by Erica Woods
The closer we got to the stairs, the harder my heart beat until the irregular thump-thump was all I could hear. That, and the blood rushing through my veins.
When we got to the stairs, my legs felt like lead. It took all my power to drag them onto the dirty cement floor separating the holding cells from the darker, more nefarious parts of their operation. Once at the bottom, saliva filled my mouth and I forced my nausea back.
If I threw up on Dave he’d make me regret it.
“You know where to go,” he said while dark amusement twisted his face into the mask of the monster he truly was. Dave liked inflicting pain. The bulge in his jeans told me it was going to be a bad day.
At least they aren’t allowed to rape me.
I took comfort where I could.
“What are you waiting for?” Dave used a hand on my back to push me into the place I feared more than any other room on this earth. “Get going!”
I stumbled forward, landing hard on my knees. My breathing was labored, my eyes tightly shut. I didn’t want to open them. Didn’t want to see what waited for me today.
While I lay crumpled on the floor like a heap of old garbage, Dave locked the doors and started the preparations. The near-silent rustle of fabric as he changed his clothing felt like a jagged rock scraping at my chest. The snap of his plastic gloves made me whimper. The metallic clang of various equipment threatened my hold on my bladder.
A small, helpless whimper escaped before I could contain it. Cold terror gnawed at my gut, made my breath come in chopping, irregular gusts of air.
When Dave hoisted me up my sanity fled. Unyielding, cold metal met my back and my body went taught as a bow about to snap. My mind threatened to shatter, every nerve ending in my body vibrated in preparation for what was to come. Each strap fastened over my unwilling body peeled away a layer of my sense of self-worth, replacing it with fear, anguish, despair, and glass shattering in my skull.
And then it began.
Dave loved his work. He relished my pain and soaked up my screams. Knives were his specialty, but he had an affinity for anything metal. Barbed wire. Cutters. Scissors.
It didn’t take long for my vocal cords to tear. For the sounds I made to echo in my head, and in my head only as I swallowed mouthfuls of blood.
It was only when I was on the edge of the beautiful cliff of oblivion that he paused.
“Do it,” he whispered. The excitement in his voice was almost worse than the metal piercing my flesh. “Come on, princess. You know what we want. Do it, and this will all be over.”
Lies. It would never be over. Not if I gave them what they wanted. Not if I allowed them the use of the monster that had destroyed my life and sent me down this wretched path.
“I . . .” I’d rather die, I tried to say, but I couldn’t speak. The only sounds I could make was broken whimpers and the wet rasp of my blood-filled lungs. But somehow, Dave saw it on my face, read it in my eyes.
He smiled, lifted his hand, and began again.
16
LUCIEN
My eyes snapped open. I couldn’t quite understand what had pulled me from my restless slumber, but then a blood-curdling scream ripped open the quiet night, made it bleed with all the agony contained in that one sound, and I knew this was not the first time her voice rent the air.
Barely a second passed before I was out of the bed, teeth bared and ready to defend our territory. A familiar, old fear turned my insides rancid until I remembered I was no longer a small, defenseless child.
No, never defenseless, simply uneducated, I reminded myself as I threw on a shirt.
Another shriek tore past my defenses, flaying me open with ancient memories that were quickly and brutally squashed. However, my hand still shook when I reached for the door-handle.
Unacceptable.
Cold rage unfurled in my stomach, straightening my spine and quickening my steps. Icy tendrils engulfed my heart and traveled through my blood until the cold was all I could feel.
“Hope!” An unholy roar erupted from Ruarc as he skidded around the corner, barreling down the hallway toward Hope’s door.
What in damnation is going on?
A third scream split the air. Claws shot from my finger as the chilling sound ended on a wet gurgle and a whispered plea for mercy, “Dave, please . . .” Hope’s broken rasp sliced through my bones, deep and aching. For a moment I was transported through time, to a place long gone where the whimpers of despair were uttered by me.
Ignoring the pain those screams invoked, I let familiar, arctic hatred fill me. Pain, sorrow, despair . . . feelings were a weakness, and weaknesses had to be purged.
Rebuilding my defenses piece by piece, I followed the destruction Ruarc left in his wake. The gorged marks in the floor displeased me, proof as they were of Ruarc’s shameful lack of control. Nothing had been the same since we took in the stray human. There was no peace to be found, only chaos.
What kind of trouble is the wench stirring up now?
I followed Ruarc at a more sedate pace, watched with disgust as he tore Hope’s door off its hinges in his rush to get to her.
The screaming had ceased; the time for haste was past. Either the human would be fine or she would not.
With clenched fists, I stepped into her room, dismissing my thundering heart and twisted gut as unimportant. Concern for a girl who promised nothing but trouble would be illogical. Absurd.
Beneath me.
Even so, my gaze hunted for the human in the dim room, not ceasing until she was found. And when she was, my gaze swept across every inch of skin in search of an injury while blood rushed to my head. My heart quickened, and I found myself with a burning ball of acid eating at my gut.
My reaction enraged me. Almost as much as her appearance did. Pale, hollowed cheeks were twisted in a pained grimace, her teeth were bared in an expression of abject misery. Her eyes were open, glossed over with the kind of agony one can never truly purge from one’s memory, nor one’s soul.
At the sight of her obvious suffering, the feeling that filled me was so foreign, so repellent that the ice in my veins momentarily melted, replaced by an unnatural heat.
Because of her.
Bitter hatred, the kind usually reserved for my dam and sire, coated my tongue. My loathing of her was malicious—yet another feeling I held her responsible for. The wench was dangerous, and I would not rest until she was gone. Her and her bloody secrets had no place in our lives. She was an unknown, a danger to my brothers, our home. And she was most definitely hiding something.
If I hadn’t known it before, one look at her terror-stricken face proved her troubled past. A past a part of me wanted to root out and kill.
Damnation!
She had to go.
HOPE
Nightmare and reality briefly overlapped as the sound of wood splintering jerked me upright. The bindings were gone. The agonizing pain faded into the night.
I blinked, disorientated, glanced at the door.
That explains the noise . . .
The door was gone. In its place stood a massive, hulking shadow. Back-lit from the soft glow of the hallway, the outline of the beast’s powerful frame revealed nothing except for a wild mane, dark stubble and luminous, silver eyes.
The eyes gave him away, and not a moment too soon. I’d just been about to release the shriek of terror bottled in my surprisingly sore throat when I recognized the shadow as Ruarc.
His eyes were frenzied, hair wild and tousled as it fell past his jaw. A black shirt stretched taut over a powerful chest that heaved with each breath, breaths he sucked in between lips that looked . . . wrong. Thinner than normal and barely containing his teeth, the tip of two canines peeked out on each side.
Lucien stood right behind him, looking as untidy as I’d ever seen him. Ruffled hair, sweats not unlike those Ruarc wore hung low on his lean frame, and a white dress-shirt halfway buttoned covered his upper body. His face was ashen, eyes no longer cold but raging like a volcanic
storm. When they landed on me I read something familiar in them. A feeling I knew better than most.
Fear.
It only lasted a second. Clenched fists straightened, flexed and released. And if his hands shook once, it was too dark to tell. When his glare swept across my frame next, the familiar, humorless expression was back, his gaze cold and distant once more.
Before I could rub my hands over my eyes to make sure I wasn’t dreaming, Ruarc was there. I was yanked out of the bed and placed between him and the wall so quickly my head spun.
Thank god I chose to sleep in my sweats.
The thought of being dragged out of bed naked filled me with mortification and a good dose of fear.
I made a small noise in my throat, about to ask what was happening when one of Ruarc’s hands reached out behind him and settled on my shoulder.
“Where are they?” he snarled, reeking of violence.
“W-who?” If someone was here, in the one room I’d claimed as mine in this massive house, it would be the Hunters. Shivers wracked my limbs and my breath caught somewhere in the vicinity of my throat.
“The ones that made you scream!”
“What?”
The thick muscles in Ruarc’s shoulders flexed as he scoured the room. “Someone hurt you. Heard you scream.”
Once I realized what he was talking about, what had happened, my shivering stopped. In its place a deep humiliation took root. It seeped to the surface of my skin and heated my face, made my skin crawl.
“There’s no . . . no one here,” I mumbled. Rationally I knew I had nothing to be ashamed of. The Hunters did. They were the ones who should feel disgraced, they were the ones who’d done wrong. But somehow . . . somehow I felt dirty. Like each instrument of pain used to hurt me had stripped away layers of my humanity, leaving a filthy casing of shame in its wake.
“What?” Ruarc’s voice was still stained with bloodshed. He didn’t look at me, just continued scanning the room like some hidden danger was moments away from attacking us. The massive expanse of his back was like a brick wall in front of me, protecting me from perceived harm.
“Another bid for attention, perhaps.” Lucien’s voice was different. The cold, mocking tones were replaced by a hoarse, almost hateful note.
“W-what? N-no,” I protested as Ruarc’s hand tightened on my shoulder. “I just . . . I had a n-nightmare.”
“A nightmare?” Lucien scoffed.
I wanted to sink into the floor. Disappear from sight. A nightmare should not have reduced me to this sort of mess!
Ruarc must have decided the room was safe, for he turned to me, silver eyes glowing with danger, and searched my face. I couldn’t handle the scrutiny. Not now. Not when the feeling of Dave’s hands was so fresh in my mind, when remembered pain still flared beneath my skin.
I broke the connection, staring at the floor and willing my eyes to stay dry.
“I’m s-sorry I woke you. It’s just . . .” I couldn’t continue. It had felt so real.
So raw.
Ruarc cupped the back of my head, drawing me into his body and engulfing me in a full body hug. His heat flowed into me, thawing the cold terror that had my heart in a vice grip and belying my belief that I’d never get warm again.
With a shuddering exhale, I wrapped my arms around him and leaned into his warm embrace. For the first time in years I felt almost safe. The steady thump of his heartbeat, the soothing circles he rubbed on my back, the faint scent of pine cones and wilderness I only associated with Ruarc, it all came together in a seamless blend that left me with a feeling of being protected.
Cherished.
And then he started humming in that deep, rumbling voice of his. My breath caught. Black spots danced in my vision and my body went tight.
The humming proved my undoing.
Ruarc tipped my head up, glancing down at me with concern etched into the hard lines of his harsh face, and . . .
I broke.
A single sob burst from me, the first drop in a storm of sorrow. My hands flew to my mouth, trying to force the sound back in and stem the inevitable flood of anguish.
The savage rage that had been burning in Ruarc’s gaze receded to make room for something else, a milder emotion maybe.
The dam shoring my defenses crumbled. Hysterical sobs wracked my body with such force I briefly wondered if they would tear me apart. The thought didn’t sadden me as it should, for at least then I would be at peace.
I was so lost to my grief, I barely noticed when Ruarc lifted me like I weighed nothing, and sat down on the bed with me sideways on his lap. His palm came back up to cup my head, pulling it against his chest, and I was grateful. His palm was so big. It was like a wall between me and the real world, dimming the harsh glare from the overhead lamp and muffling the keening cries pouring out from the ragged wound in my soul.
A strange noise began in Ruarc’s chest. A soft vibration that gave way to a low, haunting melody. His voice wasn’t made for singing, it was too deep, too gruff and gravelly, but to me it was the most beautiful sound I’d ever heard.
The words were foreign, the vowels lengthened and the R’s hard and drawn out.
After a while his voice quieted and I had to strain to hear the music he created. Holding my breath—and effectively my sobs—I stilled, ear pressed to his chest as I focused on listening. The way the vibrations carried the sound up from his lungs fascinated me.
“Calm, m’eudail,” Ruarc murmured into my hair, his lips a whisper-soft touch.
“This is ludicrous,” Lucien muttered.
The body beneath mine stiffened. I felt his lungs contracting, preparing a furious reply, no doubt, but before he could speak there were two more loud bangs echoing in the otherwise silent house. Stunned, I watched through blurry eyes as Lucien spun around to face the new threat.
Terror once more engulfed me, locking my limbs with a cold that should have frozen the tears coating my face. The heat I’d stolen from Ruarc’s strong body seeped out of me and left me a shivering mess.
The Hunters had found me.
Oh god, please, no!
The guys, the wonderful men who’d taken me in and helped me would die because of me.
I tensed as I prepared to leap away, to meet the Hunters halfway in an attempt to spare the guys’ lives.
I wouldn’t let them die because of me.
“Ruarc!” Jason shouted from somewhere downstairs and my whole body went limp. I never thought his voice—panicked as it was—could sound so sweet.
Without making a sound Ash and Jason suddenly appeared in the doorway—both looking disheveled with streaks of dirt marring the bare skin on their arms and faces.
I gaped at them. There’d been no footsteps on the stairs, no creaks from the floorboards in the hall, and as fast as they had gotten here, they must have run.
Maybe they really are ninjas.
Jason pushed past Lucien, eyes going straight to me where I sat curled up on Ruarc’s lap. His generous lips flattened, twin lines appearing between his eyes. “What happened?” he rasped.
I was too exhausted, too scared to leave Ruarc’s warm protection and face the reality pushing at my mind to try to explain.
It was Lucien who answered for me. “The chit woke us by screaming the house down.”
Arms tightened around me. I was too wrecked to complain.
Ash glanced at Lucien with an alertness that bordered on alarm. Whatever he saw made him turn back to Ruarc, brows drawing together in concern. “Ruarc?” He didn’t do more than a quick scan of me, like I wasn’t in the room.
Can he somehow sense that I am tainted? The thought sent a sharp jab of pain between my ribs.
“T’was nothing.” The gruffness in Ruarc’s voice had deepened and he sounded different, somehow. Like a part of him—something he’d left behind a long time ago—was peeking out. “Hope . . .” He trailed off, the big palm petting my back stilled while the rest of him thrummed with feral energy. “She had a nightmare,�
� he bit out.
“A nightmare?” Jason repeated, dragging the word out like he didn’t quite know what to do with it.
“Aye,” Ruarc growled.
Jason’s mouth dropped open and he gaped at Ruarc.
“Well, seeing as no one is hurt we should get some rest.” Ash nodded once at Ruarc, then moved his piercing, blue gaze to me. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. There was a quiet awareness in his gaze that unsettled me; like he knew what had happened and felt sorry for me.
I wanted to bawl.
“Lucien, Jason, if I could have a word?”
Jason looked strange without his confident grin. The playful glimmer in his eyes was gone and there was a stiffness around his mouth I didn’t like.
He looked haunted.
Dragging the back of his hand across his mouth, he gave a jerky nod. “Night, love.”
And then he left.
Lucien was slower to follow. He swept his gaze over both of us, jaw clenching. It looked like he wanted to speak, but in the end he followed Jason without a word.
When they were gone, Ash walked over to the door that had come to lean against the wall, lifted it, and carried it the short distance to the doorway. He did something—I heard a hard click and a soft groan—and then it looked as good as new.
Except for a small crack in the middle of the frame.
As soon as Ash left and closed the door behind him, Ruarc took hold of my chin and tilted my head up. His eyes were hard, yet not devoid of sympathy. With a heavy sigh, he rubbed his thumb across my lower lip.
I gasped, lip tingling where his thumb had caressed.
“It’s time,” he said gruffly.
Pretending I didn’t know what he meant, I deflected. “Y-you sound different.”
The hand resting on my hip flexed. “No.” It was a statement. One not inviting questions despite the fact that I was right; he had sounded different. “Hope . . .” He hesitated. “Tell me. Please.”
The ‘please’ made my eyes sting. A part of me wanted to talk about it. Wanted to get it all out in the open in the hopes that the poison of my experience would leave with the purging of words. But what if it made it worse? What if the same disgust I already felt deep in my soul was reflected in his eyes?