by Cynthia Eden
Human.
Her skin seemed to itch then, as if—as if something were moving within her. She’d felt too hot for the last few moments. Too scared. “You all think I’m being used, don’t you? That I was sent to Purgatory as some kind of power play?”
He advanced toward her, but didn’t cross the markings. “I think you’re a pawn.” There was pity in his golden eyes. “I think you had no clue what the hell you were, last week, when you were teaching those freshmen. And I think your world has been wrecked around you.”
He felt sorry for her. Maybe she could use that. Maybe she could use him. “I didn’t ask for any of this.”
“We never do.” Pain flashed, swallowing the pity in his gaze. “But we still have to live with what happens to us.”
Her eyes swept over him. This man—this werewolf—was close to Shane’s size. His shoulders were broad, his arms muscled. Where Shane was classically handsome, Connor’s face was harder. Rougher. Stubble lined his jaw and his eyes blazed with emotion.
“They’re going to dig into your life,” Connor told her. “Learn every secret that you ever kept. They won’t stop until they discover everything, and then, they’re going to give you a choice. Except it won’t be a choice, not really. You’ll either work with Pate or…”
And he didn’t finish.
She swallowed the lump that wanted to choke her. “How do you know?”
“Because that’s what they did to me.”
There was a ring of truth to his words that she couldn’t deny.
“I’ve been in Purgatory, as a prisoner.” His jaw locked. “And let’s just say I would have done anything to make sure I didn’t get caged again.”
Her shoulders were aching. The cuffs were still behind her back and she hurt. “Will you uncuff me?”
“The Para Unit uses those specifically to restrain the stronger paranormals.”
The stronger paranormals.
“The more you struggle against them, the tighter they’ll become.”
“That tidbit would have been helpful sooner,” she muttered as Olivia tried to relax and not struggle any more. That was a whole lot of too little, too late, and her aching muscles needed relief.
Her gaze slid behind Connor. “Is…is Shane outside?”
“No.” Clipped.
Did his short response mean that sharing time was over?
“Where is he?”
“He left.”
That answer shouldn’t have hurt. It did. “He…left me?”
Connor stared back at her. “He was shot several times back at Purgatory. He healed, but he needed blood to get his strength back up.”
Oh. So he’d gone to feed on someone.
Her cheeks flamed as she remembered what had occurred when he bit her. Then her stomach knotted as she realized that he was out there, and probably getting ready to sink his teeth into some other woman.
She spun on her heel, giving the wolf her back.
Olivia tried to take in deep, even breaths but her fear and fury were pumping together within her. “I guess he’s not drinking from a blood bag.” Really, would that have been too much to ask?
“No, he’s not.”
She flexed her fingers. “I can’t feel them, you know.”
Silence.
Olivia looked back at Connor. “I’ve lost all sensation in my fingers. I get that these cuffs are used on the paranormals. On the vampires. On the werewolves.” She paused a beat. That flash of pity had been real in his eyes before. Maybe she could use it. “But I’m not a werewolf. Or a vampire. These cuffs are hurting me, and I-I’m afraid…” The tremble in her voice wasn’t faked. “It’s too tight. I can’t see my fingers, but are they…are they starting to discolor?”
He inched closer.
“They are, aren’t they? Please, just loosen them for me. I don’t want to lose my hands.”
Slowly, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small set of keys.
Her breath rushed out. “Thank you.”
***
Her blood, her skin, her taste…
“Uh, is something wrong?” The woman before Shane asked, frowning up at him. She was a pretty blonde. A pretty blonde who’d been flirting with him from the moment he entered the diner. She leaned toward him, showing off a very ample bosom. “Is there something I can do for you?”
He’d taken blood too many times to count. He knew how to seduce in order to get exactly what he wanted.
He should smile at the woman. Feed her a line. Get her to walk outside with him. Then he’d find a secluded spot and feed on her.
Except…
Her scent was wrong.
Her voice was wrong.
Her hair was wrong.
She was wrong.
Shane wanted blood, all right, but not that woman’s. He hungered, he needed, but he didn’t need her.
Oh, hell, I am so screwed. Because he realized what was happening. He’d seen this same twisted shit go down before.
Growling, he spun away from the blonde. Marched back outside. The sun was still shining. Most vamps would have been hiding in the shadows right then. He wasn’t most vamps. He glared up at the sun.
And went back—almost helplessly—to her.
***
His fingers slid over her wrists. “Dammit, you did a number on yourself,” Connor muttered.
Olivia rolled her eyes. Right. Because she’d cuffed herself. The injury was totally her fault—not. “You guys should have told me that the cuffs tightened automatically. At first, I thought I was just dreaming that crap.” There was a soft snick behind her. Then finally, finally, the cuffs were falling away. Wonderful. Fantastic—
Pain.
She moaned as the feeling came back to her fingertips and that feeling was burning pain.
“Easy.” His slightly rough fingers began to stroke her hands. “I’ll help you.”
She looked down at the floor. He’d crossed the red markings on the floor in order to reach her, but he’d been careful not to smudge those strange lines. If she could catch him off-guard, maybe Olivia could shove him back and make him fall onto the marks—perhaps she could get out then.
I’ve been trapped like this before.
The knowledge was there, but she couldn’t pull it out from the depths of her mind. No matter how hard she tried, she just couldn’t remember when she’d been held prisoner like this.
Blood and fire.
“Genies grant wishes, don’t they?” Connor asked. His fingers were still rubbing her wrists, her hands.
She didn’t reply. She had no clue what genies were supposed to do. Olivia was too busy trying to figure out how to get away from him.
“I have a wish.” His head was bent toward her. He seemed to surround her, and a shiver slid over Olivia.
The werewolf is dangerous.
“I wish that I weren’t so fucking twisted on the inside.”
His gruff words catapulted her into action. She whirled around, and even though he was bigger and stronger, she was the desperate one. Olivia heaved against him. Sure enough, he stumbled back, and his booted feet slipped over the markings, smudging them.
Work, work, work—
She leapt forward, lunging across those smudged markings, and the invisible wall didn’t slap her back down. Euphoria burst through her as Olivia rushed for the door.
But a hard hand grabbed her ankle and yanked her back. She hit the floor and then he was on her. Connor grabbed her hands. Pinned them above her. His eyes were blazing—glowing with the familiar stare of a werewolf and then darkening with—with the power of a vampire?
Impossible!
“Help!”
His fangs were out.
The door flew open behind them and thudded into the wall. Then Connor was ripped off her. Tossed across the room by an enraged Shane. And Shane didn’t stop there. He flew after Connor, heading in with powerful fists and bared fangs.
Olivia staggered to her feet, then she ran out of that door. Sh
e didn’t see Pate, didn’t see anyone, and her gaze flew around frantically as she tried to find some way to escape from that area.
Light glinted off something to the right—something…she rushed forward. Yanked back a tarp and saw that the light had been shining off a motorcycle’s handlebars. Her hands searched all over the motorcycle as she chanted, “Key, key, key—”
“Olivia!”
Uh, oh. That bellow had to be Shane’s.
But even as that bellow echoed around her, Olivia’s fingers curled around the key. She had that motorcycle roaring to life two seconds later and she wobbled on the thing as she tried to steady it and get away.
“Olivia, no!”
She’d never ridden a motorcycle in her life, and the one she was on seemed freaking huge as she tried to steady it. She was struggling with the clutch and what she thought was the throttle, or maybe it was the gear shifter and—
Pate appeared in front of her. About twenty feet away. He had his gun up and aimed at her.
She was heading right for him. Olivia jerked the handlebars to the right, and that was when she lost her barely-there control on the motorcycle. The wheels spun. Gravel flew, and the motorcycle careened toward a tree.
Before the impact, the last thing she heard was Shane shouting her name.
Chapter Eight
“Come on, Olivia, open your eyes for me.”
The voice was familiar, tempting. Her eyelashes lifted, slowly, and the room around her came into focus.
“That’s better.” Shane leaned over her. Worry had etched a faint line between his brows. “How do you feel?”
“Like I hit a tree.”
A faint laugh came from the corner of the room. Her gaze slid over there, and a rough pounding shot through her temples.
A man stood in the shadows, a guy Olivia was pretty sure she hadn’t seen before. His blue eyes swept over her. “I think that’s because you did hit a tree, Dr. Maddox.”
With his words, her failed escape attempt came rushing back to her. Olivia tried to sit up in bed, but Shane’s hands came down, and he held her in place. “Easy. You’ve been out for hours.”
Out? That would explain the throbbing head.
“Do you always heal so quickly, Dr. Maddox?” The man in the corner asked her.
She didn’t feel like she’d healed. She felt like she had a concussion. “I don’t exactly crash into trees a lot, so I’m not real sure about that.” Her speech wasn’t slurred. That had to be a plus.
“If you’d watched those deep wounds heal, the way we did, you would be sure.”
What was that guy talking about?
Shane’s fingers stroked over her shoulders. At the unexpected caress, her attention slid right back to him. He didn’t look like a wild, out of control vampire as he leaned over her. He looked…
Worried. Protective.
How very human of him.
“No more handcuffs?” she whispered to Shane.
He shook his head.
“And I guess you had a nice, big meal before coming back, huh?” Wait, Olivia hadn’t meant to say that and she definitely hadn’t meant for the words to come out with a jealous edge.
Shane frowned down at her. “I haven’t fed yet.” He paused. His gaze heated. “Are you offering?”
“I—no.” Yes.
The door opened then, and a woman with dark hair bustled inside. The woman was looking down at a chart as she entered the room. “I’m running her blood work now. Man, it’s amazing the way Pate had that remote lab set up here. I bet I could even do a bone marrow analysis—”
“No, you couldn’t,” Olivia said flatly.
The woman jerked to a stop. Her brown eyes were wide with surprise as she said, “You’re awake.”
Yes, she was, obviously, and since the woman was talking about bone marrow work, Olivia knew she had to be staring at the doctor Connor had mentioned to her before.
Olivia’s gaze slid to her arm. A small bandage covered a patch of skin on her inner wrist. But that was the only bandage she saw. That other guy must have been bullshitting about her “deep wounds” healing. She didn’t have other injuries. That was all.
Am I lying to myself?
She…was. But others had lied to her, too.
Her stare rose. Fixed on Shane. “You gave them my blood.” And it felt like a betrayal.
He flushed. “We’re trying to understand you.”
“And I’m trying to understand how my life has turned into such a nightmare!”
Pate joined their little party. Perfect. He strode in as if he owned the place. Oh, wait…he does.
“I told you,” Pate said, his voice low and rumbling, “I didn’t think you were prepared for Purgatory.”
Shane’s fingers stroked over her arm once more.
Olivia took a good look around then. She was back in the cabin. Unfortunately. They’d pulled a bed into the center of those red markings—markings that were fully intact once again. Her bottle.
“If I were a genie,” she said—genie, djinn—whatever, “don’t you think I would have realized that fact by this point in my life?”
“I don’t know.” It was the other woman who answered. Olivia couldn’t remember the chick’s name. “Have you ever made things happen? Wished for something then…boom, it was there?”
“No!” she denied.
“Yes,” Shane replied in the same instant.
She shot him a glare. “I think I’d know—”
“You did it at Purgatory. You didn’t even realize it.”
“No.” He was wrong. Had to be.
But he nodded and said, “When we were together in that cave, you wished that I’d tell you what was going on. I did.”
“But—”
“And you wished that we could make it out and that the seaplane would be there to take us to safety. It was.”
She pointed at Pate. “Because he sent it there! Not because I did some mojo magic wishing!”
Pate cleared his throat. “I felt like something bad was happening. I went with my gut, against every protocol I’ve ever followed. It was almost as if I were…compelled to send Connor to Purgatory on that plane.”
Her heart was beating too fast. Her palms were sweating, and her knees felt like jelly. Yet she still said, “You know what that is called? Coincidence! Not magic!”
“The blood work will be done soon,” the woman murmured. “We’ll have more than magic then.”
She didn’t want them analyzing her blood. I don’t want them to see…
A voice seemed to whisper in her head. Hide. Protect yourself. I won’t let them destroy you…I’ll stop them all.
Goosebumps rose on her arms.
Shane was still holding her and the only warmth she felt came from the connection with his hands.
“I want to help you,” the woman said as she came closer. The woman even offered Olivia a faint smile. “My name is Holly, and, believe it or not, I even can understand what you’re going through right now.”
“Really? You’ve been held prisoner by the people you thought were going to help you?” Her head inclined toward a watchful Pate. “That guy over there betrayed you?”
Pate’s gaze dipped to Holly. Torment flashed across his face. His expression stunned her. So maybe her comment about betrayal hadn’t been so far off the mark. Wow. Interesting.
Olivia’s head had stopped throbbing. That was a good sign. Maybe her next escape attempt would go better.
“We want to protect you,” Holly told her. “That’s why Pate is keeping you in custody.”
Olivia’s laugh mocked that idea.
Shane cleared his throat. “Olivia, you need to know that after we left, there were some…incidents at Purgatory.”
She didn’t like that guarded note in Shane’s voice. “You mean more than the hell that went down before we got out of there?” Things had gotten worse?
“Pate’s men made it to the island. The prisoners…most of them are still secure.”
She wet her too dry lips. “Most?”
Pate and Shane shared a hard look. Definitely not good. Shane released Olivia and eased back. She missed his touch because he’d taken that precious warmth away with him.
“The FBI agents can’t find David Vincent.”
Horror flooded through her, but Olivia managed to say, “He’s hiding somewhere on the island. Probably—probably in some of the same places we used.”
“They also can’t find Case Killian.” Pate’s expression was grim as he delivered this news. “His guards reported that the warden was attacked by David, bitten—”
“So he’s dead?” Olivia whispered.
“Dead…or he transformed. But either way, we don’t know where he is.” Pate’s lips thinned. “And if anyone else at Purgatory knew a way off the island, it would be him. The warden had an all-access pass to the place.”
Okay, now she was scared. Terrified. “I-it’s not like Case would come after me.”
They all stared at her.
“There’s a bigger picture at play here,” Pate explained quietly. “You’re part of that picture. Maybe you didn’t know what you were before you went into that prison, but someone else did. That someone sent you to Purgatory so that you could be used. Used by David…because he was one of the prisoners I was told you must see…or used by Case because he was the warden running the show there. Either way, someone wanted your power.”
Shane thrust back his shoulders. “They aren’t getting her.”
Her gaze darted from face to face. Holly had edged closer to the silent, blue-eyed man. A man who watched the byplay with a dangerous intensity. Pate had closed in on Olivia, and Shane—Shane was watching her with a tight, worried expression.
Oh, hell. They were all dead serious. They thought that Case and David might actually come after her. “What happens if Case gets me? If David does?” She’d been so furious to find herself Shane’s prisoner that she hadn’t realized…something much worse could be waiting out there for me.
“They use you,” Pate said flatly. “Just like I know how to cage you, there are others out there who know exactly how to set your power free.”
“I have no power!”
Pate glanced at Holly. “How much longer until that blood analysis is done?”
“Just a few hours.”