Rune Thief: An Urban Fantasy Novel (Isabella Hush Series Book 1)

by Thea Atkinson

  He eased up the pressure some, enough for me to cough and find my voice.

  "And what about all the people in the room out there?" I jerked my thumb toward the door. "Why are they here?"

  "Buyers," he said. "Most of them."

  "Most?"

  He nodded. "The women are hookers. Real classy stuff. University degrees all of them."

  Right. University degrees. All those girls he'd put through school. The true cost of that fancy education coming to roost like filthy little homing pigeons.

  "So you own them too," I said.

  He smiled. Ran his thumb across my bottom lip. "Ownership is such a strong word. I prefer benefactor."

  I sucked the back of my teeth. "You don't do things for nothing."

  "You know me so well." He slipped his arm around the small of my back and pulled me close, hip to hip. I strained away from him, and the harder I leaned backward, the more he pulled me close.

  "You've got too skinny," he said.

  "Starvation will do that to you."

  He laughed. "I doubt you're starving, Sis. You're too good at stealing to go that hungry. Besides, my men left a few crumbs for you. Enough to keep you going."

  It was then that I realized that all of these last months when information and opportunity had gone lean, that he had found a way to bottleneck it. Cutting off all of my opportunities so that when the chance to rob the McMansion came up, I wouldn't be able to resist it.

  "You're a bastard," I said.

  "How can you say that when you've met my mother?"

  I managed to struggle free and stumbled backwards.

  "What do you want?"

  "I need you," he said.

  "Need me?" I was hesitant. It could mean so many things.

  Thankfully, he lost all pretense of the charming lover and started to pace the bedroom.

  "I found something, Sis. A puzzle of sorts."

  "And you need me to figure it out." I relaxed somewhat. It was clear by his frenzy that he was preoccupied with whatever it was. Enough to postpone meting out my punishment.

  He swung around on his heel. "I do need you," he said. "And I missed you. Did you miss me?"

  There was no good answer to that.

  "I thought you'd enjoy a heist like this. You did go for the Incan gold after all."

  "So it was you."

  He crept closer and toyed with my hair. "I would've expected you to figure it out far earlier than this," he said. "But I must say it was fun watching you."

  Fun. I imagined he watched me for weeks and the knowledge made my blood run cold. He ran a palm over my arm, raising the hairs. I shivered but it had nothing to do with the air conditioning.

  I clenched my fists at my sides as he yanked my pants and panties down in one rough motion. There was nothing sexual in the act. Only command. He wouldn't take me now, but he would later, and it would be rough and painful and humiliating. I tried not to cry. I snuffed up the snot that started leaking unwanted from my nose.

  "Go wash up," he said and dug his fingers into my ass cheeks.

  "You need to show our investors they've backed the best pony and I don't want you out there smelling of rotten eggs and cat piss."

  He followed me to the bathroom and watched me as I pulled my T-shirt over my head and unsnapped my bra. Like some chivalrous knight, he pulled open the glass shower door for me and bade me stand toward the back of the stall. He ran the water from the tap, sticking his fingers beneath to test the temperature. When it seemed to suit him, he waggled his fingers at me until I came forward.

  I stood there with my arms crossed over my breasts as he ran the frothy soap over my skin, lingering between my legs in a promise that made me catch my breath in my throat. If tears ran down from my eyelids, neither one of us would know.

  With the care of a mother, he tilted my head back and cradled it in his palm as he worked shampoo and then conditioner into my hair. I kept my eyes closed, not wanting to see the look of satisfaction on his face.

  I felt like a kid as he helped me back out of the shower and scrubbed my skin with a coarse towel. He spun me around in front of him, checking out every inch of my body.

  "Too skinny," he muttered. "But the ass is still good."

  He swatted it then spun me back around to place his finger beneath my chin. He tilted his face to mine.

  "Mine," he said. "To have and to hold till death do you part."

  I could barely swallow through the tightness in my throat. All I could do was nod at him like a supplicant as he lifted the terrycloth robe on the hook on the door. He swathed it around me like a blanket.

  "Now let's see what we can do about keeping you safe."

  CHAPTER 33

  THERE WAS A KNOCK ON the door outside of the bathroom and his face brightened.

  "Your doctor is here," he said and stretched his arm out toward the door to indicate that I should go through it. Such chivalry. Such manners. His mother would be so proud.

  "What are you waiting for, Sis?" he said. "Your new future awaits."

  "Hell to freeze over I guess," I said, but I took a bracing breath anyway and left the bathroom ahead of him, knowing that he was smirking behind my back, and probably planning exactly how to test that safety later.

  He called out to Alvin to allow the doctor to enter, and the door opened just enough to let the man through. I could hear a quick clinking of glasses and the gaggle of girls laughing before the sound shut off again.

  I was more surprised to see my drunk enter the room than anything else. This was my doctor? The man who guzzled down a bottle of vodka? The man who had patched me up in the street after the dogs had bit through my pants? It seemed so long ago now.

  I supposed it made sense. Once I'd realized Scottie had been trailing me all along, it would only be logical to think that he'd put the drunk in my path to give me an opportunity to make think I was keeping my anonymity. I could accept that, and I could accept that Scottie would use an innocent man down on his luck. But it was a bit of a stretch for me to think he'd planted a viable doctor there for days to live on the streets just to lull me into a false sense of security.

  Although, come to think of it, that sounded exactly Like Scottie.

  I was more surprised to realize that my old drunk was actually capable of looking professional. I'd already presumed he had medical skill of some sort, so doctor wasn't out of the playing field. The clinical way he inspected my dog bite after the heist and the way he patched it up gave him away.

  I barely recognized the man now. Clean-shaven and dressed in a suit with a lab coat slung over his arm. He could barely meet my eyes as he walked over to the credenza and laid a black bag on it. He turned around and faced Scottie instead.

  "Is everything ready?" he said.

  Scottie reached his arm out to me, slipped his hand around the small of my back. "She's ready."

  The doctor nodded mutely. He dug through his bag and lifted out a very long needle, a scalpel, and a small satchel of what looked like Band-Aids and bandages. I hoped the top of the bottle that I saw him peeking out was antiseptic.

  I tried to get out of Scottie's grasp.

  "You're not performing surgery on me in a hotel room," I said. "I'll do a lot of things for you Scottie," I said. "I'll marry you. I'll solve your puzzles. But I won't let you cut me open."

  His voice was soothing, almost infuriatingly so, when he spoke.

  "It's not surgery, Love," he crooned. "Just a little nick in the skin."

  I pinwheeled backwards and out of his grip. The damn over-sized robe caught in my legs and I fell backwards onto the bed. "No," I said. I tried to scrabble over the bed to freedom and butted up against the headboard.

  The doctor took a step forward, hesitating. The needle winked in the light and my mouth went dry. It had to be at least an inch. No way he was sticking that in me.

  "Go to hell," I said, pulled my legs up and scrabbling backwards to the headboard.

  The doctor looked from me to Scottie.
"You said she'd be willing."

  Scottie gave me a hard look that made me clutch the robe tightly together.

  "She is willing," he said.

  The doctor strode closer with the practiced deportment of a man who had to do terrible things to unwilling people all the time.

  "Stay away from me," I said.

  Scottie sat down on the bed next to me and smoothed down my hair. "Shhh, Sis," he said. It's just a little nick. I've never seen you balk at a little needle before. And you need this. It's a very small tracking device. And the doctor is very practiced. I wouldn't put you in the hands of anyone less than exceptional."

  I shoved him away with the flat of my hand, but I kept my eye on the doctor who was drawing fluid from a vial into the syringe.

  "I'm sure he is," I said. "I'm sure you have had him implanting all your little minions."

  Scottie put his arm around my shoulders and squeezed. "Not so many," he crooned. "Just the ones I care about."

  The doctor seemed satisfied that he had enough fluid in the syringe. He eyed me with a clear gaze. Last I'd seen him, those eyes had been cloudy with drink. Had that all been an act too?

  He sidled closer, bag in one hand filled with alcohol pads and paraphernalia and needle in the other. Scottie held me tight, pinning me against his own torso so that I couldn't fight the doctor. Couldn't run. The panic bloomed in my chest.

  The doctor leaned in close as he put two fingers over my pulse in my neck. "Don't worry," he said. "I'm very good at giving needles."

  I glared at him.

  He turned to Scottie.

  "I might need to take her into the bathroom for this," he said. "You know, sink. Water. A more clinical atmosphere."

  Scottie helped me ever so chivalrously to my feet and the doctor put up a hand to stop him.

  "I think we'll be fine," he said. "I've cared for Ms. Hush before. I think she trusts me."

  While the words were innocent enough, and his face showed very little change of expression, there was some subtle movement of his eyebrow. Just enough to encourage me to take the hand he held out. With a gentle ease, he guided me into the bathroom just off the suite and closed the door behind us. He bade me sit on the toilet lid.

  "I'm sorry," he whispered as he knelt in front of me. "I have to do this you understand."

  I was speechless with fury. So much for trust.

  "But it isn't what you think," he whispered.

  He rifled with the plastic bag, pulling out an alcohol swab.

  "I have to do it, but I don't have to implant what he asks me to."

  He laid the swab on the sink and pulled out another smaller baggie from inside the first plastic bag. Then he extracted an even smaller one from his lab coat pocket. He was so adroit at it, with such a practiced sleight-of-hand, that I imagined he had spent years substituting medicine for lollipops.

  I didn't dare pull my eyes from his to look around the room, but I knew there was a camera somewhere. Scottie didn't believe in privacy. I couldn't expect even this room to be free of his invasive eagle eye.

  The doc held both baggies up against the front of his coat in between us. The one on the left looked identical to the one on the right, except the one on the left was a little bit bigger. Both had little oily beads of black plastic.

  He jerked his chin down ever so subtly toward the smaller one.

  "It's just a harmless bit of silicone."

  He stared into my eyes meaningfully. "As far as Scottie is concerned, you'll be implanted with the tracker and I'll put the bug in a nice little rat who's been romancing the neighborhood."

  Yeah, right. And my knight in shining armor would gallop in to save me at any moment.

  "What kind of trick is this?" I said.

  "No trick," he said. "You have to make a decision to trust me or not."

  "A rat, huh?" I said.

  He nodded.

  Fitting, I thought. I really shouldn't blame a man who was under Scottie's thumb. After all, I'd been an involuntary recruit myself all those years.

  "Do it, then," I said through gritted teeth.

  The implantation was painful, but not terrible. He numbed my skin enough to make it easy. We faced Scottie together on the other side of the door and I noted the careful, almost covert way Scottie slipped a wad of cash into the doctor's bag.

  He was gone moments later and Scottie stood in front of me, slipping his palm beneath my robe and running his thumb over the bandage on my collarbone.

  "Perfect," he said. "Now you don't have to worry about getting lost again."

  His hand slipped further down as he trailed the backs of his fingertips against my rib cage. For a moment I thought he might decide to take the time to prove his true possession of me. It would be a very Scottie thing to do, and I waited, breath held, muscles tense for that second when I would hear his zipper rattle against its teeth.

  But the night was full of surprises.

  Instead, he patted my backside beneath the robe and then nodded toward the dresser.

  "The black dress," he said. "Your heels are in the closet."

  "And what is it you expect of me?" I said.

  "I told you I found something."

  He strode across the room and hooked my shoes from the floor and tossed them on the bed.

  "I think it could be good for us."

  Good for us. I thought about those words as he went back to his guests.

  This party wasn't for me, to celebrate my return or our "engagement" because he knew I'd be here. He couldn't have known of my involvement with Finn or Kelly or even the shadow bazaar. I'd no doubt been lost to him completely while I was on the other side. Alvin had seen me enter a door that he couldn't go through. Had he questioned it at all? Or had he simply reported the strangeness to Scottie without giving it a moment's thought.

  I was willing to bet he reported it and he waited till I fell back through. Then he followed me all the way home. Gave Scottie the Intel. Waited to be told to extract me.

  So why the party? Why try to impress anyone at all. This party had something to do with his puzzle and my arrival was a happy happenstance, occurring just when he needed it the most. He wouldn't question it. He expected everything to go his way. That didn't bother me. What bothered me was what nasty bit of business he wanted from me.

  CHAPTER 34

  THE DRESS BAGGED ON me, of course. I had lost weight over the last six months. Pickings had been lean. I sighed as I inspected the fit in the mirror. I had planned to come here and face my demons. Cut ties between us for good. All I had managed was to make him think he could find me anywhere anytime he wanted.

  I opened the door to the bedroom suite to find him waiting on the other side. He smiled broadly, as though the last three years had been nothing but a discomforting dream.

  When he reached his arm out for me, I hooked my hand around his elbow. I could play the game. For now. If only to find out what was really going on.

  "This, gentlemen," he crowed to the room. "This is my fiance. The one I told you about."

  The assessing glances ran the length of my dress and stopped at the cleavage. I tugged the edges together self-consciously.

  Scottie guided me toward a high-backed stool near the bar in front of a bank of windows. He didn't need to tell me to sit. I perched on the edge, with my feet dangling because they couldn't reach the first rung. I crossed my legs sedately.

  Scottie panned the room with his gaze.

  "I told you I had a very special artist at my disposal," he said and nodded toward me. He smiled as though his lips were greased.

  "This is Isabella."

  There was a murmur that ran through the men as though they had heard everything they needed to hear about me already. I felt at a distinct disadvantage.

  "And what have you told them?" I said, looking up at Scottie. Even on the highboy stool, he was still taller than me.

  "About your skill set," he said. He picked up a glass of champagne and meandered around the room, jerking his
chin at each man in turn.

  "Professor of History," he said of one. "Cryptology specialist," he said of another. His eyes landed and stopped the longest at the man who I'd seen upon first entering the room.

  "Archaeologist."

  "How lovely to meet all of you," I said and thought I did pretty good at keeping the level of sarcasm out of my voice. Scottie seemed to think so too because he smiled thinly. He'd obviously thought I would be difficult.

  "And what do all of these have to do with me?" I said.

  "These men are in my employ, Isabella," he said. "They report to me when they find anything interesting, anything they think might be useful or valuable."

  I nodded mutely. So what was so different or special about that? Scottie had a lot of people in his employ. A lot of people who fed him that kind of information.

  He crossed the room to a tattered box that sat by itself on the bar. It looked like it had seen better days. There was dirt scuffed into the creases and I thought it was made of leather.

  "Sarah here is the mistress to one of the most influential antiquities dealers in the area. In all of North America, actually," he said with a gloating grin. He nodded at the young woman I had mistaken for Scottie's date.

  "He told her about a new discovery. Completely unexpected and unprecedented. He'd come into possession of it but had nothing but bad luck ever since. He locked it away in a special safe in his home. Mostly because after all of the things that happened at his research center, he was too afraid to leave it out in the open. Sarah here couldn't get the safe open no matter how hard she tried. And you did try didn't you?"

  The girl nodded amiably.

  "He did tell her what was in it, though," Scottie said. "She can be very persuasive." He smiled at the girl who blushed.

  "And then of course she told you," I guessed.

  He beamed like a proud patron should. I was beginning to understand.

  "This safe that she couldn't open," I said. "Did it happen to be locked away in a beautiful library behind a rather lowly hung painting?" I tried to keep my voice light, but my disdain leached through. I looked at her with a calculated eye.