Standing, he grinned. “Just so you don’t get any ideas while we set up.” His dark hair was as rumpled as his clothing. Shadows under his eyes, spite bracketing his mouth. A spoiled little asshole who needed to die.
“You know what? I’ll tie your hands too. Just to be safe.” Clicking his fingers at the younger mercenary, he barked, “Another tieback.”
The request was brought.
Drake jerked me to my feet, the mercenary trapped my hands together, and Drake wrapped the velvet around and around until I was bound.
“Nice and snug?” Drake kissed the top of my shoulder, suffocating me with his conceited pride.
Had he noticed I hadn’t spoken a word to him since Monyet?
Did he care that I’d slipped into silence for protection and mockery?
As long as I kept my tongue quiet, I would not give him extra ammunition against me.
He already has enough.
“Close the doors.” Drake snapped his fingers as he opened another box that his goons brought in, rifling through the contents to fist sensors for Euphoria.
So he’d been coherent enough to take Sully’s virtual reality equipment too.
Shit.
The sounds of three sets of doors closing sent my heart skyrocketing. I looked over my shoulder as locks were turned and any concept of escape was barred.
Drake scowled at the five men in the room. “Three of you get out. Two can stay.” Arching his chin at the mercenary who’d been in the helicopter and Monyet with us and an older guy with a salt and pepper beard, he ordered, “You two, you stay. The rest leave. Stand guard outside.” He chuckled, almost as an afterthought. “There are staff in this house, by the way. Don’t shoot them. I need them to be at my beck and call.”
The three unselected men nodded and slipped through the double doors back into the first living room we’d passed. The buzz-cut guy marched over and locked them, trapping me in hell with three men.
It wasn’t the men who scared me.
It was a tiny mundane vial that held nightmares.
The same vial that Drake plucked from its four hundred bedfellows and stalked toward me. “You hungry, sexy goddess?”
I pursed my lips and didn’t reply.
“I can have my chef cook you anything you want. I saw you snag a few of my grapes, so I know you are.”
It’s a trap. A trick.
And if it wasn’t, I wouldn’t allow him to take any other liberties with me. Raping me? Drugging me? That was one thing. Feeding me? Pretending to care if I stayed alive?
No. No way.
That was the worst kind of blasphemy.
He ran his hand through my hair, making hate flow in my blood.
“We have swans on the property. Rodents too if they haven’t scurried away for winter. Or I can have the butcher cut up a lamb, a cow, a chicken...how about a turkey? Do you like turkey?” He cupped my chin, running his thumb over my bottom lip. “Ask me for anything and I’ll give it to you. I’ll feed you before I fuck you...on one condition.” He leaned forward, pressing a dry, rancid kiss to my mouth.
I ripped my face away, glowering at him.
“Whatever you request, it has to have a heartbeat. No vegetables or vegan shit. Meat and only meat.” He laughed as he deposited the sensors on the same couch I was tied to, opening each and pulling out their contents. “You’ll be staying with me for a few weeks until I tire of you. You’ll be using up a lot of energy in our...sexual perversions. You’ll need to eat eventually.” He grinned, eyeing me up and down. “Don’t worry, you’ll eat flesh to stay alive. Even Sully used to eat meat in his youth.”
I didn’t speak.
I balled my hands and stared past him to the drawn sapphire curtains. The older mercenary had pulled them over the watery sunlight, embalming us completely in the sarcophagus this house had become.
“Has he told you when his last bite of meat was?” Drake continued to arrange the sensors. “I was there, you know. I was the reason it was his last.” His sickly smirk promised I wouldn’t like this trip down memory lane.
“He somehow rescued a sheep. Don’t ask me how. He was always bringing home beasts he wasn’t supposed to. He thought he kept them hidden from me...silly brother. I watched him for a while with that sheep. I spied while he bottle-fed it. I rolled my eyes as he sourced hay in the city for a countryside creature. He was so fucking proud of that mangy woolly thing. So...it was only fitting I used it to teach him another lesson.”
He straightened with importance. “After all, that’s what big brothers do, don’t they? We guide and teach our younger siblings. Our parents were too busy with the company to bother us most days. Who else would Sullivan have learned from?”
His hands landed on my yellow shirt.
The only thing covering me. The only protection I had.
I braced myself for him to pop the buttons and tear it off me. Instead, he slowly unbuttoned me, his knuckles grazing my nipples, his proximity making me sick.
The velvet rope around my ankle made me prickle with hate and horror. If I wasn’t tied, I could try to run, but I wouldn’t get far. Either Drake would catch me or a gun would kill me.
Just breathe.
It will be over soon...
Just...breathe.
Sucking in a harsh breath, I swallowed back my despair and glowered with every loathing as Drake continued to unbutton me. “I killed that sheep personally. Unlike Sullivan, I’ve never been squeamish about animal blood.” He licked his lips as he finished with the buttons and spread open my shirt.
The lemon material gaped and clung to my shoulders, then skated traitorously down my arms and dangled off my elbows, unable to fall to the floor from my bound hands.
Drake didn’t seem to care, gawking at my nakedness.
I hated him.
Fuck, I hated him.
The natural reaction to gag gave away just how repulsive I found him.
My nostrils flared.
Fear prickled.
My nipples peaked.
Panic built.
“You find my brother attractive...yet you act as if I’m an ogre.” He licked his lips with undisguised lust, reaching out to fist my breast. “Don’t worry, pretty Eleanor. You’ll be begging me soon enough. Just like Sullivan learned to beg.”
Pinching my nipple with cruel fingernails, he bared his teeth. “Back to my story. Where was I? Oh, yes. The lamb.” He grinned. “I killed that lamb and dumped the carcass in the kitchen. I helped the family chef prepare it—said it was a special dinner for my baby brother. He came home from wherever the fuck he spent his days and tried to ignore me like he always did. However, both parents were at home that night, and they insisted on a family dinner.”
He twisted my nipple, making me flinch, his touch as grotesque as his tale.
“Sullivan picked at his meal—he was always a fussy eater, even when he was fourteen. But our parents devoured that lamb. They sang its praises. Boasted how juicy and tender it was. And I had the perfect stage to clap my brother on the back and thank him for raising the best tasting lamb in our county.”
He laughed blackly. “Should’ve seen him, Eleanor. He bolted from that table and ran all the way to the bottom of the garden where he thought he’d hidden his woolly friend. I’d left the carcass there for him. Rather nice of me, don’t you think? Allowing him to say his goodbyes.”
Letting my breast go, he ran his finger along his cheek where a silver scar of his own glittered in the lowlights of this crypt. “Can you believe, he grabbed a leg bone and struck me with it, the bastard. He attacked me quicker than I could defend myself. Drew blood and everything.”
He smirked as he reached for the earbud box and pulled out both sensors. “That was the first time our parents blew up at Sullivan instead of me for violence. They grounded him. Took me to the hospital—I had to have ten stitches—and then they sat us down and made us promise we’d be better siblings. That we would stop our war over things they couldn’t understand
.”
Drake’s voice faded somewhat as he shoved the earbuds inside my ears. He’d learned how the sensors worked. He didn’t ask permission to tether me to a virtual reality that would undoubtedly ruin me. He didn’t stop talking about the past as he smeared the scent deceptor under my nose and rubbed oil into my nakedness. “You know...you’re the first girlfriend he’s ever had.”
His fingers encroached in places I begged to wash with bleach.
He stroked me indecently.
He spun me around and kissed the back of my neck, nuzzling into my hair as he squeezed my ass with oily hands. “I can’t wait to see what made you so special.” He grabbed both my breasts from behind, making me jolt.
The two mercenaries watched from their posts by the doors.
Yet another experience where men watched me get fucked.
The only problem was...I would rather I put on any kind of show for them if only they’d kill Drake so he stopped touching me.
“Do you have any idea what it’s like to have a brother who’s such a fucking reject? A vegetarian. An animal lover. A cunt who didn’t even like his own species enough to get laid.”
Wiping his hands on his trousers, he grabbed the fingerprint sensors. Staring at the sheet of touch-deception stickers, he rolled his eyes. “We don’t need this one, do we? When you touch me, I want you to know it’s me you’re touching and not him.”
He chuckled again as he threw the sheet away and grabbed the eye lenses. Screwing open the small containers, he loomed over me.
The binds on my wrists bit into me as I struggled to protect myself.
It took everything I had not to bite him as he attempted to drop the lens into my eyes. I squeezed them closed, tilting my head away.
No way would I enable this.
“Bill, come here. You and whatever his name is finish putting those in her eyes.”
The two mercenaries came forward.
There was no squirmish or battle. The older one grabbed me, smearing the oil on my skin as he dug painful fingers into my eye socket and ripped open my eyelid, while the buzz-cut one plopped the lens directly over my pupil in a choreographed move that left me completely at their mercy.
No!
I blinked as the world distorted.
I bit down on a scream as the other lens was inserted.
By the time they let me go and I could see through the haze, Drake stood before me naked. His cock still held redness from being with Jess so many times and his belly held muscles not nearly as defined as Sully’s.
A few odd-shaped scars rested over his hip bones hinting that it wasn’t just his face that’d received plastic surgery. Liposuction was also possible.
He caught me looking, his vain ego preening. “Like my cock, Jinx? It’s the last one you’ll have before you die.”
I raised my bound hands.
Don’t do it.
Don’t.
I held up one finger.
I didn’t speak but my message was clear.
Fuck.
You.
He just chuckled, quickly shoving earbuds in his own ears and lenses over his eyes. “Oh, I plan on fucking you right back, don’t you worry about that.” Dumping handfuls of oil over himself, he applied the nasal deceptor and swirled the mouthwash...wanting the full experience. However, he didn’t bother with the fingerprint sensors...wanting to touch me instead of a fantasy.
“Right then.” He smiled with his head cocked. “I think it’s time we begin our little fuck session, don’t you?” Palming the vial of elixir he’d left out of my reach, he clucked his tongue. “Oh, almost forgot.” Ducking to pick up his trousers on the floor, he pulled free a cell phone.
A phone that was familiar.
Shit.
Sully...
He nodded, seeing where my thoughts had strayed. “I found it on the path when we came searching for my wayward brother. Imagine my surprise that the screen was still unlocked, the Euphoria app still open, and all ready to load another fantasy.” He wriggled the screen in front of me, revealing lines of code and a load button.
The app that I’d seen Sully typing into each time before he’d sent me under was a travesty.
If he’s figured out how to use that...
“I’ve been playing with it while you slept from Dubai to Geneva.” He ran his thumb over the screen. “Pretty sure I just press this button and whoever is wearing the sensors is whisked away to play.” He carefully placed the phone onto the couch, too far for me to stomp and smash it.
“One final thing before we leave, though.” His actions slipped into fatal as he uncapped the tiny vial of elixir and stepped into me. “Drink up.”
His thigh went between mine.
His erection wedged against my belly.
Our skin sucked together with oil.
I inhaled deeply, doing my best to fill my lungs with oxygen.
Not again.
Not again!
Dr Campbell said another dose of elixir and I might die.
No!
Drake cupped the back of my head, his fingers digging hard. “Don’t fight. I’ll just hurt you until you swallow.” Yanking my hair, he jerked my spine into an unnatural bow.
Tears sprang to my eyes.
Pain ricocheted down my back.
The vial pressed between my lips.
“No. Don’t. It will stop my heart.” My first words in hours. A beg for my life from the devil.
He shrugged. “Don’t care.” Tipping the fragrant sugary nightmare, he splashed the entire contents onto my tongue.
I went to spit, to vomit, to expel it in any way possible, but he’d learned from Jealousy when she’d fed him elixir to save me. His mouth clamped over mine. Keeping the liquid inside me, his nose pushing hot air against my cheeks.
Elixir tingled. It burned a hole through my tongue. It promised to poison me even if I didn’t swallow.
He groaned as he rubbed himself against me.
I choked.
His fingers pinched my nose.
I thrashed.
His cock pulsed against my belly.
I fought.
My lungs screamed for air.
His fingers granted no sip of oxygen.
I burned through valuable energy as I battled and squirmed and tried to push away his kiss.
But in the end...I lost.
I always fucking lost.
Natural instinct overrode my stubbornness.
Reflex made me gulp.
Elixir tumbled down my throat.
Drake slipped his tongue into my mouth, ensuring every drop had been ingested.
Only then did he pull away, smile as if I was his every erotic wish, then bent to the side and grabbed Sully’s cell phone.
“See you soon, Jinx.”
He pressed the button...and everything went white.
Chapter Six
I WAS SICK TO fucking death of helicopters.
At least this one had its doors firmly shut and flew over a wintry city instead of a tropical sea. Larger than my own, it sat thirteen mercenaries plus me.
My one-hour handicap behind Drake had now been reduced to thirteen minutes. I’d bribed the tanker who refuelled us in Dubai and learned Drake had taken twenty-two minutes to fill his gas quota while I only took twelve.
Couple that with him driving to our parents’ estate instead of flying, I was shaving time every minute, stealing it back, hoarding the seconds and getting closer to the end.
“The other team will meet us there. They’re six minutes away.”
“Did Jon-Paul secure what I requested?” I tore my attention from the rooftops beneath me and focused on the eager killer for hire. I had no opinion over his or his colleagues’ career choice. No moral requirement not to use their services.
People were about to die, and I didn’t give a shit.
It was convenient I could rent such a team.
“Yes.” The blond guy nodded, his hands clenching between his legs. “Your phone call cl
eared the handover. All they had to do was land on the emergency helipad and a nurse was there with the package.”
“Good.” I turned back to the window, my mind still razor-sharp and shrewd. I hadn’t slept a wink the entire eternal journey from Indonesia. I didn’t need sleep. All fatigue, fury, and emotions had been stripped away.
I was clinical in all things, which allowed rationality to plot ahead.
If there was some chance of me surviving the inevitable death in my future, I owed it to Eleanor to at least attempt to reverse it.
It was Cal who dangled potential hope.
I wasn’t afraid of dying. I never had been. But I was afraid to leave the one person who’d made my life infinitely better.
Therefore, I’d activated a resuscitation plan. One chance to kill the old Sully and let a new one be reborn. Thanks to my connections within big Pharma, and my regular donations and breakthroughs to modern medicine, I had acquaintances in Geneva only too happy to give me the two items on my list.
A travel defib and a strong sedative.
A simple phone call, a rendezvous on the top of the hospital’s roof where mortally ill patients arrived by air, and a quick handover to the leader of the mercenaries following us, and it was done.
Whether or not it would work...I guess, we’ll find out.
Either way, Eleanor couldn’t be mad at me if I did die because at least I’d tried to stay with her. I did my best, and if I failed...that was fate’s choice.
“Three minutes, Sinclair,” an older mercenary muttered, touching his ear where an earpiece relayed information.
I nodded and pulled my cell phone free. Scrolling the copy of my contacts, I brought up the number for the head housekeeper of the Geneva estate. I hadn’t visited this place in years, but our staff were loyal because we paid well.
If Mrs. Betha Bixel still ran the household, she might give me loyalty over Drake who visited more often. He’d never been her favourite person after she’d been the one to clean up swan feathers after he’d snared one and plucked it, alive, in his bedroom.
I wished there was some explanation for Drake’s maliciousness—some excuse or cure for whatever psychosis he embraced. But the fact was, he was just born wrong. Rotten to his core and noxious in every way.
Fifth a Fury (Goddess Isles, #5) Page 5