“I will.”
“Max, that is the most intriguing deal I have ever been offered.” His voice went from creepy to sinister and he continued, “I accept. You have my word that I will not hurt Lauren. In return, you will be indentured to me.” He paused, eyeing me cautiously. “You realize what this means, yes?”
“I know what it means. What do you want me to do?”
“Step this way.” Samael led me through a set of double doors into what looked like an old time vault. “You’ll have to forgive the accommodations, Max. I wasn’t expecting you to make this offer, or I would have had something a little more suitable.”
I stepped into the vault, praying that Lauren was watching right now. She could know for sure she was safe. I didn’t feel the warmth of her gaze and had to assume that she wasn’t. I hoped it wouldn’t take her long to figure out she didn’t have to look over her shoulder anymore. She could have a normal life again.
“Go ahead and make yourself at home. I’ll see what I can scrounge up for food. I’ve got to go run some errands; I hope you don’t mind keeping yourself company.” Samael shut the door and all light disappeared. I could hear a ventilation system kick on yet could see nothing. It was pitch black; no furniture, no shelves, nothing. I eased myself on to the floor alone with my thoughts and, as always, they turned to Lauren.
Hours passed. Samael didn’t return. I lay on the floor in the darkness second guessing my decision. I knew Samael was some kind of creature. What was his word worth? Would he really keep it? What could I do if he didn’t? How would I ever know if Lauren were okay? More hours passed: I was really locked up in a vault. I began tapping the sides of the wall: all four were solid. I couldn’t reach the ceiling, and there was nothing I could prop myself up with. The silence was deafening. Just when I thought I could take no more, I heard his footsteps.
Samael opened the door, and the light burned my eyes. I threw my arms up over my eyes to keep from being blinded. “Oh, Max, sorry. I know exactly how that feels. Well, maybe not exactly. I was once forced into a cave without light for years. You’ve only been here a few hours. Has the madness set in yet? If not, I promise you it is something to look forward to. Even today I cannot stand to be in dark places for long.” Samael’s smile was evil, and I knew he thought of me more as a toy than any kind of adversary. He handed me two boxes. One was full of food and water. The second was a camping commode. “Don’t let it be said that I don’t take care of my own.” Samael stepped back through the door and locked me in my own dark cave. I could hear his muffled voice through the door, “Max, enjoy your evening. I’ll check in on you in a day or so.”
I methodically removed the packaging and placed the commode in the farthest corner, then felt through the box of food and water. I had hoped to find a flashlight, candle, something, but there was nothing. I tried to be grateful for the food. I could feel a warmth take over me and could feel Lauren watching. My heart began to race and my hands were sweating.
I wanted to call out to her to tell her she was safe, that I had made a deal and no harm would come to her. I knew if I spoke she could hear me, but what could I say? She would be furious with me if she knew I had gone to Samael and asked for him to leave her alone and traded myself in the process. Her warmth enveloped me, and I savored those precious minutes. I ran through different things to tell her, but in the end I decided to remain quiet. If she didn’t know I could feel her presence, maybe she would check on me more often. If she knew where I was, she might try to get me out. I didn’t want her to put herself in danger trying to break me free from a prison I willingly stepped into. After several minutes a chill came back over the air, and I knew she was gone.
I wept. In my heart I believed my arms would never hold her again, I’d never feel the smoothness of her skin, see the light in her eyes, or feel the love of her touch. I didn’t begrudge that knowledge because I had also seen fear in her eyes and seen danger through her senses. This deal I had made with Samael ensured she would never have to feel those things again. I had made the right choice, I just had to live with it now.
There was no concept of time. The water was gone. The food was gone. I was alone in the dark. My mind began playing tricks on me. I’m sure I must have slept, but my conscious and subconscious were moving in unison. My thoughts of Lauren were jumbled up. I could no longer tell when she was watching me and when I was truly alone. I began to believe that Samael had left me to die. It felt like days since he had brought me the supplies. I felt a warm glow but couldn’t be sure Lauren was near. I had felt so many emotions since the last time I saw the light. Love didn’t seem to be in my vocabulary; I felt rage. I was sure I heard footsteps but Samael never opened the door. Someone was outside the door, but wouldn’t open it.
I summoned all my strength and yelled , “You son-of-a-bitch, where are you? I know you’re out there. You think sliding me food and water and staying hidden in the darkness will save you? Scared of a fair fight are you? Show yourself. I’ll rip your throat out myself.”
I was right, Samael was right outside when he replied, “Those are pretty tough words for someone who begged to be locked up, begged me to leave Lauren alone. You know I saw her last night.” My heart skipped a beat then pumped hard in my chest. Adrenaline coursed through me, and I tasted the hate I felt.
“You’re a liar. You said you would stay away from her. You gave me your word that if I came quietly you’d never hurt her again.”
“Well, that is a bit of a tricky situation. You see, I never meant to do her any harm, but it turns out I can shift into a pretty convincing Max. She took care of me, cleaned and dressed my wounds, offered to run away with me, and, oh, that’s right, she shared my bed last night.” I gripped the wall to steady myself as I envisioned the two of them in the throws of passion. My deepest love intertwined with my tormentor. I wanted him dead, more than dead – I wanted his existence erased.
“That isn’t possible. She would never believe that you were me. She can see through you. She can tell when you are within fifty feet of her, and I guarantee if you ever got within fifty yards, she would put a five inch hole through your chest. Keep talking, Samael. The more you lie to me the stronger you’ll make me.”
“So confident, are we? Maybe she did know it was me and not you. You do realize she has spent more time with me this lifetime than she has you. I’ve always wondered what would happen if I interfered, and after my evening with Lauren last night, I can only tell you that I regret not bedding her centuries ago.”
“Show yourself, you filthy animal. You can say anything you want in the dark, safely on the other side of the wall. You are nothing. You aren’t worth my time. She’ll find me; you know it, and so do I. When she does, there won’t be a dark enough, deep enough hole for you to slither into to save your sorry ass.”
“Oh, the consummate submissive mate, aren’t you? Waiting for your girlfriend to come to your rescue. Pretty pathetic really. If I didn’t already have plans for you, I might just do you the favor and end your sad little life right now. No, Max, I’m sorry, but you’ll have to be a little more patient with me. Don’t worry. After you’re gone, I’ll take really, really good care of our Lauren.”
I heard his footsteps walking away and knew I was again by myself. The warm glow I had felt before his arrival evaporated with him. I began to wonder if my link to Lauren was somehow now tied to him. The two of them together made me want to vomit. I was in a frenzy, my blood boiled, and I was in this dark vault that I had asked to be placed in. I screamed out, still holding the wall, I felt if I let go, part of me might disintegrate.
“Max, it is Renny. Can you hear me?” The voice was so crystal clear I looked in all directions, feeling the empty air with my hands to try to find her. Though I had heard her voice only days before, it was like the sound of an angel. I felt every inch of my chamber and knew she wasn’t with me, the madness must be taking hold. I smiled thinking to myself, I had imagined when I really did go mad, it would be Lauren’s
voice I’d hear.
“You aren’t going mad yet, and Lauren isn’t a telepath.” She was speaking to me, she could hear my thoughts. “Do you know where you are?”
“Renny, yes, I’m in the old First Federal building downtown off of Church Street. Have you seen Lauren? That thing has her!”
“Max, calm down, Lauren is here with me – she is safe, we are coming to get you. Do not worry about your bargain with the Beast. He hurt Lauren, so he has no hold over you anymore. We will be there very soon.”
My mind raced, and I had a visual of the two of them in bed with him tearing her apart. Rewsna must have gotten the visual from my head, when she said, “Lauren did not show me the extent of her injuries, but she is safe and he is nowhere near her now.”
Rewsna spoke to me for the next twenty minutes, telling me I would be okay, letting me know that they were getting closer. I could see through Rewsna’s eyes as the three arrived to rescue me. Lauren was at the door and popped it open. The light flooded in and blinded me, the way it did when Samael opened the door to give me the supplies.
I didn’t know what emotion to feel first. Thrill that I was free, that Lauren was here with me, that she was protected by these people when I couldn’t protect her, anger that I had put myself in this situation, rage that Samael was still alive, or any other of the hundreds of thoughts swirling in my head.
Lauren came in and grabbed me hard. As my eyes adjusted, I noticed huge hand marks on her neck, bruises where someone had tried to choke the life out of her. I heard Samael’s voice as clearly as if he had been standing next to me whispering in my ear. “Ah, now we really can share her. Don’t be alarmed, Max, I asked you before we made our arrangement if you understood what it meant to be indentured. You willingly agreed. I knew one more encounter with Lauren, and she would take the strength I had left. You are mine. You belong to me, and I can live through you.”
I looked at Rewsna, my eyes wide with Samael’s words. I was horrorstruck. Lauren was talking, but I couldn’t understand her words. The next thing I knew she had pulled the vault’s door off by the hinges. Rewsna was paying no attention at all to the words racing through my mind.
Samael’s voice stung, “Every time you touch her, I, too, will feel her. We will share her. Don’t worry. When your mind has to rest, I can awaken. I can do things to Lauren that will make her beg for mercy, for hours on end. She’ll have the best of both worlds. Her sweet, loving Max that she has wanted for years during the day, and a demon that can cause pain in the most sadistic of manners in the bedroom at night. I can hardly wait.”
I staggered to Lauren’s van, staring at Rewsna, begging for her to hear the turmoil in my head. If she heard any of it, she didn’t let on.
Samael was somehow inside me. He was a part of me. I could feel his evil. He continued, “Tell me, Max, have you ever considered intercourse with a branding iron? It’s a little hard to tell the difference between screams of delight and pain, but bodies heal, right?” This image formed in my mind and the horror of what Samael could do to Lauren was unbearable.
I made an attempt to talk to Renswa, to make her hear what I heard. “Rewsna, can you hear me?” The four of us were in the van, but Rewsna seemed to have turned her receiver off. I couldn’t share outloud what was playing in my head.
Samael’s voice came booming through, “Renny can’t hear us. I may be weak, but I can keep her out of our head. What do you suppose the Council would do to you if they found out I was inside you? Do you think they’d let you breath another minute? No, my humble servant, they’d kill you to get to me. Your offer to me initially was an exciting alternative; having a young strong body is something I haven’t enjoyed in many years.”
“You’re a shifter, you can make any body you want, why me?”
“There is a difference between making an identity, and living in another person’s skin. You could equate it to wrapping yourself in a king sized blanket, trying to hold it together while keeping yourself from being exposed versus slipping into a wet suit. Your body fits me perfectly.”
The thought of being reduced to stretching cloth for a demon made me want to be physically ill. The van pulled up in front of Rewsna’s house and the two occupants got out. I looked at Peanut in the back seat. He wasn’t the slightest bit distracted by me, nor did he understand that this demon he had been so astute at guarding against was right here inside of me.
I was having trouble thinking steadily but answered him, “Samael, I didn’t know this was what you meant. I didn’t sign on for this.”
“You agreed to our terms, Max. In fact, you offered the terms. We really will get along well. You just need to open your mind a little to the possibilities.”
The remainder of the day and the following, every waking moment I heard disgusting thoughts nearly non-stop. I never relinquished control. I pretended to be asleep so I wouldn’t have to talk to Lauren, but I was petrified of what he might do to her when I wasn’t in control. When I came back to the house after repairing the fence, I was exhausted and weak. I heard what Seth said to Lauren, and I couldn’t even be angry about it. It’s not like it was a surprise.
Samael continued to stoke the fires, trying to get me angry with her. I couldn’t be. I knew I would pass out soon from exhaustion and couldn’t take the chance of him taking over my body. I had to make Lauren go, to hurt her feelings badly enough that she would never again want to be alone with me.
As I watched the dust from the gravel in the driveway, I knew I had hit the mark. I made my way back to the bed and passed out.
Chapter 31
I awoke the following morning, Saturday. The sunlight was seeping through my blinds, birds were chirping, and, as usual, my thoughts made their way to Lauren. In my morning grogginess, I forgot that I was sharing this body with the equivalent of a leech until his voice brought me back to my new reality. “I thought you would never get up! So, what are we going to do today? Fence repair isn’t top on my list. If I get a vote, how about we go see Lauren?”
“No!”
“Touchy, aren’t we? I just thought after your little tantrum yesterday we could pick up some flowers, go grovel a little, let her know that it was just the stress of being locked in a cage, blah blah blah, and now you know you can’t live without her, blah, blah, blah, then we screw her brains out. What do you say?”
I ignored him. I refused to talk to him, and it was hard to tune him out, but not impossible.
“Oh, pretend you don’t want to! You remember I get the added treat of seeing your dreams while you sleep. You really are obsessed, but I’m sure after you get laid and maybe try a few new moves, your subconscious might be tremendously more fun to interact with. I’d be more than happy to help you with your technique.”
My ignoring him did little to dissuade his constant bombardment of unwanted narratives and speculation of what he could do to Lauren.
I could almost hear him sigh, “Oh, all right, I get it, your precious Lauren is a lost cause. How about we find a way to get your mind off of her? It’ll do us both good. I can’t help myself you know, as obsessed as you are about her, I can’t help but fantasize right along with you. Maybe if I had some new material?”
I made breakfast, threw in a load of laundry, grabbed my ipod and got on the mower. A few hours of mowing lines in the lawn was bound to rearrange his priorities. I had mowed five acres, listened to I don’t know how many songs, and was putting the mower away. I was pleased with myself when I realized he hadn’t spoken to me in over an hour. I let my mind wander a little when his voice echoed loud, “I don’t care for manual labor; the monotony is for the uneducated. We should hire a gardener.”
I didn’t respond, not in thought or with words. I hadn’t acknowledged anything he said since early this morning. If I could make my mind inhospitable enough, maybe he would decide to leave.
“You can’t ignore me forever; in fact, I’ll make a wager with you. I bet you cannot ignore me for five minutes.”
I wa
lked into the barn to clean out Christy’s stall without so much as a second thought. I was stronger, this was my body, and as soon as I could figure out how to get rid of him, my mind would be mine alone. I shoveled the stall when a dull image began playing in my mind.
It looked like me asleep in my bed. The image showed me in the same pair of shorts I had fallen asleep in last night. The alarm clock on the dresser showed eleven pm. I watched my body get out of bed, put on a t-shirt and shoes and make my way to the kitchen. My truck keys and wallet were in my hand as I walked out the door.
As I watched the events in my mind unfolding, I could feel my body reacting. I was asleep last night, all night. I didn’t get up or go anywhere. These images showed that while I was sleeping, I wasn’t sleeping. The scene faded out and faded back in. I was standing in the yard of an unfamiliar house I had never been to before. I couldn’t imagine why I was looking at it in the dark until I looked to my right and saw Lauren’s van. No outside lights were on, and from what I could tell, the inside was just as dark.
I watched my legs walk up the steps, my hand turn the door knob, and I stepped through the door. As I watched the scene unfold, dread washed over me, the same way when you’re watching a horror movie and you want to scream at the person on the film, “No, don’t go in there.” This time I could feel in my bones that I was the monster, I was the one that was there to create chaos and pain. I watched myself walk down the hallway to a little bedroom at the end, turn the door handle and there on the bed was Lauren. I watched her through the crack in the door and then the image went fuzzy again.
The image of Lauren blurred in front of me, and I came back to reality and shouted at Samael, “What the hell did you do to her?”
“Why Max, whatever do you mean? I did nothing. It was all you. You were the one that sent her away and broke her heart. It only seemed fitting that you be the one to go make amends, don’t you agree?” I hated the smugness of his voice. If he took control of my body last night, he could have done anything. The reality that Lauren might be injured, dying, or even dead sent me to my knees. A sharp pain pierced my heart. I scrambled to my feet and ran back in the house for the phone. I dialed Lauren’s number and her voice mail picked up, her phone was off. I called Rewsna, who answered right away.
Destiny's Revenge (Destiny Series - Book 2) Page 18