by J. M. Davies
Marcus opened the folder that Steel had given him. All his personal details—height, weight, eye color, parents’ particulars, his father’s death, his school, education, his juvenile record—hell, everything was in this file. Ex-girlfriends, every mission he’d served on, the number of kills and the list of medals and achievements. Finally, there were two pictures of Ella: one as she was when he first met her, barely recognizable with long, nondescript hair and brown eyes behind timid glasses and a picture from days ago at the airport with her wavy blonde hair and vivid blue eyes. He swallowed and abruptly closed the file.
“I choose my own men. I get to choose who watches over Ella, and she doesn’t get to hear about this conversation we’re having right now. Another thing: there are a few things about Ella and me that you should know.”
Steel leaned back against the table, crossed his arms and pinched his nose with his left hand.
“Does what you need to tell me affect your decision?” Steel didn’t look at Marcus; he just stared at the ground.
“No, but—”
“Drayton, it will have to keep. The tactical team is ready to move and if you want to save your lady, you need to leave now.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Since Ella had been dragged through the woods on Saturday evening, she had been hit repeatedly across the face by the man who held her as she struggled and when she kicked out at the muscled thug and landed her foot directly in his torso, a swift stabbing pain sliced through her neck and brought her to the ground. Hours later, she woke up, her eyelids heavy and her gaze woozy as she lay on her side coiled in the fetal position; wet drool ran down her cheek. When she lifted her head, her cheeks throbbed from the bruising and her mouth was bone dry. A nasty bitter taste lingered, making her long for a drink, and her head thumped in pain, along with an incredible wave of déjà vu. Looking around the tiny cell, there wasn’t much to see. The walls were chalk-white and covered in graffiti with slogans like Go Fuck Yourself and a variety of names with dates surrounded in a heart shape.
A small window no bigger than ten-by-ten inches let a fraction of sunlight in but she wouldn’t be able to reach it and wouldn’t be able to fit through it even if she could somehow smash the pane of the glass. The smell of urine was overpowering and her skin itched, making her want to scratch all over. A tickle on her shoulder made her jump; a huge brown cockroach wriggled into view. She screamed and brushed the bug off her but the sudden change in momentum caused bile to rise up in her throat, which she pushed back down. At that moment, her jailor and the man who didn’t hold back when it came to hitting a woman opened the wooden door wide, letting brisk but clean air enter. He blocked her exit.
“Don’t even think about giving me any trouble. The master said I can do anything I like to get you to do as you’re told, bitch. Do you hear me?” His large grubby hand rubbed his crotch.
Ella stared up at the greasy slime ball. His face was round and dirty stubble covered his chin and cheeks. His weasel brown eyes pinned her to the spot. She didn’t want to be cornered in a room with this bulldog of a man; she’d been tortured in her previous lives but she’d never been raped and the thought of this man touching her was enough to make her want to die right now. A heaving sensation wouldn’t settle and, unable to gain control, her stomach reached up and she vomited on the ground.
“You dirty bitch.” The man’s hand walloped right across Ella’s head and she crashed to the ground. She didn’t lose consciousness quite then as she heard a ringing noise in her ear and Aidan’s sharp shrill voice yelling at the man. A sting in her arm made her jerk forward before she blacked out again.
Ella gasped and jerked her head as freezing water shocked her face and ran down her exposed and mostly naked body. Her gauzy top and jeans were missing; all she wore was her skimpy bra and barely there thong. Two large and silent men in camouflage pants and dark tops held her upright as her legs buckled and someone hosed her down in the tiled shower cubicle. She blinked as water rained down her cheeks, drenching her, and her body was numb with the cold but an explosive fury was gathering up a storm.
“Get her out of there and get her dry.” Aidan’s voice boomed from the back as he hovered behind the man who hosed her down. The man who had hit her was absent. Her head lolled as the two men lifted and carried her out of the shower.
“Ella, put this on before one of the men loses control. God knows I have to keep my men happy but it won’t help my plans any. So cover that delectable body of yours before it’s ravaged.”
He flung a thick white gown at the guard and when she stood on her own bare feet with her head low, the men on either side of her released her and handed her the clothing. She sunk her arms inside the material, letting the thickness of the plush cotton warm her. Ella thought briefly about kicking out at both but didn’t want to end up injected with any more drugs. God only knew what they were giving her, but as she was losing consciousness, the burning sting in her arm was the last thing she remembered. Standing here, despite her terrifying circumstances, an unbearable and incontrollable heat gathered in her core, almost overwhelming. She tightened the gown with the white soft belt. She refused to look at any of the men but pinned her gaze on Aidan, who lowered his head down and pointed his sharp chin at the ground as his eyes met hers.
“How are you feeling, dear Ella?”
A nervous sensation raced through her. He smiled, as if he knew something that she didn’t, and it made her more on edge than ever, but she tried to remain calm, not wanting to show any fear. She spat in his face.
He bounced back and raised his hand way up in the air, ready to strike her, but he stopped. Instead, he looked over his shoulder at one of the guards. “Bring her into the examination room. I don’t think she’s had enough. She needs a bigger dose, and then we can begin the first test, Ella, which may be your last if you don’t cooperate.”
Once again, the two goons who said nothing but simply nodded to Aidan, gripped an arm each and dragged her down the corridor, taking a left and after several feet, dragged her toward a door. She pressed her feet on the linoleum floor, but they pulled her and eventually hoisted her off the ground to carry her inside a huge laboratory slash medical examiner’s room with virgin white walls and gleaming shiny steel cabinets and steel tables. Cupboards hung on the wall, along with shelving with every manner of surgical supplies and dressings. There was a long steel shelf with a range of different size jars and glass containers that held eyeballs, a heart, a liver, and other parts of the body pickled in a clear liquid solution. The aroma in the room was strong and suffocating. The room was modern and antiseptic-looking but memories of the dungeon where she was splayed open and exposed for everyone to gawp at as she was tortured gripped her throat.
They were going to keep hurting her. Ella shook her arms, trying to break the hold the guards had over her, but their grip was unyielding, and they led her farther into the room and dumped her in the gray metal chair positioned in the middle of the room. With her head tilted up slightly, she breathed in through her nostrils, trying to steady her frantic heart, and stared at Aidan, now dressed in a white coat and wearing rubber gloves, with a long needle in his hand. His hair stuck out at odd angles, as if he’d been pulling at the roots, and his eyes stared wide behind his glasses.
“I know you want answers, Ella, but the only answer I can give you is that the pay a professor gets sucks. This little sideline is not only far more satisfying, but it pays extremely well. I am a scientist, but after a few issues with my trials in which everyone overreacted, I lost my license and was discredited, forcing me to reconstruct my whole persona. Thanks to a very eager but very stupid history professor who ended up as a corpse, I found my new identity. You see, I have a gift for memorizing everything. Becoming the professor was easy but this is me, here in the laboratory, experimenting, and you’re my latest guinea pig, Ella.”
Ella sat there, legs inches apart, and watched as the professor waved the syringe with yellow liquid back and forth lik
e a flag. Her heart pounded and she wet her lips. Just as she was about to pounce for Aidan, a shot fired directly at her from the left. The bully of a man who had hit her for the third time stood there with a black eye, wielding a gun, and he fired. Pop, pop, pop.
In a split second as Ella charged at the professor, the bullet penetrated her and she staggered before she dropped to the ground. Blood pooled out around her belly. She expected pandemonium but the professor very calmly knelt over her, injected the fluid into her neck, and whispered, “It’s up to you now, Ella. Show us your gift—show us, or you will die.”
Ella’s body jerked and twitched. She was cold; the belt around her waist unraveled to expose her creamy skin now soaked with oozing blood. Yet, hovering in the background, a fever was brewing, a rising sensation of needing something. She licked her lips and stared up at Aidan. How could she be feeling desire when she was dying? She pressed her hands on her belly, pushing hard, and screamed out at the agony. Spasms of pain ricocheted throughout her body. She was going to die if she didn’t fix the gunshot wound. As her hands splayed across her body, Aidan pushed her over so she lay on her back and gazed up at the ceiling as her eyes rolled back.
“I want to see your magic, Ella.”
For a moment, Ella drifted away to another plane as memories of her previous lives clashed and the voices called out to her: Come on. Her finger touched the small hole in her belly, rubbing around the site in a circle as she squeezed her stomach muscles and grunted. She visualized the bullet, which hadn’t exited through her back but sat between her stomach and spleen. Bleeding internally, it wouldn’t be long before she became unconscious and died. This would be it. She and Marcus weren’t mated. She wasn’t immortal. If she couldn’t withdraw the bullet, heal the ruptured organs, and stop the bleeding, she would die. In every life, Ella was alone and it would always be that way.
No one was going to save her except herself, and she wasn’t going to die today. Calling out to the forces of nature, she collected the energy of the air around her; she called to Ariana to help her, and on the spirits of her dead ancestors to give her the power to heal her injured body. Her heart pumped faster and faster, sending urgent blood to where it was needed to repair the damage, and her body shook violently.
The professor stood and shouted but she couldn’t make out the words. Gunfire sounded but she focused on her heart pumping blood and the need for the bullet to be removed to stop the bleeding. She screamed and rolled onto her side, grabbing her belly, and bucked as shooting pain exploded inside. A stampeding of several heavy boots charged across the room but as she blinked, all she could see was a beautiful angel, all golden and white with arms outstretched.
“I’m ready.”
“You must fight, Ella.”
****
Flashes of the past twenty-four hours replayed inside Ella’s head. She knew she was alive because she could hear soft whispers around her but she was almost too scared to open her eyes. Lifting her eyelids open gently, she lay still, afraid and too weak to move. The images in her head made her breathing speed up and a cold sweat rippled across her shoulders. She tried to be brave but pain was pain and she was too weak to numb it. A stray tear fell down her cheek. She moved her head to the side, straining to see clearly and attempting to understand where she was.
Marcus sat in a chair near the bed, with his hands on his knees, and stared at her with his black coffee-colored eyes narrowed as she met his gaze. Dark stubble spread over his chin and strands of his ebony hair flopped over his forehead in disarray. He was dressed in worn jeans and a thick brown turtleneck sweater. Casual, but he looked good enough to eat to her. She smiled; she didn’t want to but she couldn’t help it as his dark eyes probed her face. Her heart soared to life and did a crazy dance. He was here. He had saved her. It didn’t matter that he hadn’t actually been the one to stop the gun from firing; he hadn’t stopped her from being hit but he was here now. She blinked just in case he wasn’t real but when his warm, strong hand touched hers gently, she gasped and the jolt of heat pulsed through her body, shocking her awake. A tingling from her belly spread out and she gripped his hand, unwilling to break the contact. Her mouth was dry and her throat ached but another ache ignited like a fever; she couldn’t help but squeeze his hand tightly. Marcus inched closer and leaned over the bed; the smell of his aftershave filled her.
“You need to get me out of here now because I need something the nurse cannot give me and I need it stat.”
Marcus’s eyes darkened and instead of moving away, he closed the gap and kissed her lips with the softest of kisses.
“Aren’t you in pain?”
“Yes, the kind only you can relieve.” She stared at him with her bright blue eyes.
“Your wish is my command but we need to have a serious talk later. I’ll go and sign the discharge papers while you get changed. I brought some clean clothes, which are in the locker. Can you do that or do you need me to help you?”
Ella stared up at Marcus, who hadn’t smiled since she’d woken up, and knowing that they needed to have a talk was confirmation that something bad was about to happen. But he was here with her now and that was good enough for the moment. She would deal with the loss later but it was there in his sad eyes: he was leaving her. Hiding her devastation and sudden emptiness, she carried on as normal.
“If you help me get dressed, we won’t be leaving here for a while and this bed isn’t big enough.”
No smile; he simply nodded curtly and disappeared out of the room. Ella hopped out of bed, wincing, but rubbed her belly to ease the pain. She ripped off the pale blue hospital gown and stared down at where she had been shot. There was no evidence of the gaping bloody hole at all. She threw the gown on the bed. She was naked and hoped when he said clothes, he had included underwear. In the bedside locker was a plastic bag with a red and black checked shirt, blue denim jeans, and a set of red silky underwear. She stared at them. Marcus knew her size and the thin satin wisps of material increased the rising desire that had been there from the moment her eyes rested on his. She didn’t want to talk about what had happened; she didn’t want to talk about the future; she didn’t want to talk—full stop. She just wanted to feel him against her, inside her. Dressing quickly, she buttoned her jeans as Marcus walked back in the room; he stopped as his eyes roamed over her entire body. Her hair was a mass of unruly waves that rested at the top of her breasts.
Two seconds later, he wrapped his arms around her so tight she couldn’t breathe and he stroked his hand down her hair before he tipped her chin up to meet his lips.
“Are you wearing the underwear I brought?” His voice was low and hoarse.
Ella nodded, unable to speak.
Releasing his hold, he moved her forward, his hand on her waist as he pushed the door open and a nurse stood there with some papers.
“Like I said to your husband, we’re happy to discharge you but you need to be looked after for the next twenty-four hours just to be on the safe side. Here’s a list of signs and symptoms to watch out for. If you’re worried at all, just call the number on the bottom of the page and come straight back in. You had a lot of blood for a nosebleed. Do you get them often?”
The small dark-haired nurse looked seriously at Ella, dismissing Marcus, and for a moment, she wasn’t sure of the story that had been told but she smiled and nodded.
“Since I was a little girl. Even the smell of the blood is enough to make me keel over.” She held Marcus’s hand tighter.
“I’m sorry. I just have one more question before you go. Do you feel safe at home?”
Ella was so taken back by the question she didn’t answer immediately and stared up at Marcus, who remained stiff and expressionless at her side. During the shooting, Ella had been fixated on the abdominal wound but she now remembered the several direct hits she’d received to the face and as she smiled, felt her cheeks throb. Realizing that the bruising must still be evident, it was enough to make the nurse concerned as to whether her
husband was abusing her.
“Yes, I am safe at home.” Unconsciously, she palmed her cheek. “Do I look a mess?”
The nurse looked at her but Marcus answered. “You never look a mess, Ella, and the bruising will fade. But we need to be more careful from now on. Come on, so I can take you home.”
The nurse shifted a sideways glance at Marcus, who was at least a foot taller than her. “Make sure that you do.” The petite nurse didn’t smile at him at all and for once Ella observed a female who wasn’t completely bowled over by his swoon-worthy looks. She handed Ella a card, which she looked at and pocketed. She stared up at Marcus and they walked out of the room. Walking down the corridor and outside into the cold, early hours of Sunday morning, she shivered. The sirens of passing ambulances drowned out any conversation but Ella continued to shiver.
“You’re freezing. Take my coat—I didn’t think.” He removed his leather jacket and placed it around Ella’s small shoulders, pulling it tight across the front. He tugged on her hand and led her to the Range Rover. He settled Ella inside before he moved to his side. Ella sat in the leather seat, waiting…knowing he was going to leave her. Already, a sense of loss invaded her the more time they were together. She placed her seat belt over her and placed her hands under her bottom, in case she couldn’t help but reach out to touch him. Staring ahead and resting back into the seat, she let him drive her away from the early-morning traffic and flashing lights.
“Ella, are you asleep?”
She must have closed her eyes without even realizing it and warmer now from the heater and the jacket that surrounded her, she opened her eyes. They were in the parking lot of the hotel. Marcus had turned to face her and had his hand on her cheek, smoothing the skin in unsettling sweeping circles.
“Ella, I need to tell you something.”
She took a deep breath; she knew what was coming and was prepared for it. He had said all along that he would walk away, that all they had was sex. She hadn’t wanted to believe it but here it was. A coiling, fluttering need gripped her and she placed her hand on his, moving it to her breast, and she applied pressure.