damn desperate and scared to try and figure out what her brother would do right now.

  “Control her,” Richard snapped when she came close to kicking him in the shin.

  She was just about to aim for his balls when movement from behind him caught her attention. A scream caught in her throat as she watched a thin ghostlike creature with long, tangled hair slowly move behind Richard. He frowned down at her just as the creature grabbed him by the hair and yanked him back, catching him by surprise.

  “What the hell-argh!” he yelled, as the creature latched onto his neck while she stood there, too shocked to do anything but watch as two lines of blood ran down his neck.

  “He’s alive!” one of the men screamed as she was thrown on the floor.

  She landed hard, slamming her head against the floor only to scream against the tape seconds later when one of the men tripped over her and knocked one of the lanterns over, throwing it against the stone wall where it shattered. After that, another lantern and then another was shattered until the only light left was the ceiling light and even that didn’t last long. Once the room was enveloped in darkness, the screams began.

  God, the screams…

  Bloodcurdling screams, screams of agony, and for mercy filled the large room as she squeezed her eyes closed and curled into herself, wishing that her hands were free so she could cover her ears and block everything out. It was like nothing that she’d ever heard before, and God willing, would never hear again.

  “Get him the fuck off me!” one of the men screamed.

  There was no time to wonder what happened to Richard, not that she really cared. He’d planned on killing her after all, but she was worried that she had something more terrifying than these men to worry about now.

  She screamed against her gag in agony as something large fell on top of her, slamming her already battered head against the rock floor in the process. Seconds later, the weight was removed and she forced herself to rollover until she hit the wall. Samantha pressed herself against it as tightly as she could, praying that whatever that thing was left along with the men trying to flee.

  One minute, the room was filled with bloodcurdling screams, and the next, everything suddenly stopped so that the only thing she could hear was the sounds of her panicked breaths rushing in and out of her lungs. She almost wished the screams started again as she tried to listen for any proof that she wasn’t alone with that thing. It took her a moment before she realized that she was wasting time lying there. She’d prayed for a chance to warn her brother and now that she had one, she was wasting it. She needed to get upstairs and send Nathan a text message to warn him before whatever chance she had to save her brother was gone.

  Trying to ignore the pain shooting through her skull, she rolled over onto her back and tried to sit up. After the third try, she managed to sit up and lean back against the cool stone wall. Using the wall to push herself up, she slowly stood up only to stumble and fall onto her side when the pain shooting through her head became too much. Refusing to give up, she closed her eyes and tried to breathe through the pain.

  After a moment, she managed to sit back up and nearly fell back down when a shot of stabbing pain slammed into her head, letting her know that she probably had a concussion. Knowing there was nothing that she could do about it now, she bent her knees and slowly pushed to stand up. She moved a foot without passing out, so she did it again and again until she ended up banging her head against an uneven stone sticking out of the wall, sending her back on her ass with a cry of pain that was muffled by the duct tape.

  As she sat there trying to breathe through the pain, she tried to figure out where she was. Somehow in the last ten minutes, she’d managed to become disoriented. She didn’t know if she was near the small tunnel or one of the sidewalls but prayed that it was the small tunnel since she wouldn’t be able to open the bulk doors with her hands bound behind her back like this.

  If she wasn’t near the tunnel, she was going to have to figure out a way to get to it without being noticed by whatever that thing from the wall was. Part of her hoped that it had forgotten about her and fled because there was no way that she was going to be able to…to…

  Warm, stale breath with a metallic undertone suddenly washed over her face, cutting off her train of thought and taking her terror to a whole new level. Even though it was pointless, she squeezed her eyes shut as she waited for it to kill her only to end up sneezing when she caught the scent of dust.

  A startled growl vibrated next to her ear as a fresh wave of panic tore through her. She whimpered against her gag even as everything became a bit fuzzy. Glad that she wouldn’t be conscious for whatever the creature had planned for her, she passed out.

  Chapter 3

  The growl took him by surprise, shifting everything from various shades of blue back to the red that had matched his rage as he’d torn the men apart that had put him here. But even the revenge that he’d waited so long for couldn’t compare to this moment, Trace realized with satisfaction as he watched the small woman that he’d scented only moments before slump back against the stone wall with a sickening thud.

  Her scent had him closing his eyes and slowly inhaling with a growl. While the shifter blood had been richer than anything that he’d ever experienced before, her scent was sweet and intoxicating. Opening his eyes, Trace leaned in closer and noted the dust and dirt covering her from head to toe, the scrapes and bruises marking the side of her face, the scent of her blood pooling beneath her skin on the back of her head, letting him know that she was injured, and he had to wonder why he wasn’t giving in to the urge to sink his fangs into the curve of her delicate neck and find out just how sweet she really was.

  Looking up, Trace took in the stone room they were in, the shelves lining the back walls filled with things that he didn’t recognize, to the strange clothes the shifters wore, and finally back to the woman passed out on the floor and realized that he was going to need her. It also made him realize just how much had changed since they’d put him in that hole and everything that he’d lost, his father, his future, his humanity, and eventually, any hope of escape. There were no words to describe the terror that had slammed into him when he’d opened his eyes and found himself trapped in that hole, struggling to breathe air that wasn’t there. That terror had quickly turned to hope when he’d realized that he’d changed only to realize that his immortality hadn’t saved him.

  It had doomed him.

  He’d been too weak to do anything more than scream until his throat was raw and all he could do was kneel on the unforgiving stone floor while all of his new abilities had tormented him. The sounds of him gasping for air that had run out long ago, the rustle of his clothing, and every sound that he’d made had been sharper than anything that he’d ever heard before. His lungs burned as he’d clawed at the stones, struggling to find a way out while his ability to see everything perfectly in various shades of blue had quickly destroyed him, making it impossible for him to pretend that it was all just a bad dream.

  It wasn’t long before he gave up hope that he would die. When his body should have given out from suffocation, he was able to go on so that he could starve to death, watching his body slowly waste away until he was nothing more than a skeleton, leaving him weak and barely able to move. Some time ago, he’d collapsed against the rough stone wall and stayed there.

  For so long, he’d hoped that his father would come for him. For what seemed like years, he would scream for help until his throat, bloody and raw, would give out. Then he’d use his fists, banging them against the stone wall until his hands were nothing more than bloody stumps and he could barely lift them, but by that time, his throat would be completely healed so he’d go back to screaming. It had been a never-ending cycle until the day that he was too weak to do anything more than stare down at the stone floor.

/>   Every now and then, he’d feared that he was going insane when the sounds of movement, talking, crying, and laughter would seep into his tiny tomb. By then, he’d been too weak to do anything more than sit there, taking it all in. It had been a new form of torture, knowing that everything he needed was close by and that there was nothing that he could do about it. So, he’d learned to shut everything out.

  When he heard voices this time, he would have ignored them as well except that this time, he’d recognized them. Just as Trace was about to dismiss the voices as figments of his imagination, he’d heard the first sound of metal striking rock and forced himself to listen.

  Soon it became clear that the same men who’d put him in this hell were trying to dig him out and he hadn’t cared why. The only thing that mattered to him was feeling the air filling his lungs and getting a chance to leave his tomb. In the back of his mind, Trace knew that they weren’t there to free him since he’d stopped being the naive child that was responsible for this mess a long time ago.

  As the sounds of metal hitting rock became louder, making him grind his jaw as the sound assaulted his sensitive ears, he’d realized that he would probably only get one chance to escape. It hadn’t taken long before he’d realized that his only hope was to allow them to believe that he was dead. Not that it would be difficult to convince anyone of that, he’d thought with disgust.

  The muscle beneath his skin had disappeared long ago, leaving him with thin gray skin wrapped tightly around his brittle bones. Long tangled hair matted with dust and old blood hung from his face and head, hiding his face. The only thing that could give him away was the sound of his heart beating wildly against his ribs when the first gust of air invaded his tomb and he struggled to take his first real breath since this nightmare started. It burned going down, forcing his chest to expand, but god did that first breath feel absolutely amazing when he slowly blew it out. He’d closed his eyes and savored it. His second breath had his fangs sliding down through what remained of his gums and his vision turning red as he slowly took in that intoxicating scent that had him licking his dry lips.