"Um, excuse me, this is all very exciting and dramatic, but if I may, I'll just finish up your little speech for you, to save you the trouble and both of us the time."
My heart sounding like a jackhammer in my ears, I slowly turned my gaze back to the doorway, and Victor.
He cleared his throat. "Now, this is you, remember." He cleared his throat again and spoke in a high-pitched voice, imitating me. "Oh my God, Aaron! Everyone! What's the matter with all of you? Why are you all frozen? Unfreeze, all of you! Unfreeze, dammit! Don't all of you realize that if you don't unfreeze, he'll surely kill me? And if he kills me, then I'll never be able to make sweet love to my hunky beefcake of a bear-shifter boyfriend ever again." Victor returned his voice to normal. "Is that about where things were headed? It was, wasn't it? Well, you’re welcome. I just saved you all sorts of trouble."
I wiped my sweaty palms on my jeans, without hardly even realizing I was doing the action.
He suddenly launched into another little tap dance, ending it in a different pose, his arms both off to one side. "Fancy feet! That's what I've got tonight...fancy feet! And what do you think about that? Are you impressed by my abilities? Are you impressed...Kyla, was it? So what do you think, Kyla?"
I didn't respond, somehow unable to form words.
Victor frowned. "Not a fan of dance, I suppose. Not a fan of dance. Well, at least there's still my British accent to impress you with, and what do you think about that? It's usually a real panty-dropper. So what's it doing for you right now? Are your panties staying up? Or are they...." He bit his lip, moaning theatrically. "Or are they starting to...." He moaned again. "Slip."
I still couldn't respond.
"Because let me tell you, my panties just about plunged to my ankles the very first second I laid eyes on you. And I'm being silly, here; it was only about a tenth of a second. I mean, look at you. You're quite the hourglassy, curvy little stunner, aren't you? Oh, yes, my panties just whooshed right down to my ankles. And I'm actually being double silly, here; I don't even wear panties. I prefer to go commando."
I finally found my voice, but it came out as a shaky near-whisper. "What have you done to them?"
Victor frowned. "A girl who likes to get straight down to business. I don't like it, but I don't hate it, either. Something arousing about it. I suppose I can respect it." He came through the doorway and began stepping over to the table. "What have I done to them...what have I done, what have I done, what have I done." He stopped right next to my chair. "Well, let's see...it's actually quite simple. I've frozen them."
"Well...well, undo it."
The words sounded stupid before they were even fully out of my mouth. I knew he wouldn't just undo what he'd done. But I was disoriented and desperate. And having more than a little difficulty thinking.
Victor reached between me and Aaron, and picked up a knife a few of us had been using to spread a melted brie dip on slices of toasted baguette. He licked the knife clean. "Mm. Delicious. But now, let's stick to business, as you've revealed yourself to be a business-oriented type of girl, and I've revealed myself to be aroused by that. You asked me to 'unfreeze' your brawny boyfriend and his lovely family. Now, let me think about this." He stared off into space, resting the point of the knife just below his chin. "Let me think, let me think, let me think." He turned his gaze back to me, lifted a hunk of my hair with the knife, and leaned in close, his dark eyes glittering. "No." He removed the knife, letting the hunk of hair fall in my face. "Lovely, your hair, by the way. Just the kind I'd like to wrap my fist around and give a good hard pull to make you scream."
Trembling, I searched Aaron's face, looking for any sign of movement, but saw none. He still held his playing cards aloft. My voice came out in a whisper.
"Aaron, please."
Victor grinned. "That's good. Keep doing that. Part of my intent by casting this spell was to torture Aaron. You see, he and all the others are all still fully aware of what's happening; they're just frozen in their bodies. Probably screaming in their minds right now. And were that sound not silent, I'd love to hear it. Anguished screaming is quickly becoming one of my favorite sounds in the world. I crave it, actually. I hope to hear a few good, blood-curdling screams out of you before all's said and done."
I took Aaron's stiffened hands, whimpering. "Aaron, isn't there anything you can do? Can't you just...can't you just break out of this spell or whatever?" I paused, choking back a sob. "I'm really scared."
Victor clapped his hands near my ear, three times, slowly. "Bravo. Bravo. I intended you to torture him, but even I didn't think you'd take it this far. I'm sure poor big, strong Aaron is crying like a baby inside now. Crying just like a little baby. Helpless. Helpless and...." Victor leaned around me, got right in Aaron's face, and carefully enunciated the next word. "Impotent."
He leaned back around, grinning at me, and then pulled me up from my chair with his non-knife-holding hand. "Let me get a good look at you."
His gaze traveled the length of my trembling body.
"Mm. Mm, mm, mm. Luscious curves. Never thought I'd have much in common with big, strong Aaron, but it's becoming clear that we at least share the same taste in women. I like a soft, curvy, feminine girl. I like a girl with a little bounce, if you follow me. Oh, what's that look on your face, dear Kyla? Surprised I like women at all? Yes, me too, sometimes, but I most certainly do. Especially ones as lusciously curvy as you. Especially ones who look like they need to be tied up and made to scream for a few hours like you. But...what am I even doing. Aaron should be watching all this while I size you up. Just look at me. Part of my intent with this spell was to torture him, and now I'm not even letting him watch while I feast on you with my eyes. 'Fancy feet'...more like I've got 'clumsy brain!'"
As easily as if he were moving a chair that was empty, Victor turned Aaron's chair to face us, using only one finger to do it. "Did you notice how easily I just did that, Aaron? I'm sure you're just as impressed as I am with my own self. See, I'll put thoughts of my imminent raping of your girlfriend on hold, here, for a moment while I explain a few things to you. Thing one. Well, I lied to you all. Obviously. I wasn't weakened when you murdered my six brothers; I seemed to absorb all their strength and powers and then some. I guess old Six Clouds never did tell us exactly what happens when any of our brothers are killed, let alone all, but now we know. It's a total absorption of strength and powers. And it's even an absorption of criminal desires and tendencies. You see, I don't know if I was ever really 'good,' but I was certainly never evil on the same level as my brothers. But now I am. And I love it. Thing Two. Shortly after I discovered this new evil side of me, I began studying the occult. And it turns out, shifters created by a Native American mystic can actually become fairly decent practitioners of the occult in a very short amount of time. I'm actually something of a gifted sorcerer now. This allows me to cast spells just by thinking them, even without speaking. It also allows me to do fun things such as communicate with other supernatural creatures via telepathy, and read certain creatures' thoughts, I guess mostly those who have their own little extraordinary supernatural gifts like our dear Seth, who, by the way, is the whole reason I'm here right now. I've been reading his thoughts all week. Even as he tried so hard to read my own. Even as I let my new power slip up a little earlier tonight, accidentally allowing him to hear my thoughts for a minute or two. I read his mind as he came tearing back here. Which caused me to use another of my new gifts, which is that of lightning-fast speed, to dash over here before you all set out on a witch hunt for me."
I'd been slowly moving my hand toward another knife on the table, intending to do what with it, I didn't exactly even know what, but just as my fingers came within an inch of it, it skittered across the table.
Victor looked at me, frowning. "No, no, Kyla. None of that. You don't think I have the ability to move a knife away from you with my mind?" He shifted his gaze to Seth, who sat frozen, his face a bizarre mask of shock mixed with hostility. "By the way, Seth,
just noticed you there, and this little tidbit is for you. The reason your hearing of my thoughts has been a bit sub-par recently is because I now have the ability to shield my thoughts from you. Isn't that fun? Thought you'd appreciate knowing that. I can also shield my scent and presence, which is equally fun. And you all bought me saying that all this was because I was weakened. How silly. But anyway...." Victor turned his gaze back to Aaron. "Anyway, my friend, what number of things was I even on? Ah, who knows. Who cares. Maybe this all covered it. Now. All that's left before I abscond with your lovely, luscious girlfriend is to tell you what I want from you. I want a one-on-one, man-to-man, shifter-on-shifter fight with you. A fight to the death. A fight for the forest. A fight to crown the official king of these wilds. And I realize this won't exactly be a fair fight, what with me now possessing the strength of seven shifters and sorcery skills to boot, and you only possessing the strength of one shifter, albeit a pretty powerful one. But still, completely fair or not, I still want this fight. When my new subjects arrive tomorrow, I want them to see your bloody carcass and know that I earned the title of king. And I think that will get them sufficiently worked up enough to kill your entire family. As if they need a reason above and beyond the promise of immortality. Which I now believe I can grant them, thanks to my new sorcery skills, as long as they remain within the confines of the wilds. So anyway, all of this was supposed to occur tomorrow evening, but now, our dear determined Seth, here, has forced my hand. Let's set the fight for tomorrow, first ray of dawn, same as the battle last time. I'll unfreeze you with sufficient time to arrive at our battleground by then. By the way, let's meet at the same clearing as last time, just for old time’s sake. And don't for one moment think you'll be able to bring your family, here, to help you. I won't be unfreezing them until after I kill you. And I'll only do it then just to watch them run around like scared little rabbits while my new subjects hunt them down."
I made a move for the knife on the table again, but, with his mind, Victor spun it further away from me still.
"No, no, Kyla. Naughty." He turned his gaze back to Aaron. "So what do you say, Aaron? Are we on for tomorrow at dawn?"
Aaron didn't respond, of course, his face a frozen mask. My heart ached as if it were literally breaking.
Victor grinned. "What am I thinking? You're frozen! Well, since you can't respond, I'll just bring along Kyla, here, to camp out with me at the clearing overnight. I think that will ensure that you'll come tomorrow. Although I can't promise what kind of a state she'll be in when you arrive." Victor took me by the upper arm and gave it a little squeeze. "Can't promise I'll be gentle with her. But I will keep her alive. Live bait, that's what I'll keep her as. Now, what else, what else. Oh! You're probably wondering what's the point of even fighting me if I'm going to use magical spells. Well, here's one thing I will promise you, and I suppose as I'm now quite a notorious actor and liar, you'll just have to take my word for it. Or not. Whatever. But I promise you this."
Victor's expression changed from one of slight amusement to one much more sober.
"I will not use any magic during our fight. I may be an evil sorcerer shifter wolf now, but I do have at least a little shred of honor left, and I truly do want to feel as if I've earned my kingdom fair and square. I will not use magic."
His expression changed back to one of slight amusement.
"Or at least, as fair and square as a fight can be between two shifters when one of them has about seven times the strength of the other. But I will not use magic. I will not do anything to magically incapacitate you or prevent you from fighting me to the best of your abilities, although I'm afraid those abilities won't be much of a match for me. So what else?" Victor turned his gaze to me, grinning. "I guess nothing!" He turned back to Aaron. "I guess farewell until dawn, my dear friend. Enjoy your night of frozen, impotent torture while you imagine all the nasty things I'm going to do to Kyla, here." Victor squeezed my arm even tighter, his dark eyes glittering. "And they will be...positively nasty. Maybe we'll even enjoy a little erotic knife play. Have you heard of that? No? Well...I'm sure you can imagine. Have a nice night, Aaron."
I whimpered, terrified, and made one last lunge for the knife on the table, knowing it would most certainly be useless against Victor, but unable to stop myself from making a desperate attempt to save myself. But my fingers didn't even come close to the knife before Victor turned and began leading me out of the cabin by the arm. But he stopped and took us back to Aaron after only a few paces.
He leaned in and put his face right in Aaron's. "And last of my things I've been dying to tell you. Why didn't I just freeze and kill you all when I first arrived here begging you to let me remain? Why don't I kill you all now? Well, aside from my admittedly small remaining shred of honor, it's for one reason." Victor moved his mouth to Aaron's ear. "It's because this...is...fun."
Laughing, Victor turned from Aaron and dashed out of the cabin, dragging me along. "Fun! Fun! Fun times with Kyla, straight ahead!"
CHAPTER SEVEN
When we reached the porch, Victor tossed the knife behind his back and scooped me up in his arms, a seemingly impossible task for a man of his small stature, but he did it easily. He strode down the porch steps and across the front lawn with his mouth near my ear.
"Now, my lovely captive, we're going to take a little run, and it's going to be a brisk run. Can't promise you might not end up a little wind-burned.”
With that, he took off through the trees at the side of the yard and began down a half-mile trail that led to the clearing east of the cabin settlement. His movement could hardly be called running. We were more like flying. I wasn't able to see his legs but knew if I could, they'd simply be a blur. Tall elms and birches on either side of us, illuminated by a full moon, became one dark, undefined shape.
It didn't even take us half a minute to reach the clearing.
Victor slowed his lighting fast pace, jogged up a tall, rocky hill in the eastern corner, and dropped me among some boulders. "Here we are."
I cried out, landing on my hip on the stony ground.
Victor grinned. "Not quite a scream, but I did like the sound of that." He joined me on the ground, pulled me into his arms, squeezing me hard enough to bruise, and forced me down to lie on the stony ground with him. "You don't mind sleeping on a bit of rough terrain, do you? See, I rather quite like it. The slight discomfort, the odd stone or two digging into your spine...it all makes me feel tough somehow. Makes me feel like a real man, a feeling I'm becoming more and more enamored with. And speaking of real men, you'll have to wait until tomorrow after Aaron's and my fight to have one. I was going to take you tonight and enjoy a little sweet lovemaking-slash-torture-and-screamfest-session, but now, I'm thinking it will be best if I take you triumphant, after the fight. That way, I can have you in extreme emotional pain as well as physical pain, and what could be sexier than that? So we'll wait. Because for all my new strengths and different powers, I do still require sleep, unfortunately. So nighty night, lovely Kyla. Go to sleep. And do know that I've raised a sort of invisible shield around this hill, a fortress of sorts to keep you from escaping. So don't even bother. You're quite locked in."
Victor closed his eyes and relaxed his hold on me, seeming to fall asleep instantly. But he didn't. He slowly reached around, grabbed my rear, and squeezed. Hard.
"This will be so fun tomorrow."
Crying out in pain, I grabbed the rawhide cord he wore his stone wolf amulet on and pulled it to the side, trying to choke him, trying to get him to release my rear.
He gave me another hard, painful squeeze before yanking the cord from my grasp. "No, no. We don't ever touch our new daddy's amulet, not even the cord on which it hangs. You see, that's where all new daddy's power is stored. That's where the souls of all dead wolves in his pack reside. That's their safe little home. And if anything ever happens to it, new daddy is in fairly serious trouble. So we never, ever touch that."
Victor's pale face, almost seeming to glo
w in the moonlight, suddenly became grim.
"And if you try it again, I'll squeeze you hard enough to crush your flesh and make you bleed." He released my rear, pulled me close, and closed his eyes. "Now sleep. And no funny business or crying. I need my rest. Just shut up, be still, and sleep."
Terrified of what he'd do if I didn't, I did as I was told. Except sleep didn't come. Even after Victor's breathing became deep and slow, I lay awake wondering if Aaron could possibly be strong enough to defeat him. If he had any chance at all. If Victor would stay true to his word and not use any magic against Aaron during the fight. My heart ached for what I knew Aaron must be going through back at the cabin, frozen. Even though Victor had told me not to cry, I couldn't stop a single tear from rolling out of my eye and across the bridge of my nose. I couldn't stop it, knowing Aaron was being tortured.
But eventually, after several hours, I fell into a light, fitful sleep, turning my face away from Victor's, the feel of his arms around me nearly making me physically sick. When the pre-dawn sky was colored with shades of gray and lavender, he woke me up with a light kick to the ribs. I opened my eyes and saw him standing over me, brushing his teeth.
He shrugged. "What? Just because I'm a shifter wolf, I have to be some sort of complete animal? Even half-wolves like to start the day with minty-fresh breath."
I realized I had to use the bathroom very badly, and asked him if I could.
He rummaged through a knapsack, produced a roll of toilet paper, and tossed it at me. "See? Not a complete animal at all. I don't think I'd survive long without my little creature comforts. You can go behind a rock."
I relieved myself behind a tall boulder while Victor continued brushing his teeth, humming.
A short while later, when the sun became pink with approaching sunrise, Victor began removing his clothes, preparing to shift into wolf form. "Now, you can watch this if you'd like, my dear, to get a little glimpse of what you'll be in for after the fight. For somewhat of a small man, I'm actually quite...large."
Her Bear Protector Trilogy Page 12