And I would have been traveling with Vlad, if he hadn’t been so determined to keep me safe that he’d left me behind. More irony: if I’d stayed in the “safest” section of the dungeon like he’d told me to, I would’ve been blown to bits along with Shrapnel and Cynthiana. Looked like this time, playing it safe had been the most dangerous choice to make.
Cynthiana. Clever bitch knew if Vlad ever captured her, her only escape would be death. If she’d have guessed that her backup plan would result in my capture, she would have been laughing instead of flipping me off the last time I saw her.
Maximus only shrugged. “You hate me now, but eventually, you’ll realize that I’ll treat you better than Vlad would’ve, once this business is finished with.”
“Yes, back to business,” Szilagyi said, his gaze raking over me with palpable coldness. “With all the essence imprints Vlad must have left on you, your skin is as dangerous as your right hand. Harold, take care of both, would you?”
The blond vampire came toward me, holding the knife I’d been wondering about. Now, with sickening certainty, I knew what it was. A skinning blade. I pulled at my restraints, but of course, they didn’t budge. I wanted to tell Szilagyi that my abilities didn’t work because they’d been smothered by Vlad’s aura, but his expression said that it wouldn’t matter. He wasn’t just doing this for precautions. He wanted to hurt me.
“And turn the camera on,” Szilagyi added, the relish in his tone hammering home that nothing I said was going to stop this. “We don’t want Vlad to miss a moment.”
Hours later, after they left me to start the delivery chain for their grisly mementos, I stared at my right arm. The scar that had stretched from my fingers all the way up to my temple was gone. I never thought I’d miss the tangible reminder of touching that downed power line over a dozen years ago, but I did. Now, my scar-free, gleaming pale skin would forever be a reminder of another life-altering event.
I’d experienced many horrible things through my abilities, not to mention being tortured once before. This . . . was different. It wasn’t the pain that made me feel shattered inside. Being shot full of silver had hurt worse, but when you didn’t have yourself anymore, who were you supposed to depend on?
I’d once told Vlad that everyone held their sins close to their skin. A person’s past was there, too, essence traces recording memories that would never fade with time. When he had me skinned, Szilagyi didn’t just slice off every imprint Vlad had left on me; he’d also taken away the last links I had to my mother, my sister when we were children . . . every moment in my life that had been important enough to leave an imprint was now gone, leaving me in what felt like a stranger’s body.
That’s what I couldn’t deal with. I could handle captivity, pain, fear, uncertainty, but my body was now Szilagyi’s tapestry of revenge, each inch of new skin a mocking reminder of what he’d done to me. They’d left me naked except for my restraints, but instead of feeling exposed, every time I looked at myself, I felt like I was watching a replay of the skinning video Szilagyi had shot with such gleeful malevolence. They’d taken that video and packaged it with all my old skin and the final coup de grâce—my right arm.
Szilagyi had ripped that off himself, marveling over how it still sparked with electricity for several minutes afterward. Then his delight knew no bounds when the arm that grew back only had the same amount of voltage as the rest of my body. He hadn’t intended to, but with that one, savage pull, Szilagyi had torn my most dangerous weapon out of me, and with it, my hope for escape.
Even when Vlad had smothered my aura, my right hand had still remained lethally charged. Now, I couldn’t free myself by overloading that hand until electricity punched through my restraints, nor could I use that same hand to manifest a whip that would cut down anyone who tried to stop me from escaping. Even after Vlad’s aura faded, I probably wouldn’t be able to discern psychic impressions, either. It wasn’t mine anymore. It was another one of Szilagyi’s leftovers.
I’d screamed when they cut my flesh from me, despite my best attempts not to. I’d also hurled threats at Maximus, Harold, and Szilagyi even though that had only amused two out of three of them. I’d tried to tell Vlad not to lose it the way they wanted him to when he saw this video, but Szilagyi had silenced me by shoving a handful of my discarded skin into my mouth. Now that I was alone and they’d taken the camera with them, I finally allowed myself to do the one thing I hadn’t done during the excruciating, soul-crushing experience.
I cried.
Chapter 11
My cell had no windows, so I measured the time by my cycle of consciousness versus unconsciousness. When I abruptly passed out, that meant dawn. When I awoke, dusk. From that, I knew that five days had passed since the castle attack. Oddly enough, my jailers had left me alone during the time. To keep from drowning in despair over Vlad, my circumstances, and wondering if Marty had made it out alive, I occupied myself by doing two things: testing my manacles and eavesdropping.
The former turned out to be a bust. Not surprisingly, Szilagyi was a pro at knowing how to restrain a vampire. The thick clamps on my upper arms, elbows, and wrists were embedded so solidly into the rock wall behind me that the wall had to have been reinforced. The clamp around my waist meant that I couldn’t wriggle down to get any traction, and my legs were bolted to the wall in no fewer than four places.
In short, I could give myself a really good case of rock burn by repeated squirming, but I couldn’t get free. I could, however, tell a few things about my surrounding from listening.
First, though his guards spoke Romanian when they talked among themselves, Szilagyi only spoke to them in Old Novgorod, an ancient, dead language that I couldn’t understand a word of. Second, I doubted that wherever we were was his main hideaway. Szilagyi had just returned after being gone for three days, and that was too long to be away from home base when he was playing a winner-take-all game with Vlad the Impaler.
Three, whatever this place was, it was definitely underground. The lack of natural or urban background sounds confirmed that. Szilagyi had a penchant for subterranean lairs, considering his last hiding place had been below the castle that Vlad had lived in when he was human. This one didn’t have as many people, so it must be smaller. It was possible the guards Szilagyi had brought with him were just very quiet, but from the number of heartbeats I counted, there weren’t enough humans to feed more than a dozen vampires.
I certainly wasn’t dipping into that supply. I hadn’t been given a drop of blood, as my ever-stronger hunger pangs could attest. Not that I expected any different. Starvation was one of the first things you did with a captive. I supposed I should be happy that they hadn’t gone for the other, surefire way to weaken an undead captive—silver poisoning. Maybe skinning and dismembering me had been brutal enough for Szilagyi’s first attempt to rattle Vlad into making a reckless move.
As I found out the next evening, I’d given Szilagyi too much credit by thinking that.
Shouts woke me. From how leaden my whole body felt, I’d risen earlier than I ever had before. Maybe it was still even sunny out. Before I could celebrate that small victory, I caught some of the heated argument between Maximus and Szilagyi.
“ . . . not going to let you do that to her. This is going too far,” Maximus said, sounding furious.
“ . . . need something more drastic to be effective . . .” I caught before Szilagyi’s voice lowered to where I couldn’t hear him.
“Think of something else!” was Maximus’s shouted reply.
Ice blossomed from my stomach to my leaden limbs. Maximus had given Szilagyi the idea to skin me. If he was appalled by what Szilagyi wanted to do now, it must be truly horrendous.
“Careful, Maximus,” Szilagyi said. He didn’t shout, but I could hear him clearly because they were right outside my cell now. “I value your place in my operation, but I am the one who makes the decisions. Not you.”
Maximus said nothing, apparently not willing to jeopardize his p
osition by further argument. The manacles that bound me to the wall felt like they tightened even though it was only my imagination. My heart didn’t beat, but it felt like it was being squeezed from the panic I tried to fight back. If I could, I’d be sweating. What was Szilagyi going to do to me this time?
“Then let it be me,” Maximus said, now speaking so softly I could barely hear him through the thick wall. “If you’re going for maximum rage effect, it’s better that way anyway.”
“How?” Szilagyi sounded doubtful.
Maximus’s next words sliced through my emotions as if they were razors. “Because six weeks ago, Vlad sent me to spy on you. He didn’t think you’d suspect me because he’d thrown me out of his line, but part of you must’ve wondered. Vlad thought I wanted back in his good graces, but all I want is Leila. That’s why I wasn’t lying when I joined you, and it might enrage Vlad to watch his worst enemy fuck his wife, but it won’t drive him mad like it will to watch the man who twice betrayed him do it.”
I sucked in a horrified breath. They were arguing over who was going to rape me? I began pulling at my restraints for all I was worth. Maximus kept talking, sounding amused now.
“You’ll also never have to doubt my loyalty after this. Vlad would invent new ways to torture me for it, so I’ll need him dead now even more than you will. Besides, women can forgive a lot, but Leila would hate me forever if I went along with you raping her. If it’s me . . . well, let’s just say that I don’t think she’ll entirely mind.”
“I’ll kill you myself!” I shouted.
Blood began to drip from the metal restraints as I tore open my skin faster than it could heal trying to get free of the clamps. Szilagyi’s burst of laughter covered my roiling dread with a flash of rage. My right hand tingled, but it still didn’t manifest so much as a spark. I’d never needed my abilities as much as I did now, and instead, I was completely helpless.
“Then again, she might need a little warming up,” Maximus muttered, opening the stone door. “Bring me some lubricant.”
“We don’t have that here,” Szilagyi said as he followed Maximus into the room. He had the tripod camera, and the sight of it slammed home that what was about to happen was going to be videoed and sent to Vlad.
“Twelve guys, no women, and they’re not allowed to leave?” Maximus’s snort was scornful. “Someone’s got lube.”
Szilagyi shrugged, disappearing briefly to shout something in Old Novgorod at his guards. By the time an abashed guard returned with a small bottle, causing Maximus to arch a knowing brow, Szilagyi was done setting up the camera.
And I was in a frenzy to find some way, anyway, to stop this.
“You’re wrong, I will hate you forever if you do this,” I rasped. “You sided with Szilagyi to be with me? You’re about to destroy any chance you had of that.”
He already had no chance, but maybe if he believed that . . .
Maximus came closer and the wall cut into my back from how I pressed against it in a futile attempt to move away. I hadn’t felt naked before in my new skin, but I did now. Oh, I did now.
“Better me than him, Leila,” he said, throwing a “sorry, bro” type of glance at Szilagyi, who grunted. “I’ll be gentle, whereas he would take out all of his anger against Vlad on you.”
“True,” Szilagyi in a casual tone.
Hatred swelled until I was shaking from it. “You’re right, Vlad will invent new ways to torture you, and that’s only after I’m done making both of you the sorriest people on earth!”
Szilagyi laughed. “Oh, she does have spirit. I’ll enjoy watching this.”
“You’re leaving,” Maximus said, not taking his eyes off me. “I’ve waited a long time to be with her. I don’t mind the camera, but I’m not going to have an audience.”
Szilagyi sighed. “Very well. As I said, I always reward loyalty among my people, but don’t take too long. I want the video on its way to Vlad by dawn.”
Maximus let out a low laugh that had me yanking on my restraints until I felt my bones snap. “Don’t worry, you’ll have it well before then.”
“You disgust me,” I spat, my fangs splitting my lip from how hard I was clenching my jaw.
“Oh, before you go, have someone bring me some duct tape, too,” Maximus added, glancing at the blood that leaked out from my lip. “Something tells me she’s a biter.”
With another laugh, Szilagyi left. Maximus went over to the camera and flicked a button. The light still glowed green, indicating that it was filming.
I looked directly into it and said, “Don’t give them what they want, Vlad. You have to be colder than you’ve ever been. Knowing they won’t break you is how I’ll get through this.”
“We’ll need to edit that out, won’t we?” Szilagyi said, returning with the duct tape.
I looked away from the camera, blinking hard as fury mingled with bitter despair inside me. Of course they’d take that out. There was nothing I could do except endure whatever they chose to do to me. With blistering clarity, I understood how his former helplessness had caused Vlad to wake up in a fiery rage for decades. I wanted to kill everyone here, yet I couldn’t even stop them from laughing at me.
Szilagyi gave Maximus a final wink as he handed him the duct tape and then closed the stone door. Maximus began to take off his clothes. I closed my eyes, promising myself that, like before when they’d skinned me, I wouldn’t cry in front of them. I couldn’t stop what was about to happen, but I could keep myself from breaking down . . . at least, until I was alone again. For days, I’d felt like this wasn’t my body. Now, I realized that essence-filled or blank, weaponized or weak, it was.
And every bit of my new skin crawled when I felt Maximus walk toward me.
Chapter 12
The sound of tape being torn into several strips made me flinch. I didn’t want to look at Maximus, but not seeing what was going on made me feel even more helpless. If someone had told me a week ago that Maximus would be responsible for my being skinned alive and raped, I would’ve called that person a liar. How had I not sensed how cruel he was during the time we spent on the run together? How had I ever trusted him?
You knew what he was, my hated inner voice whispered with its usual venom. You relived his worst sin, so you of all people should have known!
Maybe I should have, I acknowledged bleakly. Instead, I’d chosen to believe him when said that his worst sin had also been his epiphany that made him change his life. More the fool, me.
From the sounds, Maximus kept ripping off new pieces of tape, but he hadn’t put any over my mouth yet. He was near enough to; I could feel his aura bridging the scant distance between us, making my skin crawl even more. With how much he was tearing off, he must be making a ball gag with the tape, or was it something worse? Unable to help it, I opened my eyes—
His hand clapped over my mouth before it could fall open in disbelief. As dreaded, Maximus was stark naked. What I didn’t expect was the duct tape that plastered his cock against his lower abdomen.
“Don’t fight me, Leila, it’ll only make it worse,” he said in a stern tone, then mouthed the words Bite me.
I wasn’t sure what was going on, but I didn’t hesitate. The vicious chomp released only the tiniest part of my rage, but it left him snatching back his hand while a big piece of it was still in my mouth. I spat it at him, watching with satisfaction as the glop hit him in the chest.
He seized my newly smooth scalp and wrapped a long strip of tape across my mouth.
“I was going to unchain you so you’d be more comfortable, but now I’m only freeing one leg,” he all but snarled into my face. “This is your fault, Leila. I didn’t want it this way.”
So sorry raping me isn’t romantic for you! I would’ve snarled back, except I could only grunt. Besides, a fearful hope was starting to grow. Why would Maximus tape his genitals down? Talk about defeating the purpose of his intentions.
With his back still to the camera, Maximus released the clamps on my r
ight leg. Then, holding the lube bottle like it was a trophy, he slathered some onto his palm before reaching between my legs. What the camera would’ve seen was me kicking in a futile attempt to deny him access and him using his knees to force my legs open. What I felt rather than saw was him securing a piece of tape across the most intimate part of me, then dropping the bottle and gripping my thigh to his waist.
“I’ve wanted this for so long,” he said, burying his face into my neck and arching against me with a loud groan.
My eyes clamped shut to keep the tears at bay, but this time, they were of confused hope. Maximus ground his hips into mine in a graphic mime of penetration, but the tape covering both of us made that impossible. All it did was embarrass me to the extreme, and considering what I’d been through the past week, that was worlds better than I had dared to hope for.
“They’re listening,” Maximus whispered so low that I could barely hear him even though his lips were pressed to my ear.
I grunted at the next hard arch against my center, turning my head as if I couldn’t bear to face the camera. In reality, I was trying to press my ear closer to Maximus’s mouth.
“I swear, I didn’t know what Szilagyi was going to do that day.” Whispered in anguish as Maximus groaned again and gripped my hip in feigned lust. “By the time he flew us to the castle, I couldn’t stop the attack. I could only watch him destroy everything.”
I wanted to believe him, but what if this was another lie? If Maximus really had sided with Szilagyi for the reasons he’d given him, he knew he couldn’t rape me without earning my undying hatred—although how he could rationalize that I’d forgive him for killing Vlad, I had no idea. Once again, I pulled at my restraints until I felt blood slick my skin.
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