“It will be yours too. You’ll come around. Sooner or later they all come around.”
Sierra was quite certain she was going to be sick.
“What about the kids that ‘go home’?” she asked.
Dorrian smiled pleasantly and dropped his voice to an undertone, so their waiter wouldn’t hear.
“Now and again, their parents back home will disobey my orders. The children pay the price for their parent’s foolishness. Just like you will, if Joe tries anything. However, I am fond of you, Sierra. It would be a terrible waste to have to rip your beautiful body apart.”
He took her hand as he said this, almost lovingly. Sierra pulled it away with revulsion.
“So what happens now?” Sierra asked, trying to sound braver than she felt. “You dress me up like a doll and force me to have dinner with you. Are you going to force me into your bed next?”
“You insult me.” Dorrian replied, and in spite of herself, Sierra felt relieved by the answer. “I have no intention of forcing you to do anything. You will come to me. You’ll hate me, and you’ll curse me, and you’ll miss your rough, simple man back home. And then one day, you’ll get lonely. And you’ll come to me. It’s inevitable.”
He paused to cut a piece of his steak.
“Besides,” he continued, “I’ve arranged to allow Joe a Skype visit with you next week. It wouldn’t do to have you tell him you’ve been mistreated.”
*
Sierra didn’t sleep much that night, or the next one. By day, she paced her room. Occasionally, the phone would ring. She’d ignore it. Someone knocked on the door once. She ignored that too. She took baths, and she ate the gourmet food that was sent up to her on silver trays, and she paced, while she tried to think of a way out of this mess.
It was early evening. Sierra calmly picked up the phone in her room. She was automatically connected with the same over pleasant voice that told her she was having dinner with Dorrian two days before.
“How may I help you, Miss Christie?” the voice asked cheerfully.
“I’d like another massage. Could you send Gina up?” she said.
“Ah. Well…I’m not certain Mr. Taylor would…” the man stammered.
“Then call Mr. Taylor, ask him, and send her up.” Sierra said.
She hung up the phone with a resounding clunk and waited. As expected, fifteen minutes later there was a knock on the door. Gina let herself in.
“Hi, Miss Christie. You wanted another massage?” she said.
“Yes, please.” Sierra replied. “And call me Sierra.”
Gina got started on her massage. She eased the tension out of Sierra’s back as gentle music played in the background.
“So tell me about your home.” Sierra said.
“I don’t really remember it much. I was just a little kid.” Gina said, brushing off the question.
“Well, what do you remember?”
Gina was clearly uncomfortable with the question. Still, Sierra suspected she had been told to do whatever she asked. So, if she wanted Gina to talk about home, Gina was going to talk about home.
“We lived in Arkansas. In a boathouse.”
“You lived in a boathouse?”
“Yeah. There was this bright yellow slide on the back. My big brother used to wait at the bottom to catch me. He’d do this thing where he’d slide down and then shift right at the bottom, so he landed in the water as a swan. I was jealous. I wasn’t old enough to shift yet.”
“Is your brother locked up here too?”
“No. He used to live here, but he went home.”
Sierra felt her heart ache for this poor lost little girl.
“Tell me what it was like growing up with your parent.”
“Why? They were…” she faltered. “I don’t really remember that.”
“Try.” Sierra instructed her. “Did your dad ever pick you up and spin you around? Did your mom ever sing to you?”
Gina stopped massaging.
“Why are you asking me these things?”
Sierra sat up and faced her.
“I’d just like to know how your mother felt when they ripped you out of her arms and locked you away here.”
“You don’t understand.” Gina said. “I’m okay. I’m happy here.”
Gina’s voice shook. She didn’t sound entirely convinced.
“Is your mom happy?”
Gina backed away. There were tears in her eyes, now.
“Why are you asking me these things?” she said again.
“What about your brother? Is he happy?” Sierra demanded
“I told you. My brother went home.”
Sierra stood up and moved towards her. Gina backed into the wall.
“Do you really believe that?” Sierra asked.
Gina was crying now.
“These kids,” Sierra said, “The ones that ‘go home’, have you ever seen them leave? Has anyone ever seen them leave? Or heard from them again? Has your big brother ever Skyped with you?”
Gina sobbed, shaking her head.
“I don’t know what you’re saying!” Gina cried. “They went home. My brother went home!”
“Come on, Gina! You are a smart girl! You know better than that. You know your brother didn’t go home.”
“No…” Gina insisted piteously. “No, he went home.”
Sierra took her by the shoulders.
“Gina, your brother is dead. Dorrian murdered him, because your parents wouldn’t follow his dictatorship. This isn’t your home, this is your prison. And you know it. I know you know it, Gina.”
Gina collapsed on to the floor.
“I know.” she said, and then proceeded to cry so hard she couldn’t form words anymore. Sierra knelt and wrapped her arms around the shaking girl. She held her until the crying went from sobs, to quiet cries, and, finally, to silence.
“Listen to me, Gina. I need you to be very brave. You don’t have to stay here with the man who stole you from your parents and murdered your brother. You can get out. Maybe I can’t, but you can. I can help you. You can go back to your family.”
Gina raised her tear stained face to look up at her.
“How?” she asked.
Sierra stood up.
“You’re a bird, Gina.” Sierra said.
Sierra picked up the sofa and threw it as hard as she could into the window. The window shattered spectacularly as the couch fell to the pavement below with a crash.
“Fly.”
*
Sierra suspected this was not what this room had been intended for when the hotel was built.
She had been taken to what might have once been a boardroom. In a former life, this room had probably played host to dull meetings. Power Point Presentations. Assorted Danish and coffee.
Now where there once may have been a conference table, was an empty space with shackles hanging from the ceiling. On the wall where a projector screen would have gone, instead there hung an array of wicked instruments. Knives and nails and pokers. They had chained Sierra up and left her there, facing that wall, left to wonder what devices were going to be inflected on her.
She was certain this was supposed to scare her. By all accounts, she should have been scared. But instead, what Sierra felt was curiously calm.
She wasn’t getting out. She wasn’t going to see Joe again. She was trapped in this place and now, they were going to hurt her.
And that was okay. She could live with that. Because Gina had gotten out.
With only a moment’s hesitation, Gina had shifted into the most beautiful swan Sierra had ever seen. With a mighty flap of her wings, she had soared out through the broken window and into the night.
Sierra had watched until her fleeing form became just a speck on the horizon, and then vanished completely. She was a smart girl. She would make it.
Just as Gina disappeared from view, the door to her room had burst open. In had come Jimmy, along with two other armed guards.
They should have sent
more.
Sierra had turned from the broken window and shifted. The guards, not expecting an attack, had been caught off guard. Jimmy managed to fire his gun into her shoulder before she closed the distance between them and ripped into his chest with her claws.
She barely noticed the pain at the time. She had moved on to the next one as he fired and missed her, and she crushed his head beneath one giant paw. The third guard had shifted, but though he was faster than her, his small feline body was no match for her powerful bear strength.
It had ultimately taken nine guards and a tranquilizer gun to subdue her.
The bullet was still in her shoulder now. It throbbed painfully. The injury was made worse by the way she was hanging from the ceiling by her arms. Blood dripped steadily down from the wound, leaving a trail across her naked body. She shivered and wondered if it was because the room was cold or because she had lost too much blood. She was starting to get dizzy.
The door opened and Dorrian walked in, wearing a crisp white button down shirt and slacks. His usual cool demeanor had been replaced with a blind fury.
“You killed three of my men!” he spat at her. “And you let one of my hostages fly out a window! What were you trying to accomplish?”
Sierra stared him down and did not answer.
Dorrian turned to the wall. He selected a mini blowtorch from the array of instruments at his disposal. He started the blowtorch and directed the flame at the bullet wound in her shoulder. Sierra screamed as her flesh burned and fused back together.
“There.” Dorrian said, and bizarrely he seemed to be regaining his composure as Sierra lost hers. “Now you won’t bleed out while I punish you.”
He hung the blowtorch back up on the wall. Sierra took several gasping breaths, trying her best to breathe through the pain.
“I never thought you would be so foolish. You are going to come to regret your actions, if you haven’t already.”
He pulled a small, bulb shaped device with a hand crank, off the wall.
“Do you know what this is? I haven’t had the opportunity to use one of these since the 16th century. It’s called a pear of anguish.”
He turned the hand crank. As he did, the “pear” split into three segments, opening wider and wider from the base like a blooming flower, with a spike on the end of each petal.
“I’m going to put this inside you, and crank it open until you beg me to stop.”
Sierra drew in another ragged breath and tried to speak. Her words came out in just a broken whisper, barely audible.
“What did you say?” Dorrian asked.
Sierra coughed and tried again.
“I said, you were wrong. These kids are not loyal to you. They don’t want to stay just because you gave them toys and took away their curfew. Deep down, they want their pack, and they hate you. All it took to convince Gina to fly away was five minutes of talking about her parents’ houseboat. They hate you. Just like all the packs under your control hate you. You have no loyalty. All you have is fear. You’re disgusting. And I will never come to you.”
Dorrian backhanded her across her face. The blow made her head spin. He immediately followed this action by tenderly stroking her cheek.
“You’re dangerous.” he said, almost admiringly.
He brushed the hair out of her eyes.
“And you may well be right. Perhaps the only real tool I have is fear. Which is why I’m afraid I’m going to have to kill you.”
He held up the pear of anguish.
“But first, I am going to hurt you.”
*
At some point Dorrian had unchained her. It didn’t matter, because she no longer had the strength to fight back anyway.
He had left her there on the floor, bloody and bruised, her body struggling to heal itself. Morning light was just starting to stream through the windows.
She had thought he was going to kill her that night. Many times, she had wished he would just kill her. She had expected him to just finish her off when he was done.
But Dorrian had bigger plans for her than that. He told her, before he left, that she wasn’t going to die quietly in this room. He had to make sure there was an audience first. The children were talking, you see, about Gina’s escape. If fear really was his only tool, then he was going to use that to its full potential.
She was going to die today, but she wasn’t going to die quietly in this room. Oh no. He was going to assemble all the children in the lobby and execute her in front of them. He just hadn’t made up his mind on how to kill her yet. He was debating between having his leopards rip her apart and eat her, and a good, old-fashioned crucifixion.
She had known that Dorrian was egotistical, and sociopathic. But she hadn’t realized quite how sick he was. She shuddered, trying to block out the memories of what she had endured the night before.
Dorrian was very, very sick.
How long had it been since he had left her? Hours? Was it daylight when he left, or still dark? The pain made everything confusing.
But the pain was fading with remarkable speed. This new body of hers was an amazing thing. It was the first time she’d been able to appreciate her accelerated healing. The burn on her shoulder had healed already, leaving behind a knotted pink scar. The rest of her body was putting itself back together, little by little.
She wondered how long it would be before he came for her. Before her public execution was staged in front of dozens of horrified children.
Maybe she could do something to prevent that.
Slowly, she pried herself off the floor. Trying valiantly not to think too hard about what she was doing, Sierra considered the array of instruments lined up neatly on the wall in front of her. Her legs shook as she walked along the wall, letting her fingers trail across them as she considered each one. Her fingertips dusted the handle of a hammer, the curved blade of a scythe, the fine point of a stake, and the cool metal of a bowie knife.
Could she do it?
Was she brave enough to do this?
If she was going to die, she didn’t want her death to be some sick teaching moment for Dorrian.
But could she do it?
She had almost convinced herself that she couldn’t when she came upon an electric carving knife. It was the kind you’d use for a Thanksgiving turkey. She picked it up. In her mind’s eye, she saw that Hallmark image of a family gathered around the table while dad sawed off a neat slice of turkey. Sickened by the image, she dropped the knife and threw up all over the blood stained, blue carpet.
She knelt there for a moment, gathering herself. She took a deep breath, then stood up and picked up the knife. She took the power cord and plugged it into the wall.
It’ll be easy, she told herself. The knife will do all the cutting for her. It will hardly take any pressure from her. She could go straight for the artery in her neck. She’d bleed out quickly. Maybe a minute, and it would all be over. And surely it would be less painful than whatever Dorrian had planned for her. Certainly less painful than what she had endured last night.
She flipped the switch to turn the knife on. The mechanical whir of the blade was almost impossibly loud. The sound drilled into her head, filling her with cold terror. She almost turned it off then.
Almost.
Summoning her resolve, she took a moment to think about Joe. Her wonderful, strong Joe. She hoped that he’d find a way to get by without her. Tears ran down her face as she considered that an afterlife wasn’t necessarily in the cards for an immortal. That she may wait for him in Heaven for a very, very long time.
“I love you, Joe.” she whispered, and with shaking hands, she raised the knife to her neck.
*
She dropped the knife in surprise as the lights went out in the room. A moment later, dim, auxiliary lighting kicked on and an alarm began to sound.
A few minutes passed. Sierra stood still, waiting to see what would happen next.
Then, from out in the hall she heard shouting, followed by guns
hots.
Sierra ran to the wall and pulled down the scythe. She pressed her body against the wall right next to the door and waited.
A few more minutes passed, and then one of Dorrian’s guards burst into the room. He looked around wildly for a moment, expecting her to still be on the floor where they left her. Sierra sneaked behind him and slashed the scythe across his throat. She ran out or the room and down the hall to the lobby.
The hotel was in chaos. Bullets rained down in the marble foyer, leaving dust clouds in their wake as they hit home in the cold stone. Dorrian’s men were all over. Some were dressed in tactical gear and bearing automatic weapons. Others were fighting off the intruders in leopard form.
And the intruders…
Like Dorrian’s people, some were in human, and some were in animal form. There were wolves, alligators, foxes and lions. There were hawks swooping down from the lofted ceiling and striking with their claws and sharp beaks before flying back up again. And there were bears. Her bears.
Sleuth had come for her and their children.
All of the packs had come for their children.
And in the middle of the fray, there was Joe. She would have recognized his sleek, black fur and powerful form anywhere. He was fighting off four of the leopards at once, decimating them with ease. He tuned from them and saw her from across the room.
Joe bounded towards her, shifting smoothly as he closed the distance between them and breaking into a run. She threw her arms around him and he lifted her off her feet in his embrace, spinning her around and kissing her deeply. Amid the bullets and the chaos and bloodshed around them, they held each other just for one, still moment.
Then the moment passed and they returned to their dire reality.
“Do you know how to get to the hanger?” he asked her urgently.
“Yes.”
“We have trucks down there waiting to take the children out of here. I want you to get in and take the first one out.”
“No!” she insisted. “I’m staying! I’m helping!”
“Sierra!” he shouted at her.
He took a moment to take in her determined expression.
Simply Bears: A Ten Book Paranormal Bear Shifter Romance Collection Page 93