Abigail rolled her eyes. She had never been good at interrogation with the truth serum. The victim would tell the truth, but never really elaborate on the questions being asked.
“Okay, so where are you?”
“I’m sitting in a chair,” he said, voice slurred and almost incomprehensible.
Had Miles given him too much of the drug, she wondered? He wasn’t acting right, for some reason. Instead of panicking she asked him another question. “What is your name?”
His eyes crossed and he looked at the tip of his nose. “My name is-s-s…boy.”
“Are you an angel?” she asked, her voice rising.
“Nope.”
“Well, then what are you?”
He dropped his head and stared at the ropes wrapped around his body like he was trying to figure that answer out as well. “I’m a minion,” he said matter-of-factly.
Abigail’s fingers found her temples under the hood of the reaper’s cape and rubbed in tiny, slow circles until the ache eased. She wanted to cry with the way her luck was going lately, but what escaped her lips instead was a giggle, then another. Soon she was laughing so hard she was crying. The jerky movements hurt her fresh body aches, but she couldn’t help it. She couldn’t stop the bursts of laughter that left her mouth.
He was intoxicated and would be absolutely no good to answer questions at the moment. She would have to check and make sure Miles had used the right stuff. Or maybe it was because of what he was. His body reacted to it differently.
She managed to tone the titters down to a smile, then took slow steps backward until she bumped into the mattress. She laid down gently, but was careful not to show her pain. He watched every move as she pulled the comforter over the reaper’s cape and hid herself within the material like a caterpillar in a cocoon.
He was tied securely to the chair. Not even Houdini would have been able to escape the series of crisscrossed ties and knots that Miles put the stranger in the middle of.
She yawned. She was exhausted and her body needed the rest to heal properly.
She gazed at him from under the hood of her cape like a predator in a cave looking out, totally unnoticed by its prey. He stared blankly at her form under all the blankets. She fought to stay awake. She wasn’t worried he would escape his bindings. He would definitely still be there when she awoke. She just didn’t want to close her eyes. She knew her dreams wouldn’t be pleasant. They never were. She didn’t want dreams of Lucifer and Hell. She wanted to stay there with him, the man that had fallen into her world and turned it upside down. Boy, she thought, and smiled as her eyes drifted involuntarily closed.
Chapter 14
Rhyan
I felt so dopey. It was difficult for me to concentrate on any one thing around me. I had double vision, but I knew I was back in the presence of…I grunted as I forced into focus the form on the massive bed. It was Abigail. He wanted me to kiss…that? That was so not happening.
I could vaguely remember the hooded figure standing before me, asking silly questions. Do you know where you are? Well, hell yeah I know where I am. I’m in Hell! I thought, and jerked at yet more bindings. What was her kink with tying people up?
I sighed and then gave up when there was no slack. The ropes, or whatever, were so tight, they were threatening to cut off the blood circulation in my veins. But that was all right, I was sure if I lost a limb it would just grow back, probably really slowly and very painfully, but it seemed to be the way things worked around there. Lose a life, get a new one. Lose a limb, grow another one. Now, I understood the torture part of Hell. It never freaking ended.
There wasn’t really much I could do with my time while the princess was napping. Evidently, she knew I wouldn’t be able to escape from the entrapment or she wouldn’t have gone to sleep, leaving me in the room with her and all the toys she’d used on me earlier.
She was either very confident or really stupid. I was guessing the latter, but it wasn’t an educated guess. I’d find out soon enough. Stupidity liked attention.
I studied the room around me. I was seated about ten feet from the bed she was laying on. She was covered with that reaper’s cape again. I had already seen her in a lot less. Why would she bother covering up? I thought, then dismissed it and looked to where our last adventure together had taken place.
The leather bindings hung loosely from the circle-shaped contraption. There was a large stone table up against the wall behind it, whips, chains and an assortment of other super fun-looking torture devices lay atop it. Something caught my eye and I squinted to bring the object into focus. A mysterious light glinted a second time, like it was trying to get my attention, off the blade of the dagger she’d used to kill me. I remembered Malcolm had said they would supply me with abilities, healing and weapons if I would give them the information I acquired of my surroundings in Hell. Had Malcolm done that? Could he see me now? I wondered.
I couldn’t remember him giving me anything except the fresh clothes, and I was still wondering how I was going to explain those. Maybe he slipped me an ability as I was swaying around in a drunken stupor. There weren’t any weapons that I could see or feel on my body. Of course, Abigail would have removed them in my unconscious state if there had been. I was sure she’d already noticed my injuries were healed and the new clothes I had managed to conjure up out of thin air.
I shook my head again. What had she drugged me with? My brain was still foggy from the stuff.
I focused on the blade again. Maybe…I glanced back to the bed as Abigail whimpered and rolled to her back. The soft fabric of the hood fell away, exposing to me a bruised and swollen face.
I gasped and my eyes grew wide in shock as I stared at the beaten image before me. The thing on the bed didn’t even look like her. Was it possible she turned into some hideous beast when she slept as part of her punishment in Hell? No. She had been beaten, severely, from what I could see.
Each beat of my heart slammed hard against my ribcage. My breaths were loud and heavy as they entered through my nostrils and passed through my lips. The wooden legs of the chair were tapping a fast, steady rhythm on the stone floor from the violent shaking of my body. I had a strong urge to make someone suffer greatly for doing that to her.
I now knew a way to get the dagger, but my reasons for retrieving it were no longer the same as they had been only a few moments earlier. I had no interest in shoving it through Abigail’s heart as she had done to me. I wanted to cut myself free of the ties and cradle her safely in my arms. Nobody would dare touch her again without going through me first.
Kiss her.
I forced myself to relax in the chair, letting my head fall back to rest on the wood behind me. I glanced up to the ceiling and took a few deep breaths. What the hell was wrong with me? What was I thinking? This woman killed me. She didn’t just try to kill me, she actually did it. Why should I care if she took a beating from a thousand demons on a daily basis? It shouldn’t matter to me what happened to her at all.
Something willed me to look back to the girl on the bed. She had the appearance of an angel, even with the contusions. I wondered what she had done to land herself in Hell. There was something so familiar about her, like we’d met somewhere before, but Malcolm would have mentioned if she had fallen from Heaven, and I would have remembered.
Kiss her.
No, it wasn’t possible that my feelings had changed for her that quickly. I hated this girl.
A strange feeling washed over me, and I realized that it mattered very much to me what happened to her. Was Malcolm screwing with my mind? I wondered.
Kiss her.
Was the substance she’d drugged me with causing me to go crazy? Or was this some sort of side effect from being in Hell? Having an insane attraction to someone that got her kicks from killing you over and over again?
I may be crazy. And I may be attracted to the demon, but I didn’t have to trust her. I could never trust her.
I glanced at the dagger, then back to h
er again. Heaven wanted me to be with her, so if it was a trick of the mind, it would have come from Heaven, not Hell.
I let out a quick whistle to test how soundly she slept. She didn’t move an eyelash. My eyes still glued to her, I scooted my chair once toward the table, then again when she continued to lie unconscious and unaware of my activities.
The forty foot journey to the table took me every bit of twenty minutes to accomplish with the constant checking of Abigail’s breathing and trying to move as quietly as possible.
I scooted one last time and then just relaxed beside the table for a moment to rest and catch my breath. I sighed, a sly smile spread across my face. The hard part was over and done with; it was behind me. I had just leaned toward the table to pick the hilt of the dagger up with my lips when a knock came at the door.
I froze. My heart stopped in my chest, then kicked into overdrive when Abigail’s face turned to where she had placed me in the chair. Her eyes were still closed. But they wouldn’t be for long if whoever was on the other side of that door put knuckles to wood again. Dammit!
The knock came again, louder this time. It was now or never. I grabbed the leather hilt of the knife between my teeth the same time Abigail sat up in the bed. I could see the confusion and panic on her face that I had gone missing, and it was only going to be a matter of time before she saw me and what was so obviously sticking out of my mouth.
She tossed the covers from her body. The satin reaper’s cape had ridden up to mid-thigh during her nap, and I stared in horror at the cuts and bruises covering her legs. They were black and different shades of blue, and covered nearly every inch of flesh I could see.
I must have made some sort of a noise, because her swollen eyes shot to mine, then she quickly tucked her body and head back within the black material.
She sat in silence for a moment, likely trying to figure out how I had managed to get from point A, where she’d put me, to point B, where I was upon her waking.
The knock came again, but she only looked at me from the cave of her hood.
“Abigail, are you in there? I heard what happened, and I wanted to make sure you were alright before I left for my new syde,” a male voice said from the other side of the wooden door.
My head turned in interest toward the door. It was a familiar voice. A voice I detested with every ounce of my being. The male behind that voice had nearly succeeded in stealing the souls of Kendra and her soulmate and dragging them both to Hell with him to use as he pleased. My blood began to boil and race within my veins.
I had hoped I wouldn’t run into Murry, but wasn’t it convenient for him that I was all tied up the first time we did run into each other? I was positive he would also assume I was a spy from Heaven. This was not going to end in my favor, I thought.
I noticed then that Abigail had left the bed and was halfway to the door. I clamped the hilt with my teeth and spoke around it, “Please…”
She stopped and turned to look at me.
I swallowed hard. As cruel as she had been to me I knew there was some truth to what Malcolm had told me, even as much as I wanted to deny it. I hated to stoop to begging, but what other choice did I have? I let the dagger fall from my mouth to my lap. “I will talk to you. Just please don’t open that door unless you untie me first. I at least deserve to be able to defend myself against him.”
She gave a short, amused laugh. “You make friends fast here, don’t you, boy?”
“Abigail? Are you not alone?” Murry asked.
I glanced nervously to the door, then back to her. “He’s no friend of mine, but it wasn’t here that I met him.” She raised an eyebrow, then took another step backward, toward the door. I panicked. “Wait! I will tell you everything I know. Just get rid of him.”
The handle of the brass doorknob jiggled slightly. “Abigail?”
She glanced back to the door, ready to take another step in the direction of my doom.
“Abbi, please…” I said, and the room spun around us.
Chapter 15
Everything moved in slow motion. The hood fell away from her battered face and her familiar eyes looked up to meet my own. I knew her, I thought. How did I know her? Her name had never been Abigail to me.
She was always Abbi.
She had always been…my Abbi.
I took in a shaky breath as it all came charging in, biting and harrowing, nipping and chaffing, trying to get into the deepest, darkest, hidden part of my head hardware. The rush was excruciatingly painful, but I now knew who she was.
Kiss her.
A fast slide show of memories flooded through my mind, and I could tell by her tear-filled green eyes that she was experiencing the same thing.
“No,” she begged in a whisper, and her breath hitched as the sob threatened to choke her. “Don’t watch it, Rhyan,” she said, but even if I had wanted to turn the images off, I didn’t think it would have been possible.
Her innocent smile.
A tender kiss.
Love.
My hands on her body as she gave me everything on our wedding night.
The happiness and joy we felt when we found out she was carrying our first young.
The grief in her eyes I saw from spirit form as she was told my life had been taken.
I had watched her for days, too worried to leave her alone. She had been growing weak, not drinking enough, not eating at all. She had needed me and I had failed her. I tried to communicate with her, to tell her that I would always be with her. I wouldn’t leave her ever again.
I watched the memory like it was a bad nightmare. I couldn’t not see it. I closed my eyes and it was there. I opened my eyes and she stood, frozen, her feet planted to the hard stone beneath her, fat tears falling over her cheeks. But the memory was still playing in my mind like a home movie.
“No!” I shouted, and realized my own tear ducts had betrayed me. I fought with my bindings. I needed to get to her. Make sure she was real and whole and alive. The movie continued to play, but I already knew what was to happen. The guardians had erased every bit of her from my memory for my own sanity, but now it was back. Malcolm had found a way to give me an ability, and it was the wrong damn one! I couldn’t take this. I couldn’t watch this again.
“No!” I shouted at the girl standing before me and to the girl in my memory. Abbi ran her finger over the blade of the dagger, checking its sharpness. “Why? We could have been together. She palmed the leather hilt in her right hand, then stared at the blade like it was her only way out of misery. How could you have done that to our chi…” Abbi turned the blade downward and placed her left hand over her right. I started choking, then gagging as I watched the mental video come to an end. In one swift move she drove the blade through her heart. I looked at my lap where the dagger still lay. It was the same dagger she’d used to stab through my heart earlier, and it was also the same dagger she’d used to stab through her own, ending her life as well as our child’s. Bile rose up from my stomach and I leaned to the side just in time for the vomit to hit the floor instead of the blood-stained knife. Not that I really cared where it landed.
I had to get out of there. I had to get away from her until I could clear my head.
“Abigail! Let me in or I will break into your chambers. Answer me so I will know you’re all right, dammit! Who is in there with you?” The knob tried to turn unsuccessfully again.
I took a deep breath, glanced at the door, and then looked back to her. If he got in I was sure to lose another life, then Malcolm would call me back to Heaven long enough for me to beat the shit out of him for putting me through this torture.
“Let him in, Abbi,” I said through a clenched jaw as I glared at her. “Let him take my life so that I don’t have to look at you feeling sorry for yourself right now.”
She brought a shaky hand up to her mouth, then rushed to me. I turned my face away, disgusted, as she knelt by my side. “Rhyan. Oh, Rhyan, I couldn’t remember until now. I hate myself. I’m so sorry. I
just couldn’t go on—”
“Abigail, open the fucking door!”
“Just go away, Murry. I’m fine!” She touched my arm and I jumped. She pulled her hand back, then I could feel tugging on the ropes that bound my arms behind me.
When my hands were free I bent to hurriedly release my left ankle. I didn’t object when she went to work untying the other one from the leg of the chair.
Our heads jerked up when there was a loud bang on the door as if someone was trying to kick it in. “You cannot order me anymore. I am no longer your sex puppet. I am your equal now, according to Lucifer.” I could hear faint sniffing sounds coming from the door. “Rhyan…” he said curiously, “…is that you, old friend?”
Abbi went back to work with the knots and so did I. “He knows you’re in here. How do you know each other?”
I grunted. I didn’t want to talk about Kendra to Abbi. It was too complicated. “Maybe I’ll tell you over crumpets and tea sometime.”
The loud bang sounded again.
She finished with her ropes and my leg was free, but the bindings I was looking at were too complex. I didn’t even recognize the intertwining cluster of tangled knots, but it hadn’t been in my job description to be a master at it. If I got back to Heaven I would definitely take a class.
She grabbed the dagger and sliced quickly through the threads.
“You’ve got to get out of here. I don’t know why you’re here or how you healed so fast or even how you managed to acquire…” she motioned with her hand at my clothes, “…those, but—”
I stood and took her by the shoulders. I knew what she looked like under those bruises, and I was going to make whoever had done that to her body regret they ever existed. I would make them pay. No matter what she’d done, I still loved her.
Kiss her.
I wanted to obey the voice in my mind. Her eyes looked up to me with such passion and concern. The emotions and feelings I’d had for this woman were all back, fresh and new, but now wasn’t the time. Murry would eventually get that door open and there was no time for her and me to have a reunion. I would need more than a few minutes to make up for the three centuries lost between us.
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