by Sunny
“That,” Nico said, panting with exertion and pain, “is why I cannot yield.” And he continued to struggle against her hold.
A tiny force more and his arm broke. Searing heat flashed through him, followed by a brief numbing lull, as if his shocked body had yet to realize what had happened. Then the hot spilling agony of pain washed over him like a baptism of fire. He felt something hard and metallic encircle his wrist. More wrenching misery as his broken arm was straightened, as he was rolled over and the other end of the silver handcuffs snapped onto the opposite wrist and secured in front.
Looking down, Nico saw that what bound him were thin silver handcuffs, almost flat, easy to keep upon one’s person, and more incapacitating to him than the thicker, stainless steel ones the humans used could ever hope to be. That touch of silver against his skin drained him of his Monère strength, made him only human strong. But that was still strong enough for what he had to do.
Gritting his teeth against his body’s weakening distress, he got to his feet slowly. Pushing away the aching pain, he sprinted forward. No more than three paces, and a foot sent Nico crashing to the ground. A guttural cry escaped him at the blinding wash of pain that shot through him as he landed hard, face down.
“Don’t fight me anymore, you fool,” the demon snapped.
Nico rolled onto his back. Fighting nausea, he sat up. Biting back a whimper, he knelt and with trembling care, slowly climbed to his feet once more.
“Walk straight ahead,” she instructed coolly.
He turned left and ran. Without a sound, she was before him, a golden roadblock. He veered right. Again she blocked his path. Before he could turn again, she reached out and with casual strength put a hand on his injured right forearm. A slight downward pressure and she dropped him to his knees, sheet white with blinding pain.
“You stink of agony and defeat, and yet you still run.” Her eyes were grim, hard as ice. “Are you too addled by fear to understand what I wish of you?”
“You stink of bloodlust,” Nico shot back. “You are the one afraid of me. My blood calls you, the pounding in my chest, the rush of it in my veins. You smell me, hear me—fear, pain, desperation, struggling prey. A heady perfume for you. You yearn to sink your fangs into me. I threaten your precious control, don’t I?”
She grabbed him by the throat, squeezing it, a blatant warning, the sharp nails sliding like knives into his skin. Only a tad more pressure to crush his windpipe, or rip it out.
“Incredibly stupid. How did you manage to live this long?” she wondered.
Nico looked up into the eyes of death and taunted it more. “I live while you do not. Who is the stupid one, demon?”
With a snarl, she threw him from her. He sucked in a breath as he flew through the air and crashed against a tree, the force of it jarring his injured arm again. White-hot pain seared him, made him see stars.
The air shivered, trembling for a moment with the demon’s anger. With a quick downward slash, both sets of nails buried themselves in the thick trunk behind him, a whisper away from his ears, pinning him there. The smell of weeping sap filled the air.
“You wish me to feast upon your blood?” she whispered, her mouth a hairbreadth away from his own, her voice sultry but her eyes cold.
“Yes,” he breathed and moved up into those sharp fangs, baring his throat.
She stopped him with a word. “No.”
“Why not?”
A simple flex and push, and the tree fell back away from him, groaning and crashing to the ground, its waist-thick trunk breaking beneath her strength as if it were a twig snapped. “Because you are my prisoner, not my food.”
“What’s the difference?”
“I treat my food better.” She lifted him to his feet, and turned him around. With a push, she started him forward. Through the teeth-clenching haze of pain, Nico reached down deep inside and found the strength somehow. Jerking right, he broke into a stumbling run.
Like a haunting specter, she appeared before him again. “Unbelievable,” she said as he staggered sharply to the left, away from her.
“I will not return with you,” he said, forcing his hurting body to continue running, one foot in front of the other, even when screaming agony blurred his vision. “I will fight you as long as I yet live.”
“Why?”
“Because you will not give me what I want.”
“And what do you want, rogue?”
Nico came to a reeling halt. Turned to face her. “I want to die here. I do not care how, by your hand or beneath your teeth. I will not return to her.”
“I’m sorry.” With a gentle blow to the head, she knocked him unconscious. “You have no choice.”
SEVEN
THE WILL WAS a curious thing, I found. Some men’s wills were fragile things, easily breakable like fine china. One drop of pain, one slap, and it cracked. Others’ wills were stronger, more enduring like tempered steel. These did not break, but they bent. Oh yes, they bent beneath my will. Most warriors were intelligent enough to realize when they were defeated. They stopped fighting because it was useless to continue doing so. They had lost to a stronger foe and became resigned to their fate. I had to luck out with the exception to this rule.
This one’s will was a fearsome thing, unbreakable and unbend-able. He did not stop fighting or struggling, and he was far from resigned. Hot vitriolic words—and “blood-sucking demon bitch” was the mildest term among them—spewed out unending abuse in a malevolent tide from the backseat of the car where I had chained him. His wrists were anchored to the customized door fastenings I’d installed, with his knees secured at the other end. That’s right, his knees. Why had I cuffed his knees? Because securing his ankles had left him far too much leeway. He didn’t curl up on the seat like a good little defeated warrior. Oh, no. He’d flailed me with his words, and then flailed me with his body, throwing himself against the front seat again and again until his ankles and wrists had become not just raw and abraded but had torn through his flesh, spilling hot blood in a burgundy gush and filling the car with the stink of fresh blood. I’d had to stop the car and roll down all the windows, then lick his blood clean from his ankles and wrist, letting the healing properties in my saliva stop the bleeding. Had he been grateful? Nope. The bastard had struggled and jerked away from me, making helpless frightened sounds deep in his throat, trying to trigger my predatory instincts.
“It might have worked on another demon dead, playing the helpless struggling victim,” I told him as I tied a rag around his left wrist to cushion the wound before clamping the silver cuffs over him once more. Hell, it probably would have worked on me . . . before I had met Stefan. It sure as Darkness triggered my hunter instincts. Had not my pity—yes, pity . . . Had that not been stronger than the hunger he triggered, I would have sunk my fangs deep into him and drunk down enough blood, not to kill him as he wanted, but enough to weaken him sufficiently so that he wasn’t as much trouble. To do so now, however, seemed distasteful.
“But you picked the wrong demon to play your games upon,” I informed him. “I am centuries beyond losing control like that.”
He stopped playing the victim and started back up with the foul insults, the noxious threats, anything he could think of to trigger my anger while I tied a rag around his right wrist. Not because he was bleeding. Nope. His skin there was intact, unripped, unchafed. I tied the cloth there more as a preventive measure, so that his wrist wouldn’t start bleeding when he thrashed himself around. I’d left that right wrist free because of his broken arm. They say no good deed goes unpunished. Ain’t that the lousy truth? He’d struck the back of my head with that broken arm, even though it had to have hurt him far worse than it did me, which was not at all. It had simply been more of an annoyance, really. But he’d continued at it until the car stank not only of blood but of pain, his pain. Man, this Monère certainly knew how to yank a demon’s chain, got to give him that. He was smart, but lousy with luck. The poor rogue bastard had gotten stuck w
ith perhaps the one demon it just wasn’t going to work on.
I snapped the silver cuffs around his right wrist. If he drew in a sharp, painful breath as I pulled his broken arm up and over his head to secure it to the door fastening, I knew that it was less painful than what he had purposely inflicted on himself. Frankly, it was more of a measure to protect him from further damage. Holy Hellfire, he healed fast, much faster than Stefan did even though they felt of similar power. If he hadn’t been bashing his arm around trying to anger me enough to kill him, it might have been halfway healed by now.
I’d had to dig out my largest pair of handcuffs from the back of the trunk to find a pair that would squeeze tight around his thighs just above the knees. They dug deep into his soft flesh, and his legs were bloodless white below the kneecaps, but at least it secured him right and tight, leaving him no room to toss himself about. I gazed down at him all trussed up like that with the satisfaction of a job well done.
“Now, if you will only shut up,” I murmured.
His maddened, rage-spilling words suddenly stopped and the intelligence I had first seen at Smoky Jim’s shone once more in those remarkable gray eyes. He could not anger me enough. Could not tempt me enough to break my control. He had tried, oh how he had tried, and it hadn’t worked. So now he tried a different tact.
“Please,” he said, his hoarse voice calm as I bent over him. “Just end it here. It will be a kindness to me, in truth.” He tried something that no other Monère warrior had ever thought of trying—appealing to a demon’s mercy. “Please, I beg of you.”
Oh, crap. Those few words, humble, calm, and pleading, flayed me worse than the hour-long verbal and physical abuse he had just heaped upon me.
My fist flew out, clipped his jaw. Knocked him unconscious once more. And if I was completely honest about it, the act was more of a mercy for me than for him.
EIGHT
I WAS IN a pissy mood. It grew even darker when the rogue began to stir as we entered Mona SiGuri’s domain, the territory he had fled from. Revived, no doubt, by the feel of the Monère guards we passed as we slowly made our way up the side of a mountain. They knew who we were because they sensed my captive’s presence and my lack of presence, my lack of heartbeat; it was as effective as if a loud clarion had trumpeted our arrival. I sensed one guard shift form and wing off into the night to warn the others of our approach.
A small crowd of solemn faces had gathered by the time my car crawled halfway up the mountainside and pulled to a stop before an old weathered hunting lodge. Secluded would aptly describe it. No human neighbors in the near and not-so-near vicinity that I could detect. Creepy was another good word for it. The lodge was a large, three-storied dwelling that once might have been grand, but no longer. And the sad, neglected air of the building was reflected in the people themselves—a score of men, and a glimpse or two of women, their curious faces peeping out behind ragged curtains. They gawked not so much at the rogue as at who was returning him.
My lips thinned with displeasure as I unfastened the cuffs around my captive’s knees. He didn’t even try to kick me although he was fully aware, his eyes opened and unblinking.
“No more struggles?” I said as I roughly rubbed his lower legs to restore circulation.
“What would be the purpose now?” he answered. “My chance . . . your chance . . . both have passed.”
I leaped over the car, startling some gaping warriors, and opened the other door. The rogue didn’t even move his hands as I freed his good arm’s restraint from the door fastening. I snapped the free end of it onto the wrist of his broken arm, and removed the second pair, no longer needed now. Gently, I lifted him out and set him onto his feet. Watched him swallow back a groan as he lowered his arms down in front of him.
“A thinking man now. I liked the wild one you portrayed much better,” I taunted, wanting to get a rise out of him for some reason.
“Me, too.”
His soft reply only made me madder.
Four warriors advanced. The lead man dared reach out to take Nico from me.
“Back off,” I snarled, flashing fang.
The dark-haired warrior gasped and fell back a pace as his men drew swords and daggers.
“What is this circus?” I growled. “Don’t you know anything about the proper etiquette?”
“Etiquette?” the warrior asked, clearly bewildered.
The circle of onlookers parted and a woman, a Queen, came forward. She was tall, thin, and beautiful in a cold sterile way, dressed in a long black gown with her chestnut hair long and loose down her back. But it was her strong presence, distinct and different from that of her men that really proclaimed who and what she was.
“You mean the one that has us say, ‘Greetings, Guardian. You have returned one who has wandered back to us.’ ” She smiled unpleasantly as she said the words.
“Yeah,” I gritted, my voice low and rough with displeasure, “that custom.”
Her tinkling laughter floated in the cool night air. “You must forgive my men. They are too young to be aware of such archaic protocol.”
My eyes glinted near black in anger. “It is not their lack, but rather yours for not teaching it to them. And allowing them to gather like this to watch and gape as if my prisoner and I were a circus come to town. Very poor form for one who knows better.”
There were indrawn gasps of shock. Fear and expectancy scented the air like a fine and sweet perfume as all eyes were drawn to their Queen and to her reaction of my public reprimand.
No tinkling laughter now. Her dark brown eyes narrowed and her lips firmed thin and cruel. “Beware, demon. This is my land.”
Perhaps had she been grateful, followed custom and procedure. Or maybe even then it would not have mattered. Because somewhere on that long drive up the mountain, I’d unconsciously already decided what to do.
“This is my prisoner that I have taken the trouble to return to you,” I said as our custom dictated. “I have done so, my duty accomplished, my word kept.”
“So formal,” Mona SiGuri said with delicate scorn.
Here was where I departed from custom. “Now I claim him as my own.” I turned to the stunned warrior beside me. “Nico, get back in the car.”
All froze. They looked at me as if I were mad, even Nico. I gave him a soft nudge. “Go on.”
Mona SiGuri’s eyes narrowed into slits. “Do not be any more foolish, Nico, than you have already been. Do not make your death even more painful.” It was a clear warning. A clear choice.
Like a sleepwalker suddenly rousing to his surroundings, Nico looked at his Queen then glanced at me. He made his choice. He took a step toward the car.
“Stop him,” Mona SiGuri commanded, her voice shrill and strident. “Stop them both.”
I smiled and my fangs flashed in sharp amusement at the wall of warriors who jumped to do her bidding. “You can sure try.” A blink, a fraction of a moment in time, and her men, over a dozen of them, were spilling onto the ground, eviscerated, their guts bulging out of their bellies, wounds I had sliced open in fast ripping tear, right on down the line. When they saw me . . . when I allowed them to see me again . . . I stood, almost in the same spot, looking as if I hadn’t moved at all, licking the blood off my long nails, which had grown even longer. Into razor-sharp talons.
“Umm . . . yummy,” I purred. “Monère smorgasbord. Anyone else?”
“Spread out, you fools!” Mona SiGuri screeched. “Stop them now, or face the consequences.”
The consequences must be pretty dire because her few remaining men instantly obeyed her, their fear of their Queen even more than their fear of demon dead. They sprang at me one at a time, or so it seemed. In reality, they converged on us all at once from different angles. But they went flying out individually, one after the other, just a grab and toss. The fifth and last one I grabbed and took a munch on before tossing . . . one quick ruthless plunge of my teeth deep into his white neck, one deep sumptuous drink while he screamed . . . bef
ore I tossed him out to pile with the rest, his gushing blood spraying in a crimson arc from his ravaged neck. No clotting agent for him.
“Thanks for the snack,” I said. “But gotta go.”
“Talon!” Mona SiGuri screamed.
“Yup,” I said, waving my curved claws at her. “Neat trick, huh?”
“Hurry,” Nico urged from inside the car where he’d run. “Hurry before he comes!”
“Before who comes, darling? Men, always in a rush.” I vaulted through the open window into the driver’s seat and started the engine. From the corner of my eye, I saw something not just dark but black appear next to the Queen. And sensed something that threw me, confused me for a moment because it could not be, not here in this realm. But it was, I realized. And knew that I had realized it too late because the creature had opened his mouth.
As the sound of his unearthly scream rent our ears, the devastating echolating force of it hit me full blast. And darkness took me.
THEY WERE IN big trouble, Nico acknowledged as waves of devastating pain inundated him. Even worse than the wagonload of manure he had been floundering in before, because now he had dragged someone else into his mess.
Chained to the post next to him was the demon girl. First his hunter, his captor, and then for one glorious moment in time, his savior. Now I claim him as my own, she’d said. He didn’t know what “my own” entailed. My own meal, my own slave, my own guard? My own lover? A tantalizing thought, that last one.
She’d called him darling. Facetiously. In play. But it had plucked a chord deep within, that resonated still. He would have liked to have been her darling. He had feared her, respected her—her strength, her intelligence, her force of will that had held even when he had pushed and pushed against it. But that wicked, dark, playful side of her amidst all the chaos, the danger, the thwarted escape . . . that had drawn him irresistibly. None of the queens he had ever served had been playful. They had all taken themselves far too seriously for that.