Within the castle walls, the threat of her escaping had apparently lessened, as only three of the guards accompanied her into the castle and up an ancient stairwell to a room. There, they left her. She could hear the very distinct slide of a bolt across the door.
Her hands went to her bare upper arms, rubbing them for warmth. She had to ignore the cold metal of the still-attached handcuff clanging on her bare skin. At least they had left her with free rein in the room.
The room she stood in was elegant, but chilly. Charlotte assessed her surroundings. Even with multiple tapestries and modernizations, the original stone walls were visible—and ancient. A dark four-post bed. Ruby-colored silk linens and pillows piled high on the mattress.
A settee with a silver gown strewn across it, several plump chairs, and a free-standing wardrobe dotted the wide room. An enormous fireplace commanded one interior wall. Bookcases lined the adjoining wall. Charlotte went across the room to investigate the titles.
It only took looking at a couple rows to realize all of the novels lining the shelves were romance or erotica. She looked back over her shoulder at the room, curiosity eating her. Whose room was this?
Charlotte’s musings were interrupted when she heard the bolt slide across the door, and she hustled back to the wide open space in the middle of the room. She wasn’t going to get caught backed into a corner.
The door opened, and the suit stepped into the room. His tie was gone, and the white shirt under the jacket was open two buttons. Charlotte looked past him into the hall, only to see three guards flanking the doorway.
Instinct told Charlotte to back up, back away from the suit, but then he lifted his hand and shook the key to the handcuff. He moved toward her, and when Charlotte didn’t offer up her wrist, he stepped in close, too close, and reached down for her hand. Charlotte fought to keep her feet in place.
“I apologize, they should have removed this.” He lifted her hand and slipped the key into the handcuff, freeing her from the metal. He went out to the closest guard, handing off the key and handcuff, then came back to her.
He picked up her hand again, and rubbed her wrist, inspecting the line of blood on her skin. The touch was slow and intimate. An intimacy this stranger had no right to. Charlotte ripped her wrist away.
It brought a small smile to his lips.
She backed away from him, instinct finally winning out.
“I see you are looking for escape. Let me assure you, Charlotte, there is none.”
Charlotte mustered calm indifference. She was already disgusted her own feet couldn’t hold ground. “Who are you? What do you want from me?”
“Damen. Your second question, we will discuss at dinner.”
Charlotte’s mind raced furiously through names and faces—Damen—she knew of no Damen. At least now she could stop calling him the suit.
His eyes narrowed at her. She stared back at him as unemotional as possible.
With a slight tilt of his head to the settee, he spoke. “The gown. Put it on. There is an adjacent bathroom, modern, to freshen in. We will eat in one hour. You will have an escort down to the dining hall.”
Without another word—without a chance for Charlotte to question—he disappeared out the heavy mahogany door.
This time, the bolt did not slide back into place outside the door. A very clear message. He wasn’t worried about her escaping.
~~~
Charlotte sat down on the red velvet chair. Across from her, Damen stood as she was led to the chair opposite him, waiting until she was seated to do the same. A mannered kidnapper, Charlotte noted.
The table between them was long, at least sixteen feet, but they sat on either side of the middle of it, close enough for conversation. It was just the two of them, and a full plate of duck and vegetables appeared the second Charlotte’s napkin was laid across her lap.
Charlotte clasped her hands atop her thighs, making no motion to the food or wine in front of her. She was starving, but she also did not trust anything before her.
“The gown sits upon your body well,” Damen said, cutting into his duck. He took several bites, thoughtfully watching her as he chewed. “Eat, please.”
Charlotte sat, unmoved by his request. She stared at him instead. The dark hair was in place now, and he had changed into a new suit, dark blue, that sat easily across his broad shoulders. He was also back to a tie. He was fit, and of healthy size. Maybe as tall as Triaten, but not as thick.
Charlotte bit her tongue at the thought of Triaten, then scrubbed him from her brain. Her mind had to be clear of him, at least for now. At least until she knew what she was up against.
She refocused on Damen, wondering at the muscle under the suit. Was he fast? Was he a warrior? Did she stand a chance against him? Size wasn’t her friend on that front. How about with a weapon? Possible.
His eyes zoned in on her—shit, she’d seen that look too many times in Triaten—Damen was a mind reader. A mind reading Malefic. At least that answered one of her questions about who she was up against.
Charlotte forced her mind to a blank and looked at the tall stone wall behind him. She focused on the large tapestry hanging on the stone—a hunting scene—and thought about barking dogs, and horses, and the scurrying fox—all thoughts to force anything of value out of her mind.
“Do you think I would bring you all this way to poison you?”
She didn’t look his way.
Evident manners be-dammed, Damen reached across the table with his fork and jabbed into Charlotte’s duck, pulling a slender chunk of meat free. He popped it into his mouth. “Delicious. You must partake.”
Charlotte refused movement.
“Ah, you don’t eat meat?” His fork came to her plate again, stealing an asparagus tip. “Also delicious.”
Her eyelashes flickered for a moment. She was working extremely hard to be a blank slate, and had she really just made obvious she was a vegetarian? She was going to have to work doubly hard to make sure she gave nothing to this Malefic.
“What do you want of me?” She wanted to get to the point of this ridiculous meal, not eat.
“I will tell you nothing until I see you eat.”
She assessed him, quickly coming to the conclusion she would learn nothing unless she played along. Charlotte lifted her fork, taking the smallest spear of asparagus.
She set the fork down. “What do you want of me?”
“Eat.”
Charlotte begrudgingly took another bite. Fork down. “What do you want of me?”
“Eat.”
The battle of vegetables continued until Charlotte’s plate was cleared of all greenery. The duck sat lonely, untouched on her plate.
At the last bite, Charlotte pointedly set her fork down and resettled her hands in her lap. “What do you want of me?”
Damen set his silverware down and leaned back in his chair. He grabbed his wine glass, slowly taking a long swallow of red. Observing her.
He set the glass back down on the table, resting his hand next to it, fingertip touching the glass stem. He looked at her.
“I have been assured that your lineage, Charlotte, is one of the strongest to the original Panthenites.”
“Who told you that?” Charlotte couldn’t control a slight stiffness that shot up her back. She had no doubt it was perceptible to Damen.
He pushed back from the table and stood, walking languidly around the table. He stopped next to her, too close, his thigh touching her arm. Charlotte fought hard to not pull away.
Damen leaned down, his head slightly behind hers. His hands went into her hair, and he gently shifted her blond locks to the side. He looked at her skin, then his forefinger was on her, tracing the triple infinity scar that ran along the back of her neck.
“Not nearly as harsh as how we mark our breeders.”
No. A brick slammed into her stomach. That was why? No.
He let her hair fall back into place, and moved to look at her, leaning against the table.
/> “It turns out the half-breed that can spin time is an anomaly of the sort we would like to reproduce,” Damen said. “We have two similar results now. Malefic-Panthenite beings—the possibilities, the powers, are too big to ignore. We intend to make more.”
It was too much for Charlotte to control herself. Her hand snaked out and snatched the knife she had been eyeing for the last hour. She went to her feet, striking, in one fluid motion.
He was just as quick, and caught her wrist just as the tip of the blade touched the skin of his neck.
“You wondered if I was any good?” He jerked her wrist backward, crushing the bone until the knife fell harmlessly from her hand. “I am.”
He looked slightly amused, but his continued crushing of her wrist belied the anger—punishment—he let surface.
He brought his face close to hers, his grip on her wrist giving her no chance for space.
“You are the best the Panthenites have, Charlotte. I am the best the Malefics have.” His clamp on her wrist waned, and eventually disappeared. But instead of stepping away, he moved closer into her, his face sliding along hers until his lips were at her ear. “But I will not force you. I will not take the chance your body will outright reject my seed in you. You will mate of your own free will.”
Charlotte froze. But she did manage to open her mouth. “Never.”
“I disagree.”
“Don’t—”
“I will not force you.” He repeated in her ear. “But you will lie with me. And you will enjoy it. That, I guarantee.”
~~~
Charlotte woke up in a cold sweat, the fleeting images of a nightmare, Triaten’s face turning from her, discarding her, jarring her from sleep. She sat up in the silk sheets, rubbing her temples, forcing the devastating image from her mind.
Eyes open and opulent reality in front of her, she couldn’t shake the remnants of the nightmare—heartbeat thudding wildly and an immovable lump in her throat—and it made her disgusted with her own lack of control.
It had only taken an hour for Damen to get into her mind last night. To make her subconscious doubt herself—doubt her loyalty, her love. He seemed to believe he could ply her into doing the unthinkable. And the mere mention of her betraying Triaten was enough to produce nightmares she wanted no part of.
She pulled the sheets back. Well, no more. She was going to lock down her brain. And find a way out of here. But first she needed to know where here, was. She walked to the window and brushed aside heavy red velvet curtains. A cold draft escaped, sending goose bumps along the back of her arms.
Harsh mountain peaks cut into the sky in front of her. Heavy snow crept up the sides of the rocky spires, eventually losing existence to the harsh wind that demanded the rocky tips remain bare in the clouds. Rocky tips, just like those framed in the bedroom window at the ranch. Triaten’s face, his arms holding her, his heart beating against her cheek, flashed into her mind and ripped at her heart.
Triaten really was going to kill her. And this trouble wasn’t even of her own doing. This trouble was just because she existed. Triaten’s fear of losing her had just materialized, and she had done nothing to stop it.
He hated her action-without-thinking, but where was that when she stepped off the helicopter? Had she let this happen? Why hadn’t she fought? She had practically offered up her wrist for handcuffing.
Stop it. She chided herself. Number one rule: stay alive, fight when it’s right. It had been drilled into her since birth. But now she was here, and Triaten was on the other side of the world, probably finding out about her capture and going crazy.
She had to get out of here. And she had to put Triaten completely out of her mind, she realized. Damen could read minds—he read hers easily last night—and she couldn’t let anything about Triaten slip. Damen would not know about the only weakness she had. Triaten.
Hands on the windowsill, Charlotte’s head tilted down and she closed her eyes. She took a full minute to imagine Triaten’s body, naked, muscles slick with sweat, on top of her. Loving her. She let the image wash over her, his essence giving her goose bumps.
And then she expunged all of it from her mind. She would not think of him again until she saw him.
Escape. That was the only thing she was going to think about. But from this window, all Charlotte could see were jagged peaks. They looked like the Alps, but she couldn’t be sure.
She looked down. To her left, an ancient stone wall lined the outer edge of the grounds, running into a cliff that jutted straight up to the sky. In front of it, a hedge maze spread out wide, filling most of Charlotte’s view in that direction. Snow was thick on top of the tall hedges.
All that told her nothing. Save for that she was in the middle of a mountain range.
She spun into the room. There were still flames burning in the fireplace, and she noted someone must have tended to the fire throughout the night. She went to the wardrobe, opening wide the double doors. Gowns. Lingerie. Lots of it. She opened one of the lower drawers, hoping for something plain. Jeans, yoga pants, a t-shirt—anything comfortable. Nothing but underwear.
She heard the click behind her and the door to her room opened, pulling her upright. She suddenly became aware of the fact she only wore a thin black sheath of a nightgown.
Damen was through the door and in front of her before she could scurry for a robe. No suit for him today, just a royal blue button-down shirt and pressed black trousers.
“You have slept well?”
Charlotte glared at him. She ached for the robe at the foot of the bed, but didn’t run for it. Nor did she allow herself to cover her chest with her bare arms.
“You will be here as long as it takes, Charlotte, so your scowls will eventually wear you thin. It is possible to have a congenial conversation with me.”
He stepped past her to the bed, grabbing the robe. He moved behind her and put it over her shoulders when she made no motion to take it from him.
“So I repeat. You have slept well?”
“Under the circumstances of being kidnapped, held captive, and forced to breed,” she shoved her arms into the sleeves, “yes, I slept fine.”
He nodded. “Good. Your comfort is of importance to me. After our discussion dissolved last night, I didn’t get a chance to explain my home and your stay here.”
Charlotte eyed him. Did he truly see this as some sort of resort she should be delighted to be at?
“You may have your run of the grounds,” Damen said. “That freedom is yours. But you will not be able to escape.” He nodded at the window. “I can see you’ve already assessed this side of the estate. Let me assure you, the routes in and out of here are well-guarded, and I would prefer my men not to have to hurt you to bring you back. But they will if necessary.”
He turned from her and went to the silver-inlaid wood side table, and opened the drawer.
“No one will bother you. No one will speak to you. Please request anything you need to Clarice, she will be your assistant while you are here, and always available with this.”
He handed her a small round piece of plastic with one button on it. Simple. And it wasn’t like he was going to hand over a cell phone. Charlotte wondered how many Panthenites had been in her position.
“I’m not the first you’ve had here, am I?”
His eyebrow cocked. “The first Panthenite? No. But the others have been here of their own free will. You are an anomaly.”
“I doubt that.”
“Regardless,” Damen gave her a dismissive smirk, “be assured Clarice is adept at her job. She will produce anything you desire, except departure, of course.”
Charlotte spun the button in her hand. “You have the ability to read my mind. Shouldn’t you know what I want?”
“You saw?”
“Yes.”
“Well, you must have missed that mind reading is a faint skill of mine. More of a hobby.”
“So what are you good at?”
He moved in on her, only a hand
’s length separating them, and Charlotte immediately regretted her question. This Malefic had a definite problem with what was appropriate personal space.
“Well fertility, obviously.” His hand went to her lower belly, palm and slender fingers splaying wide across the silk of her nightgown. “And this.”
His fingers twisted slightly on her body, and it hit her like lightening, before she could move away. Deep in her belly, deep in her uterus, that singular longing right before orgasm. That desperate twisting in her core, the moment in which one would trade the world for release from it.
She jerked away, hand on her chest, gasping for breath, gasping for sanity away from the guilt of what his fingers did with the slightest touch. “You’re an empath?” she choked out.
“Yes. And this, I am quite good at.”
Charlotte rubbed her belly where his palm had been, trying to calm her racing heart. She had only been around a few empaths throughout the years, and she always found them unnerving.
Those who didn’t have solid control of their power tended toward the crazy, absorbing emotions of all those around.
Empaths with control tended to overwhelm. Reading emotions, forcing emotions and feelings, on others. And if what Damen had just done to her was any indication, he wasn’t just good at it, he was a master.
Her hand dropped to her side. “An interesting parlor trick, I give you that. But I rarely fall for gimmicks.”
He tilted his head, his face appraising her as a novelty. “You think what you just felt illusion? I can see your racing pulse on your neck. It would disagree.”
She spun away from him, eyes on the low fire, slowing her breathing. He stepped next to her, his upper arm brushing her shoulder. Still too close.
“Being an empath must be an odd power for a Malefic to have, what with being evil and all,” Charlotte said.
Damen shrugged, not skipping a beat on the word evil. “Some think it a weak skill. Others appreciate it. It has proven itself useful. But I’m sure you can imagine I am no stranger to a sword.”
“No, I don’t suppose you are.” Charlotte pointed at the window. “You have a labyrinth out there. Is that included in the ‘freedom’ you so graciously have given me?”
Flux Flame (A Flame Moon Novel Page 9