“I guess we’re going to have to do this the hard way, then?” Anger coursed through him. She wasn’t acting right. She was supposed to be happy to see him. Fearful, yes, he wasn’t stupid--he expected a bit of fear--but happy. This anger and resentment from her was not to be. She was his. His Precious, but things were all wrong.
He waited until she was dressed then motioned for her to follow. When she didn’t, he only said, “All I’d have to do is chant a few words, and I could damage even kill the child you carry. Is that what you want, Precious?”
A tremor moved through her, but she followed.
He waited until they were in the middle of the living room. Right where he needed her to be. He’d installed this just on this eventuality that she might be difficult. “I’ve a present for you, Precious.”
He watched her as she stepped a bit closer, and a bit closer. On the floor was a pentagon, seemingly part of the floor. He smiled. If she only knew.
When she stood in the middle, he held up his hand. “Stop. I want to tell you something, but I want to make certain you’re listening first.” With that, he reached over and pressed the button he’d installed on the side table.
A loud whoosh slammed down around her. Reya instinctively ducked, covering her head. Metal clanged and clicked. No. She sat huddled on the floor, too afraid to open her eyes, but knew she’d have to. His chuckle danced around her, through her, in her.
Lorenzo. Hurry! Please, God hurry!
And then she felt her husband.
I’m trying, baby. I’m trying. Just hang on. Has he hurt you?
Instead of answering him, she opened her eyes. Her heart slammed into her chest, the bird wanting to be free, but couldn’t.
Metal bars obstructed her view, metal bars she’d seen before. No, please no. She looked around. Five sides, just like before, domed just like before, one locked entrance just like before. Fear and anger rushed through her, terror batting back the anger.
She started shaking. Not again. She survived Nybras, once, she wasn’t certain she would ever be able to do that again. Now, now she knew what he was like.
But then, she heard Lilly’s voice in her head. Always remain calm. Chaos and evil often go hand in hand. If you keep your head, you’ll find a way out.
Reya knew, from experience that there was no way out of this cage. She took another deep breath and stared through the bars at him. Nybras, still so handsome, so much what many would dream to be the perfect man. His bald head gleamed in the low lights, his eyes still a brilliant aqua, the dark golden goatee and mustache neatly trimmed on a face that Michelangelo might have used for a model. He wasn’t as tall as Lorenzo, not as lanky, but she knew his strength, even though she could look him in the eye at five nine. His muscles were smooth, like gentle waves in an ocean, rolling seamlessly from one to the next.
Perhaps that was what was so terrifying about him. He looked so wonderful, seemed so perfect…until she got to know him. Then his true nature came out. Because of him, she trusted no demon. Nybras was sadistic and enjoyed it, angry if the other participant did not.
She noticed the way his chest moved just a bit faster, even as he tried to appear calm. The way the light brightened in his eyes and he watched her through the damn cage. She hated the cage, and he knew it.
Anger beat back the fear, yet still she sat. She crossed her legs, sat, and stared back at him. Hoping her voice didn’t betray her, she said, “Really, Nybras.” She waved her hand at the cage walls. “Couldn’t you have come up with something a bit more original? How long have you been using this, anyway? Several centuries? Longer?”
“If it works—“ he started.
“You won’t get far with me.”
He frowned. “I’ll get as far as I need to go.”
Chapter Ten
“By flying me and this cage through the air all the way back to your lair in Istanbul?”
He pulled out his Amazonite amulet he’d always used to put her in a trance. She snorted. “Sorry, I should probably let you know, that won’t work on me. I’ve taken measures to make certain it won’t.”
His blond brows beetled. “You’re not acting right.”
“Aw. Shall I cry? Beg? Quiver in fear?” She felt like it. But that was what he wanted and she knew it. He loved to see her cry, to know that he’d brought her to that point and then be the one that ‘fixed’ things. No more.
She laid back and yawned. “Don’t know what you gave me before, but it really made me tired.”
He sighed. “Battle of wills. Is it any wonder you’re the only woman that is perfect for me?”
She clasped her hands together. The thing with Nybras was that sooner or later he caught onto her games.
“If you try to escape, I’ll make certain the child you carry will never be born.”
Her chest tightened. He knew. He knew everything because at one time she trusted him, had even grown to love him. But then he’d shown her what he really was.
Not looking at him, she stared at the top of the cage. “Did you get someone else to make this? Or did you do it yourself?”
He cursed in a language she didn’t know but remembered him using before. She watched as the ceiling moved back and a long dark shaft gaped beyond. The smell of earth and cool air hit her full in the face. Where the hell were they? A loud squeak filled the room. She wanted to, but didn’t dare move. She could feel him, saw him out of her the corner of her eye standing just to the side of the cage. He always did that before. Just like to sit and watch her. It messed with her mind, stretched her nerves, and made her wonder what she had done wrong. She now knew, she’d never done a thing wrong. Nybras was just sick and twisted.
Lorenzo….
The squeaking got louder. She wondered what awaited her next. If he wasn’t watching, she’d touch her stomach, but she wouldn’t now. Wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.
Was she really pregnant? She wished she’d test to learn for certain. She felt different, had taken Lilly’s word for it. If she wasn’t pregnant, she might be able to beat Nybras as she had before. That was if she were not pregnant. If she was, she knew from before, there was no way for her to shift.
“Did you at least get scars?” she asked, looking up and to the side from her prone location on the floor of the cage.
His eyes bore into hers, and she read more than his sickness in them. This time there was rage. He unbuttoned the dark blue shirt and pulled the left side of his shirt to the side. It looked as though his skin had been mottled, stitched and seared together. Long slashes ripped from just beneath his throat to his chest. She remembered biting him, remembered the scream of the wind, the tear of skin beneath her claws. But then he’d gone still, the wind died and she’d shifted, digging the keys out of his pants pocket and running for the door. She’d set the room ablaze with the oil lamp and slammed the door shut. Chanting words of old that she still had no idea where they’d come from. If asked, there was no way she could repeat them. Reya had assumed he’d died. She’d run and never looked back. She’d simply kept running all the way back to America, and finally back to New Mexico and years later to Lorenzo.
If pregnant, there would be no shifting into her cat form. She hadn’t been able to shift with Little Moon. So what did she do?
Keep your shields against Nybras firmly in place. Call to Lo, and to Lilly.
She looked from her perusal of his scarred perfection to his face. “Bet that pissed you off.” She looked back up to the gaping hole in the ceiling that she knew was wide enough for the cage. Something was swinging in the abyss. What?
“If you want me to apologize, Ny,” she started, using the nickname he despised. “I should let you know it’s not going to happen. My only regret is that I didn’t make certain you were dead.”
She looked back to him. “Bet that was a turn off to some women huh?”
He smiled, and it held no humor. “If they didn’t like it, I made certain they didn’t live long enough to complain about another singl
e thing.”
* * * *
Lorenzo felt her, could see vague images of bars and the man with the aqua eyes. More than anything he felt her fear, her anger, but wrapped in calm. He frowned.
He had to find her.
He looked at Lilly. “Can I track them using her fear?”
Lilly shook her head and climbed from the vehicle. “Come here, Lorenzo.” She pulled something from her pocket. Lorenzo, already out of the truck and leaning against the fender, walked to her.
“Lilly, I really don’t have time.”
“Shut up. I should have already given this to you. But then things happened before I thought they would. I gave her a medicine bag.”
“With what?”
She waved him away. “A bit of this and a bit of that. Worry not. From the same branches and springs of herbs, I also made her bag. From the same crystal, both your stones were born. From the same salt and ash, you both hold. She has your other half and you have hers. That is a powerful connection.” Then the strange old woman mumbled something and held the bag out to him. He bent down and she put the leather string around his neck. As soon as it touched him, Reya slammed into him.
Lorenzo staggered under the sharpened senses, under the honed images.
Before things were vague and fuzzy, he closed his eyes and could see much more, the hinges on….
A cage. She was in a damn cage!
“I’m going to kill him,” he whispered.
But then he saw more, the memories screaming in her brain, slashed into him. Her chained to a bed, begging, pleading, not breathing. Over and over, the bastard killed her.
The images kept coming, hounding him, slamming him from one side then the other. He didn’t realize he was on his knees until Marcos’ voice floated down the tunnel of hell he was in.
“Lorenzo! Damn it!” Hands hauled him up. “Get this damn thing off of him now!” Marcos’ voice lashed out.
“I can’t. It’s bound to him, just as it is to her. They become two of the whole.”
A hand grabbed his, which he’d fisted on the medicine bag, but he shrugged it off. Tried to pull himself into the here and now. “Son of a bitch,” he hissed.
He waited, sniffed and knew this was not the time to drive, not the time to wait and see.
“It’s time to hunt,” he bit out. “Call them,” he said to Marcos.
Marcos’ brow rose. “You want me to call the cats?”
Lorenzo stared into those black eyes. “It’s getting dark. I want the cats called. This bastard is mine but if I don’t take him, I want the pride to rip him to shreds for what he’s done to Reya. She’s my mate. Carries my child. It’s my duty, then the pride’s to avenge her.”
Marcos nodded. He stepped back, and Lorenzo saw that Darrell and Dena were off to the side, watching silently.
“Is she hurt?” Dena asked.
Rage clawed through him. Lorenzo didn’t answer her. Marcos’ roar filled the air, bounced off the canyon walls on and on it went.
Soon the area was teaming with cats, shifted and shifting. The wind howled down the canyon. The night promised snow and possibly ice. He could smell it on the wind.
Lorenzo waited. Many were already there, though he wasn’t certain how. Charles stepped forward and he wondered how he got there. Charles was still in human form. His grey goatee as neat as always, but the generally teasing eyes were serious. Lorenzo didn’t need to ask any questions.
“I contacted The Council. They found out that an aerial demon whose father was a djinn was seen in the area. Goes by the name of Nybras. The Council mentioned that he’s wanted in questioning for the murders of mortal, immortal and shifting women.”
The rage was iced over with terror. “I’m not going to lose her, Charles.”
Charles shook his head. “This is serious, Lorenzo. The Council notified the Keepers’ liaison, who’s sending someone. There are people all over who want to talk to this man, Lo. It’s not just you.”
Reya’s fear and her screaming memories ripped into him. “It is now.”
To those present, he thanked them all for coming. “We have to find her. This man is not going to be easy to defeat, but he’s harmed and brutalized my mate, who’s carrying my child.” Even though he didn’t want to say it, he did for the liaison present. Wherever the man or men were. “The Keepers want him alive.” But he’d be damned if they got him. Nybras was his. He, Marcos and Charles shared a look.
Dena strode up to them. “There is one Keeper here, name’s Rhys.”
“And?” Marcos asked.
She shot him a look. Instead of answering him, she motioned to a man. He stepped away from an outcropping of rocks. As he got closer, Lorenzo noticed his head was bald, his eyes a wicked green, muscles ripping beneath his long sleeved shirt.
“I’m Rhys. The Keeper. You know what you’re doing?” he asked, his voice tinged with Britain.
Keepers were the justice arm of The Council. They kept the balance of power even, kept the peace. They were incredibly powerful beings.
“Yes, I’m saving my wife.”
Those green eyes bore into him. “This is a demon, he commands the south winds, he’s elusive. He’s most vulnerable after either a kill or a transformation. That is when we have to bind him.”
“And if we can’t bind him?” Lo asked him.
“If you hope to capture him, let alone kill him, he needs to be bound.”
Lorenzo looked at the Keeper. Rhys would do what he needed to. Fine, let him. Still looking at him, he said, “He’s mine. I’m not letting him leave.”
“Powerless is all I’ve been ordered to do.” For a moment, Rhys’s bright green eyes bore into him. “Whatever happens to him after I’ve taken his powers is out of my hands. Though The High Elders want him stopped.”
The High Elders? They were a special group who decided on important issues for The Council.
Lorenzo smiled. “Oh, he’ll be stopped, don’t worry.”
For a moment Rhys held his stare, but in the end he only nodded.
With that, Lorenzo threw his head back and shifted into a mountain lion, his clothing falling away, his hands lengthening into pads and claws, his mouth changing shape. Over the centuries he’d become accustomed to the feeling if not as comfortable with it as he’d have liked.
I’m coming, Ree. Hang on, baby.
* * * *
She kept watching the gaping hole into darkness. A metal cylinder descended then connected with a solid thunk to the top of the cage. Another magnet. She could feel him still watching her. She stayed clam, she looked to the side and asked, “Where to, Ny? We heading to your secret place? Another palace no one’s heard of? Or are you so pissed and set on revenge that you’ll only take me to hell.”
He smiled, and it held no amusement. Then his power slammed into her and it was if he reached through the bars and cut off her air.
“You were saying?” he asked, walking closer and closer. She looked into his eyes, the aqua color filling her mind as it always did. Instead, she fisted her hand on the bag and closed her eyes. For one moment, she drew a breath, but then she felt him, whisper soft against her. Her eyes shot open, but there was nothing there.
Fear tickled up her spine. She could sense him, but she couldn’t see him. His chuckle danced over her. “Is that fear you’re holding back growing stronger?”
She took a deep breath and swiped out with her hand, but air blew past her, around her, against her. His laughter grew stronger until he shimmered and appeared just beside her. “I’ve missed you,” he said.
He said it so….normally. Not with malice, but sincerely. But there was something bent in him. She’d seen it, been part of it and she wanted no part of that madness ever again.
“Nybras,” she said.
He stared at her for a long moment. The cage lurched and started to move, as the magnet pulled it upwards.
Magnets often realigned things, powers could dim or become more pronounced. She hoped that the magnets mi
ght affect Nybras in the former way instead of the latter.
If his powers were dimmed, she might be able to defeat him.
Then again she wasn’t the naïve scared woman she’d been when she’d met him, vulnerable to his lies and deceptions.
The cage rose, swaying in the air. She tried not to think of how far they were climbing.
Instead she carefully kept her walls erected in her mind. Imagining herself behind walls that reached as high as her eyes could see.
He smiled at her as they passed up from the lit room beneath into the black chasm of the shaft. It was dark, the walls not more than inches from the sides of the cage. But they pressed in on her, trapped his power inside the cage with her.
Still sitting, she took a deep breath and imagined herself inside her fortress. Lorenzo would be there soon, she knew. Deeper and deeper into her safe place.
“I will have you. You can hide from me if you wish, but you’re mine. No matter if you try to hide on this world, or in your mind, I’ll always bring you back to you.” His voice whispered hot against her cheek just as the cage lurched again. “Back to me.”
Reya blocked him out and concentrated instead on herself, within herself. He could do what he wanted with her, but she would not help him. She would not give him any more. He wanted his perfect mate as he always had.
She, Reya did not belong to him. She was Lorenzo’s.
And just his name. She could hear his whisper in her mind, “I’m coming…close…love you….”
Of course he was coming. The man probably had the entire pride out looking for her. She knew he’d connected with her, had felt him, inside her mind as she’d been scared and looking at the damn bars. And considering how staticked their connection had been earlier, she was happy it was this strong now. Comforted.
But what of Lorenzo?
Shifter Fated Mates: Boxed Set Page 25