by M. J. Scott
To pleasure, the slow kind of wild that would melt me to nothing.
And for him, I'd burn. However he wanted me. I felt the build of it with every touch and kiss and thrust. A dance of the two of us twined around each other, skin slick and heart struck and touch drunk until it was too much, and I came with his arms around me and his mouth on mine, pleasure spiking through me and dissolving me into nothing.
Chapter Twenty-Three
I woke with Damon's hands closing around my throat. Adrenaline spiked through me, taking me from fast asleep to red alert. His hands were tight but not choking, and his face twisted as though he was struggling with himself.
"Damon. Stop." I rasped the words as an order, trying not to let fear take over.
Not even a flicker of response.
Survival instinct kicked in. It didn't matter why he was seemingly about to choke me, what mattered was getting him off me.
He was bigger than me. Stronger. Just shoving him wasn’t going to work. Instead, I needed to make him let go. I'd taken self-defense classes in my teens, and my teacher had been full of good ideas of how to cause pain fast. I remembered them but didn't know if I could pull any of them off.
Something from Cassandra’s book flashed into my head, and my brain latched onto it. I leaned into the instinct, reaching for the same part of my brain that could set an imp on fire, and let myself look at him with my magic. His aura was weird and jittery, the energy field pulsing blue static against the dark.
I reached for it and yanked, trying to disrupt it.
To my shock, it worked. Damon collapsed like I’d whacked him over the head. Luckily he fell slightly sideways, and I managed to push him all the way off me, fueled by panic. I scrambled free of the bed and stood, panting, near the doorway.
Now what? I didn’t know how long he might stay unconscious. I couldn’t risk him waking up and attacking me again. There was a lock on the bedroom door, but it was electronic. And sure, Madge might follow my instructions and lock it for me once I was out of the room, but I had exactly zero faith that she would keep it locked if Damon ordered her to let him out. She seemed smart, but she was still just a computer system. I needed to restrain him.
Where was a bag of cable ties when I needed them?
But the kitchen yielded both a knife and scissors, and with them, I managed to slash the top sheet into strips. Fortunately, Damon didn't wake up as I tied his wrists.
Then I stopped. The man was butt naked, and I didn't want anyone asking why. I mean, I knew he generally slept in boxer briefs or nothing, but I didn't think he'd want his staff to know that. Wrangling his underwear on was harder than you’d think, but I managed and then tied his ankles with more sheet strips before knotting yet another strip to join wrists and ankles, hoping that might at least slow him down if he woke and came for me again. I dressed myself, my hands awkward and shaky as I fumbled with zips and buttons, trying not to take my eyes off Damon.
Then I picked up my datapad to call Cassandra. As I waited for her to answer, Madge's voice came from above me.
"Maggie, is Damon well? His respiration is slow."
"He's fine," I said. "He's sleeping. Just what the doctors ordered."
Hopefully she couldn't tell I was lying. But I wanted to talk to Cassandra before I called for Mitch's help.
Cassandra sounded half asleep when she finally answered the call.
"Damon attacked me," I said, keeping my voice down, not wanting to risk waking him.
"What?" Now she sounded awake. "Are you hurt?"
"He tried to strangle me. Or actually, he started to try to strangle me, and then he sort of stopped." I paused as my voice spiraled upward. Deal with the situation now, freak out later.
"Stopped?" She sounded confused.
"His hands were round my throat, but he didn't squeeze." The memory of it made my stomach clench and I tugged my jacket closer around me. "His face was weird. And he didn't respond when I yelled at him."
"But you must have managed to stop him somehow," she said. "If you're calling me."
"I knocked him out with magic. I was reading that book you gave me before I fell asleep."
"Well done," she said. There was a pause. "We'll talk about that later. Where's Damon now?"
"He's still out. I tied him up on the bed. With the sheets." Don't ask what we were doing near a bed. Don't ask what we were doing near a bed. "I haven't called Mitch yet. Because this kind of seems like our sort of problem. Not to mention I’m confused. Radha said he was fine."
"And Radha is rarely wrong, but she’s not infallible. No healer is," Cassandra said. "Call Mitch. I think it's time we got Damon into a hospital and brought in some other healers. I'll call Ian."
Ian. Was she talking about demon stone? Fuck. That wasn't good.
"Which hospital? We can meet you there. Not much point in you coming all the way here first."
"St. Isidore. I'll call ahead and let Meredith know we're coming."
Meredith Dempsey was the witch who treated me after the first imp attack. Good. Someone I knew, at least. "Should I try to wake him up?"
"You have been studying up," Cassandra said, sounding almost amused.
"You told me to! I think I understand the parts about knocking someone out and waking them up."
"The first one, at least," she agreed. "But it might be best to let him sleep for now."
"Okay." I had to admit it was a relief. And not just because I wasn't sure I’d be able to perform the spell if I tried. "I'll let you know when we're on our way."
"Be careful," Cassandra said. "Don't untie Damon if he does wake up, even if he seems fine. And don't touch him any more than you have to. Particularly if he wakes up."
"You think this could be contagious?" I asked.
"I think we need to be careful. Now, call Mitch."
My conversation with Mitch didn't take long, but while I waited for his team to arrive, time dragged. Damon didn't wake as I dressed and splashed water on my face in the bathroom before pulling my hair back. My neck was reddened where he’d gripped me but not sore. The suite was well stocked. I found deodorant, toothpaste, and unopened toothbrushes, so I used them, hoping there was no lingering smell of sex on me. There wasn't much I could do about the marks on my neck, so I ignored them and went back to the bedroom. I shoved my datapad and Cassandra's book into my purse, then added Damon's tiny datapad as well.
After that I just paced until I heard the door to the suite click open. Relief filled me as Ajax came in, pulling the sort of stretcher on wheels I associated with paramedics and ambulances. With him, rather than Mitch, was a shorter dark-haired man I'd never met.
"Maggie, this is Ted. He's on my team," Ajax said.
"Where's Mitch?" Mitch, to his credit, had been instantly professional when I'd raised the alarm.
"He'll meet us at the hospital. He has some calls to make, get things squared away in case Damon has to be admitted."
That made sense. Big companies had protocols for this kind of thing. Someone had to act as CEO if Damon was unwell. Especially while they were still in a launch phase.
I nodded and stepped back so they could get the stretcher past me. Ted had what I was coming to think of as the “Righteous security team” look about him. Dressed in a button-down blue shirt and dark jeans that were neater than what I remembered the programmers wearing. Gold wire-rimmed glasses, brown hair short and neat. He tipped his chin at me but didn't speak.
"Is Damon in the main bedroom?" Ajax asked.
"The one at the end of the hall."
He nodded at Ted, who started pushing the stretcher in that direction. "Mitch said he's unconscious again? And you had to restrain him?"
"I cut up one of the sheets."
Ajax smiled reassuringly. "That was smart thinking. We can swap those for something a bit more reliable though." He moved closer to me. "Did he hurt you?" He gestured at my neck.
Damn, where was a little magical concealer when I needed it?
I waved him off, not wanting to go into any detail. "I'm fine."
"Okay," Ajax said. "I'm sure they'll take a look at the hospital. I'll go help Ted, and we'll be on our way." He gave me that smile again. "Everything will be all right, Maggie."
I hoped he was right. But it felt awfully like things were spiraling out of control.
I followed them out of the suite and into the elevator, standing awkwardly in the corner. Damon was covered by a blanket and strapped into place. A pulse monitor beeped softly and steadily.
We reached the ground floor and exited the elevator and the building. A truck that I would have said was an ambulance had it not been painted black was pulled up by the front doors. The first light of sunrise was just starting to creep over the horizon. Which meant I must have only slept for an hour, maybe two after Damon and I fell asleep.
What had happened in that time to make him attack me? Had the imp managed to infect him with something? Or establish a link? But how had Radha missed it if that was true?
My thoughts whirled. I tried to push them away. Fretting wasn't going to help right now.
Riley employees were enthusiastic, but it must have been too early for anyone to be out and about on campus, as I didn't see anybody else while Ted and Ajax slid the stretcher into the back of the truck.
"Ted will ride with Damon," Ajax said. "You're in front with me." He closed the rear doors. I climbed into the passenger seat and pulled on my seat belt, clutching my purse on my lap too hard, feeling my pulse start to quicken.
I would not have another panic attack now.
I reminded myself to breathe, and Ajax started the truck. He stayed silent as he drove, and I stared out the window. St. Isidore was maybe twenty minutes away. Maybe less this time of day when the traffic wasn't yet hitting the early commuter peak. Though traffic was never as bad as it had been before the Big One. Fewer businesses in the center of town and more remote working.
"Maggie, I need you to look at something for me," Ajax said. His tone had lost the reassuring note it held before. Now it was just cool and flat.
I turned to face him, frowning.
He tapped a screen on the dash I hadn't noticed. "I'm going to show you something, okay? And I need you to stay calm."
Calm? The hairs on the nape of my neck lifted.
The screen came to life. It showed the rear cabin. Where Ted was strapped into a seat next to Damon's stretcher. It took me a second to register that he was holding a gun pointed at Damon's head and that he was watching a datapad resting on his lap.
"What the—"
"I asked you to stay calm," Ajax said sharply. "Look at me."
I looked. He had a gun, too. Fuck.
"Now, I know you can probably do something to me and make me crash," Ajax said. "But if Ted feels this truck jerk or sway or go off course, he'll shoot Damon. He’s watching us on that datapad. And if he sees something happen to me, he'll shoot him. But if you do as I say, then Damon will be just fine."
That was almost certainly a lie. But if there was a shred of hope that it was true, I needed to cooperate. At least until there was a chance to do otherwise.
I swallowed, my mouth dry with fear. "What do you want me to do?"
"Take your datapad out of your purse and turn it off, please."
The ice in my stomach solidified. He wanted my datapad off so I couldn't be tracked. I opened my purse carefully and took out my datapad. Damon's smaller one glinted at me from the bottom of the bag. Ajax didn't know I had it. I prayed it was set to silent and withdrew my own, making a show of swiping to turn it off.
"Good," Ajax said. "Now I'm going to turn down this alley. Your window will lower. Toss the datapad into one of the dumpsters. Don't try anything stupid."
I nodded and turned toward the window. No one outside would be able to see me through the UV tinting. And, knowing Damon, his security team's vehicles would be fitted with bulletproof glass and armored doors. Nothing I could break through myself.
Ajax slowed the car, and my window slid down. I tossed the datapad into the dumpster that stood in front of a nondescript brick building wall. Before I heard it land, the window slid closed again and the truck sped up.
They'd planned this well, it seemed. Ajax didn't seem panicked or worried as he drove with one hand and kept the gun in his lap pointed in my direction with the other.
"Are you going to tell me what the hell this is about?" I asked. It was worth a shot.
"You'll find out soon enough," Ajax said. "Until then, just stay quiet and don't try anything dumb."
Chapter Twenty-Four
I gritted my teeth. Okay. Think, Maggie. My datapad was shut off and in a dumpster. Sure, Lizzie could track me to wherever we'd been when I'd switched it off via our housecomp, but after that, my trail would be gone.
Damon's datapad was still on, and Ajax didn't know I had it, so that was good. I just needed to make sure he didn't search my bag. Or find some way to hide the datapad somewhere within the truck.
Of course, the truck could have shielding, designed to block someone outside trying to track a high-value individual. Though, if it did, why would Ajax make me ditch my pad? We were still within the limits of downtown, heading toward the piers. Away from the hospital. If the truck itself had any Riley-installed tracking devices, I had to assume that had been disabled or messed with to send a false signal. Ajax was too calm to be worried about immediate pursuit. So the plan must have been for us to arrive at our destination—wherever the hell that might be—before any alarm bells started to ring. Either that or we’d change vehicles at some point and vanish from sight that way.
Because once an alert went out on Damon, I had no doubt that Mitch would move heaven and earth to track down his boss. San Francisco was as wired as any city these days with traffic cams and security feeds galore. It would be difficult to avoid detection for very long.
But not impossible, I realized when Ajax made a series of turns that made it clear we were heading to Dockside, where the surveillance system was minimal at best. Dockside was, however, one of the few places in the city that would be busy so early in the morning, as the various clubs and gambling rooms and other establishments finally kicked out their last patrons of the night. But I didn’t think I wanted to rely on the chance of boozed-up or drugged-up clubbers remembering a very boring black truck passing by.
Ajax threaded a path through the back blocks of Dockside, down streets where there were no lights other than his headlights to show our way, and past half-ruined buildings that not even the criminal side of the city seemed inclined to reclaim. When we emerged, it was into a back entrance of some sort of transport depot, where huge semitrailers were parked in front of a warehouse that had no signage to indicate who might own it.
I tried to commit a few of the license plates to memory but lost my train of thought when Ajax drove down the side of the warehouse and up a ramp into the open cargo trailer of a waiting semi. A series of clicks echoed through the truck, then a jolt as something locked into place below us. Some sort of restraint to hold us steady?
I swore under my breath. So that was how we were going to vanish. There was little chance the cameras had traced us through Dockside, and now there would be nothing to see at all as the truck took us to our destination.
"Clever," I said.
Ajax shot me a glance but didn't respond. He tapped the screen and said, "Ted, five minutes before we move."
"On it." Ted unstrapped himself.
"What's he—" I stopped as Ajax pressed his gun against my temple.
"Now, Maggie, you're just going to sit there and not try anything stupid."
I'd never had anyone pull a gun on me before. It was freaking terrifying. Every part of me froze while my pulse screamed into overdrive, terror beating through me.
"Good. Just like that," Ajax said.
His eyes flicked to the screen. Ted had peeled part of the blanket covering Damon back and had his left wrist in his hand. And a scalpel in the other.
"Relax. He's just going to clip his chip."
"Clip his chip? What does that mean?" Damn it, there went my other backup plan. Damon's chip and its panic button. Clearly they meant to disable it. But that sounded crazy to me. Interface chips were woven into the nervous system, installed by very delicate surgery, and I had firsthand experience of how unpleasant it could be if one went haywire.
"Ted knows what he's doing," Ajax said.
Unless Ted was a world-class cyber-surgeon, I doubted that.
"You could cripple him. Or worse," I said. "Not smart."
The gun pressed harder. "No commentary from you. I’m smart enough to get this far. Just stay still and behave, and everything will be just fine."
The more he said the word "fine," the less I believed him. And the more I wanted to try to take him out. But I couldn’t. Not while Ted had a gun and Damon was helpless.
The traitorous bastard had me right where he wanted me.
I stared at the screen. Whatever Ted was doing, he did it fast. He finished, sprayed Damon's arm down with an antiseptic, covered his wrist with a surgical shield, and then fastened the blanket back over him. Damon didn't stir. Whatever I'd done to him, I'd done a good job. Maybe too good. Or had Ted drugged him, too?
My jaw clenched as I sat and focused on how I was going to make Ajax regret his choices rather than how terrified I felt.
The semi's engine roared to life, making the floor of the trailer vibrate, and then we began to move. Ajax had killed the engine and the headlights, so the only light came from the gray glow of the screen showing us what was happening behind us.
Ted aimed his gun back at Damon. The pressure from Ajax’s gun at my temple vanished. I flicked a glance sideways. Yep, the gun was still pointed at me, but he was holding it back against his body now, still looking unnaturally calm for a man in the process of kidnapping one of the wealthiest men in the country.