Someone bent down beside her. His form was blurry; she couldn’t tell which of them it was until he spoke. “Sorry sweetheart, but we’ve been instructed to take this lovely piece of bling off you,” said David. She felt his cold fingers brush against her skin as he lifted Jake’s pendant over her head. Then he was standing again, and more of the world was fading.
All of her spells had failed at once. Her entire plan was in the trash. David was good. They both were. Hell, this was probably all a set-up. Malek really was smart using them against her.
It was not the most comforting thought to accompany Angel as she felt the two wardens stand over her, and the world faded to darkness behind her lids.
Chapter Forty-Nine
Jake’s head was throbbing. Wisps of cloud memory still fogged up his brain like torn cotton balls. He was unable to shake them. Somehow, some way, he’d lost the last several hours of his life.
One minute he’d been taking out the trash… the next, he’d been waking up here, in this posh velvet chair, with his wrists bound behind his back and each of his booted ankles tied to a chair leg.
The ropes were well knotted, and damned if they weren’t also enchanted. Normal ropes, even silk, Jake could have shredded with a single tug. But these held. He’d tried to compress the chair beneath his strength too, but it also remained in one piece.
Nothing natural could hold Jake. But clearly his captor knew that. She’d put a lot of effort into getting him here in this room in some fancy house he’d never seen before. And despite her appearance, he knew this wasn’t Angel’s house. There was nothing about it that even remotely reminded him of her. Nothing except the woman standing before him.
She looked exactly like Angel. Same hair, eyes, body. She even smelled like Angel, under the perfume she wore. But there was something in her expression that Jake didn’t like. This room, the chair he was bound to, the ropes he’d been tied with, the guards at the door, the house he’d been dragged through… her behavior in general. It wasn’t like her. Not even a little bit.
The crazy thing was, he was in a plush, private room with the woman he loved and wanted to ravish continuously for weeks, if not months. She even had him tied to a chair. If he wasn’t so pissed off and scared to death for the real Angel, he would be well past flattered. He’d be turned on like mad. Having his way with her on top of his car had been like the Storyteller grabbing hold of him and showing him what heaven could be like and then sending him right back down to Earth. Now he wanted back up. He wanted back in, damn it.
The human in him, the man in him, had been temporarily sated. But the vampire in him, the monster in him, was red-eyed and fuming, chomping at the bit and madder than hell. He was hungry. His vampire would literally have given anything to sink his fangs into the woman he’d chosen as his mate. He would give anything to make her forever his.
As it was, he kept having to remind his body that this wasn’t Angel, so it was going to have to simmer the fuck down. He simply knew it in his gut. And that was what pissed him off.
She was watching him as if she knew what he was thinking. Her brown eyes glittered in the lamp light. She was amused at his confusion and anger. “Who are you?” he asked as she smirked and turned her back to him to mess with a bunch of crap on top of a dresser that looked just as expensive as everything else in the room.
“Now why would you ask me such a thing?” she replied coyly with Angel’s voice. She glanced at him briefly over her shoulder. The look was hot. Fuck it was hot.
So he made himself imagine his grandmother in her underwear. But his grandmother had actually been a beautiful older woman, strong and proud. So he then had to imagine he was playing baseball. Badly.
By the time he clumsily swung at his third fast ball in his head, Jake had managed to regain control.
Meanwhile, the thing that looked like Angel poured something from a vial into a bowl, and stirred it with a black onyx wand. Red smoke curled up from the bowl’s interior. She was using magic, and he didn’t have to be a genius to guess that magic was probably meant for him.
His gaze narrowed. “What did you do with Angel? And where is Sharpe?” He also wanted to know what the hell had happened, in general. All he could surmise was that his mind had been completely overshadowed by some tremendous dark force.
At last, Jake’s captor stopped stirring. She shook her lovely head, recapped the vial, and sighed. “Well I guess I knew you’d figure it out.” She replaced the vial in its stand, put her hands on her hips, and turned to face him. The look on her beautiful face was sorely disappointed. “I was just hoping it wouldn’t be until we were finished.”
Jake didn’t say anything. He was waiting for her to continue. With any luck, she would spill everything here and now.
“Your clan brother has been returned to your safe house and has no idea anything is amiss. In fact, when he wakes up, he’ll just think he had too much to drink.”
Jake waited.
His captor gave him a wry smile. “Miss Clemens is with the Taal King. You put her there yourself. Of course, you wouldn’t have if I hadn’t gotten to you first. You see, the blood in your veins is quite strong against things like possession and mind control. I had to alter it from the inside before Lord Malek was able to enter your mind and twist it to his will.”
She shrugged nonchalantly. “Same goes for your friend. He’s Withered,” she smiled winsomely, shaking her head. “He’s an interesting one for certain. The mind of a man once dead is even more difficult to control than the mind of a Chippewa vampire, it would seem. But no matter. The bullets I sent into both your bodies were enchanted just right, and within minutes, Lord Taal was able to get in and do what needed to be done.”
She turned away a little as horror washed over Jake. It flooded him like a cold soup, making his fingers and toes prickle threateningly.
“He commanded you to track your flighty little girlfriend down,” she told him. “You obeyed. And how.” She grinned. “You’re an inspiration, Jacob Crow. That’s why I’ve chosen you.”
Jake ignored the latter part of what she said and focused on Angel and Malek. “Why didn’t he just go get her himself?” he demanded. His skin was crawling. He didn’t feel so good.
“That one’s on you, actually,” she said. She extended a long, slender forefinger and attempted to brush it along his cheek, but he turned his head away. When he avoided her touch, she pouted. “You gave her that damn pendant of yours, and the moment you did he couldn’t get anywhere near her. Pretty impressive, if you ask me. Something so strong it kept even the Taal king at bay.”
The bear claw. It was enchanted to ward off unseelie fae – as long as they meant the wearer some kind of harm.
Sickness roiled in Jake’s gut. If Malek now had her in his possession and the pendant had kept him at bay before, then that meant the Taal was planning her some kind of harm. His only consolation was that biting someone hard enough to draw blood was one hundred percent considered “harm.” And it wouldn’t kill Angel.
It would just make her Malek’s. Forever.
“The pendant’s right back where it belongs now, around your neck once more,” the Terror said gleefully, nodding at Jake’s broad chest.
He instinctively looked down, but though he could feel the pendant’s cool metal against his hot skin now that he concentrated on it, it was under his shirt so he couldn’t see it.
No, no, no, he thought. Angel! He bared his teeth and asked very quietly, “Where. Is. She?”
“Now, now. You and I both know that giving you her location would spoil all the fun. You’d just find a way to get it to that mega-fine clan leader of yours using your mind or some such nonsense. You’re very resourceful. But then the party would be over.” She shook her head, waving her hand dismissively. “So, no. I think not.” But then she smiled wickedly. Cruelly. “If it means anything though handsome, your little warrior went kicking and screaming. She threw some good punches too, before Malek had her in chains.”
Jake swallowed hard, but barely made it past the mounting mixture of rage and panic rising within him. He felt his gaze heat up painfully. But neither rage nor panic would not help him here. He needed to think clearly and get out of this. He needed to help Angel.
So he closed his eyes and tried fiercely to rein it all in. “You’re a Terror, aren’t you?” he asked, eyes still shut. A Terror was the only thing he could think of that could resemble another creature so completely, right down to the scent. It was why they were sometimes referred to as doppelgangers.
He flinched when she managed to touch his cheek after all, and every muscle in his body went rigid. His eyes flew open. The world appeared to him in sharp contrasts of black and red. He’d slipped into vampire mode.
She laughed softly. “Absolutely stunning. Gorgeous and smart as a whip.”
She sighed again, and gracefully used Angela’s pretend body to straddle him on the chair. He found himself gazing into her eyes, and he had never felt more at odds with himself than he did in that moment.
“What’s your game, Terror?”
He’d never come across a Terror he hadn’t killed. But every one of them had been male. So he couldn’t help but wonder. What did the monster dressed as Angela Clemens really look like? And what the hell was the meaning of what she was doing right now?
“Poor baby,” she said softly, cupping his cheek again. “I can see the wheels spinning in that handsome head of yours. But you don’t have the information you need to figure this one out, muscles.” She leaned forward until her lips were at his ear. “So let me fill in some blanks for you.”
Jake felt his teeth prick his bottom lip.
“The male of our species are the hunters. They’re the ones you wardens are always slaughtering without a second thought. The females, on the other hand? Well, it’s like the song says. We’re lovers, not fighters.” She laughed softly and leaned back again to catch his eyes. “We’re made for mating. And right now Jacob Crow, it’s my time. The Taal King made me a deal….” She laughed again, the sound deliriously perfect. “And here I am.”
Jake’s canines throbbed painfully in his gums. He twisted and pulled at his ropes, to no avail of course.
The Terror sat up, grasped the front of his button-down shirt, and ripped it open, revealing a vast expanse of sculpted muscle. Jake’s heart leapt into overdrive. Now he was straining in all kinds of places, and all he could think about was the fact that while this bitch looked and smelled and felt like the woman he loved, that woman was actually with the bastard Taal king, and the gods only knew what he was doing with her.
Curses spat from his mind, every single word short and sharp.
The Terror gazed down at him with those beautiful brown eyes shining with lust, and Jake’s throat grew very tight. Bases loaded, damn it. Two outs… two strikes….
“You don’t have to be so nervous, big guy,” she said with a small laugh. “I’ve cooked you up something to help make this easier for you.” She slid off him nice and slow, working Angela’s copied body the way she moved in his day dreams, then stood and turned to the dresser where her concoctions waited.
Jake pulled at the ropes again, yanking so hard he drew his own blood. But they held. He had to give the Terror credit; everything had been very well laid out.
When she turned back around with a new vial, this one the color of blood-red wine, he bared his teeth, showing her his fangs. “Not a chance in hell you’re getting that down my throat, bitch.”
She stopped and grinned. “Now why did that just suddenly turn me on so much?”
The bedroom door crashed open then, splintering like tinder under the brute force of a single engineering boot. Half a dozen men in motorcycle gear and patched leather jackets poured into the room.
The Terror dressed as Angela Clemens backed away toward the dresser, her chest rising and falling in new fear, her eyes suddenly glowing red.
Cain was at the forefront of the invading group. Jake was beyond grateful when the leader left his gun in the holster at the small of his back. Cain must have been thinking the same thing Jake was thinking: Take the bitch alive. She knows where Angel is.
But just in case the others hadn’t yet figured it out, Jake issued the order aloud. “We need her alive!”
One of the men drew a gun anyway, and aimed it at the Terror. But Jake could immediately see that it was the Tranquilizer, magic markings carved into every millimeter of its metal. The damage the gun inflicted was minimal and healed fast, but its bullets packed a wallop of a sleep spell.
In response, the Terror reacted lightning-fast. She turned and jumped atop the dresser behind her, then took two running steps across its surface to the window on the other side.
“Stop her!” he shouted.
Ace Logan, the Monsters clan sharp shooter, was the man with the Tranquilizer, so it was in good hands. Ace took quick aim and pulled the trigger. The sound of a bullet leaving the chamber split the air, but Angel was already gone, having shoved through the glass and dropped below their field of view.
Jake watched her break through that glass, and a part of him inside was sliced up at the thought of what it might have done to her. It’s not her, Jake, he had to remind himself.
Cain knelt behind Jake and dealt with the ropes strapping him down. Words of magic hissed from between the leader’s lips, negating the powerful binding spell that had kept him in the chair. Jake at once felt them loosen, and two good yanks had them shredded on the carpet.
Cain’s voice rang out. “Sykes, Mace, and Val you three head down to the gardens and bring back that Terror in one piece,” he commanded as he rose once more to his feet. “The rest of you hunt down any remaining witnesses who might be able to fill us in.” Everyone scattered at once to do his bidding.
Jake bent at the waist to rip the rest of the ropes free from around his ankles, then jumped to his feet. “Malek has her, Cain.”
“I know,” said Cain. “I found Sharpe passed out on the couch and recognized Malek’s fucking fingerprints all over his cantaloupe.” He looked Jake square in the eye and added, “You’re filthy with them too, by the way.”
“Don’t remind me,” Jake hissed. “Angel’s with him because of me.”
Jake leapt up onto the windowsill, bracing each side in a strong grip despite the glass that sliced into him. “How the hell did you find me?” He peered down at the dark grounds below.
“Sharpe told me,” Cain said. He was just behind him. “Eventually.”
They leapt from the window and landed on strong legs together.
“Angel is in Taal territory,” Cain told him. “Once we know her exact location, we have what we need to break through.”
Jake was impressed. Cain had apparently procured what was necessary to transport into an unseelie fae realm that was probably ripe with transportation wards put up by none other than the leader of the entire Taal nation.
Only Cain could do such a thing. But Jake was used to it. “Good,” he said simply as he let loose with his vampire power to scent the wind. Once he found the scent he wanted, he looked at Cain. The two shared an unspoken thought and blurred in different directions to cut the Terror off.
When he found that Terror, Jake was going to get Angel’s location out of her one way or another. And then he was going to transport into Malek’s world and thoroughly enjoy taking the fairy apart limb from fucking limb.
Chapter Fifty-One
The room was dark. Angel couldn’t tell how big it was; the walls were somewhere in that darkness. But the floor beneath her was black marble. The light that allowed her to see her enemy was unspecific, emanating from nowhere. It was magic. By the feel of it, she would guess they were somewhere in the fae realm. Unseelie.
She couldn’t believe she’d wound up here. She was well trained and she’d taken every precaution, and yet she’d fallen into her enemy’s hands regardless.
A scene from Jim Henson’s Labyrinth came to her fear
-addled brain….
“That’s not fair!” cried Hoggle as he tried and failed to take his jewels back from Sarah.
“No, it isn’t,” Sarah replied, who kept him easily at bay. But then she straightened and her face changed as she suddenly realized the depth of the statement. “But that’s the way it is.”
Life wasn’t fair. Sometimes you lost no matter how hard you tried. And that was just the way it was.
Angel watched her captor with eyes half filled with wariness and half with unshed tears. Malek Taal was an excruciatingly impressive figure. She could barely look at him, his presence was so powerful. What made it worse was that it was clear he was feeling impatient. Determined. Rushed. And she knew why.
There were waves of this edginess radiating from him like ripples in an upset pond. She couldn’t watch him any longer. She knew it was stupid to take your eyes off your enemy, but she was overwhelmed and it didn’t matter anyway. So she closed her eyes and tried to breathe enough to keep from falling down.
She had one last spell’s worth of magic at her disposal, if she was lucky. Even that would leave her utterly drained and unable to stand up afterward. But at least it was there. There was hope of some kind.
The problem was, she had no idea what to cast or what would work. Transport would fail, no doubt. She could sense wards like mad in the darkness around her. She wasn’t wounded, so she didn’t need healing. She knew any offensive magic she could throw at him would not hurt him in the slightest. So what could she do?
To bide for time, she stalled as best she could. “You’re Malek Taal,” she said softly.
His response was easy and calm despite the sharpness of his aura. It gave nothing away. “I am.” His voice was beautiful. It was that kind of beautiful that was difficult to even imagine until you heard it for yourself. It was the fae in him, probably. The unseelie fae. It also bore an accent that she knew she would never place because it was ancient and came from everywhere.
Monsters, Book One: The Good, The Bad, The Cursed Page 28