Bound to Night

by Nina Croft

  “More,” he said.

  Instinct told her what he wanted. Emboldened, she played with a nipple, tugging it between her finger and thumb as he had done, and flames of fire licked through her. Her other hand drifted down, over her stomach, through her pubic hair. She was soft, wet. Opening her legs, she stroked a finger lightly over her swollen clit. It was still sensitive from her orgasm. She gasped, and moved her fingers lower to slide inside herself. Her flesh was hot, slippery with desire, and she moaned as she imagined Jack’s huge cock thrusting inside her. She arched her hips, opening her legs wider, pushing another finger into her sopping slit. Jack swore, his movements becoming jerky, until his back arched and his seed shot from him. He collapsed back onto the bed.

  A moment later, he rolled onto his side, and his hand brushed hers, one long finger sliding inside her. It felt far better than her own and she gasped as he thrust a second finger into her, while he stroked her to orgasm with the pad of his thumb.

  She shuddered against him a second time and heard him chuckle.

  He held her as her body trembled, then rolled onto his back and pulled her to him. Tasha relaxed. He was almost warm now from the blood he had taken, and she pressed closer, breathing in the male, musky scent of sex for the first time.

  For a while, she was content, and it occurred to her, with a twinge of shock, that lying close to Jack like this was the only time she’d felt safe in long, long years. She wasn’t sure what she was to Jack, maybe nothing more than food, but in the five weeks she’d known him, he had become everything to her—friend, confidant, ally. She wished she could somehow crawl inside his body and be safe forever.

  But she knew it was a lie. There was no safety for her here.

  Johnson would come for her soon, and tomorrow night they would hurt her. She could do nothing to stop them, and the fear shifted deep within her, clawing at her like a living thing.

  She’d lied when she’d told Jack she was all grown up. Inside her remained the memory of the child she’d been eight years ago. The child who had woken in this awful place, crying for her mother, pleading with them to let her go, not to hurt her anymore. She’d soon learned the futility of that, but the need was still there, buried deep.

  Or maybe not so deep.

  Her face was wet, and she realized she was crying silently into Jack’s shirt. She bit down hard on her lip, and blinked back the tears. Easing her hands between their bodies, she pushed herself up.

  Jack’s hold on her tightened. His hand reached up to stroke her face, his fingers hesitating as they encountered the dampness of her skin.

  “Tasha, what’s wrong?” he asked gently.

  “Nothing,” she muttered. “Johnson will be coming soon. I need to get ready.”

  She sat up, brushing his hands away. Jack appeared almost shocked, but she ignored him and scrambled off the bed. She pulled on her clothes, and sank to the floor by the cell door, hugging her knees to her chest.

  ***

  Jack stared at the small figure huddled against the wall, her face hidden by a dark curtain of hair. She lifted her head and looked at him, tears welling up in her eyes as fast as she could blink them away. Watching her was like watching his world collapsing. She was always so strong, so brave, laughing off what they did to her in this evil place.

  But what had her life really been like? He’d been here for just over seven weeks, and already he longed for freedom. A miasma of evil hung about The Facility.

  What could it have been like being brought here as child? He longed to free her, take her away, but there was more at stake. He had a job to do, and he couldn’t leave until he’d done it.

  Despite the fact he’d just come, his balls ached, and his cock was rock hard again. He wished he could make love to her but he knew it wasn’t an option if she didn’t want to shift. It was her choice. He wouldn’t take that from her. Instead, he’d given her what pleasure he could; he could still taste her on his lips. But now she was crying, and he didn’t know what to do.

  “I’ve never seen you cry before,” he murmured.

  She glanced at him, and scowled. “I thought I’d make it more realistic for Johnson. I’d hate for him to think I’d been enjoying myself in here.’

  Jack rose from the cot and crossed the room to where she sat. He crouched in front of her, and rubbed one long, lean finger down her damp cheek. Then he lifted her chin. “What’s wrong, Tasha?” he asked again.

  She stared at him, golden eyes huge in her small face. “What’s wrong?” she snarled and Jack almost smiled at the disbelief in her voice. “What’s right would be easier to answer—absolutely nothing!” She shook her head, and stared at him through narrowed eyes. “Maybe,” she said slowly, “it’s that my only friend in the whole wide world is a vampire. And what am I to him? Food! Nothing but bloody dinner.”

  A shock ran through him at her words. “You’re more than food.”

  “Oh, yeah? Just what am I to you, Jack?”

  The question stopped him short. What was she to him? He admitted to a deep craving for her sweet blood. But it was far more than that. From the first moment they’d met, when she’d tried to probe his mind, he’d known she was special. But what did “special” mean? With a sense of surprise, he realized that in all his hundreds of years he’d never wanted a woman the way he wanted Tasha. But he also wanted to protect her, take her out of this place. His brain floundered. A vampire and a werewolf? He’d never heard of such a mating before. The two were natural enemies. Vampires loved were-blood. It was the sweetest and they took it by force when they could. But he’d never needed force with his little red wolf. She gave of herself freely. He stared down at her hunched figure, sensing her tension as she waited for his answer. He searched for a part of himself he could give to her.

  “We’re friends,” he said.

  She stared into his face, and he could see a softening in hers. She almost smiled, but then her eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Best friends?” she asked.

  Jack smiled. “Of course.”

  He glanced up, listening.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “Your guard’s coming.”

  He stood up and slid into the shadows at the back of the cell. Her eyes never left him until the door opened, and she was taken away.

  Chapter Three

  Jack!

  Jack sat up abruptly, the echo of a scream filling his mind.

  He jumped to his feet. Instinct sending him to the door, but he could see nothing out of the small window. He cursed loudly.

  What the hell were they doing to her? She’d said they tried to make her shift? What had she meant by that?

  The scream came again and he banged on the door, though he knew the action was futile. No one would hear him. Closing his eyes, he concentrated hard. His men had orders to stay close by, just in case things went bad. They weren’t telepathic like Tasha, but they would sense him.

  Come.

  He hadn’t found out all he’d wanted to in his time here, but they would just have to take the computer hard drives and hope they could pull the information from them.

  He didn’t care. He had to get her out of here.

  If she was still alive.

  The screams had died away. The silence was much worse.

  ***

  Tasha pulled her knees tighter to her chest, whimpering at the pain that ripped through her naked body. The skin of her breasts and belly was on fire where they’d burned her, her wrists and ankles raw from fighting against the restraints. She’d bitten through her lower lip and her mouth was tainted with the sharp metallic taste of her own blood. She swallowed and tried to hold back the tears threatening to overwhelm her. Crying. Twice in two days. She was in trouble.

  They always tried extra hard during the full moon. Trying to make her lose control, force her to change. It never did any good, and they were getting desperate and vicious in their desperation. Whatever ritual Jack had spoken of, her jailors knew nothing of it. And Jack had been
right not to tell her. Tonight, she would have done anything to make them stop, told them anything.

  For the first time, she wished for an end to all the pain. It would have been better if she had died in the attack and never come to this place. For years, only the thought of one day seeing her family again had kept her going. Now, the certainty gripped her—she would never get out of this place alive, never go home.

  She closed her eyes and thought of Jack, but she couldn’t see his face anymore. She’d called out to him at some point during the long night, begged him to help her. He’d been there in her mind, and she knew he’d heard her. But how could Jack help? He was as much a prisoner as she was.

  Soft footsteps came to a halt outside her cell, and Tasha couldn’t hold back the whimper that trickled from her swollen lips. They couldn’t be coming back; it was too soon. She couldn’t take any more. Not yet. The beam of a flashlight shone through the peephole in the door.

  “It’s not Jack. It’s a girl,” a man’s voice said, a stranger’s voice.

  “Leave her,” a second man answered.

  The light disappeared, and the footsteps carried on down the corridor. Overwhelmed by a wave of relief, Tasha slumped back onto the hard table. She wondered vaguely who they were, but she was finding it difficult to focus her thoughts.

  Passing in and out of consciousness, Tasha was in a half-dream state when the door opened. A tall figure stood, framed in the dim light of the corridor.

  Jack.

  Had he heard her and come? Or was he just part of her dream?

  “Jack,” she whispered as he crossed the room toward her.

  He stood over her, staring down, his eyes fierce.

  “Who did this?” he snarled.

  Tasha resisted the urge to curl her naked body into a ball. “It looks worse than it is,” she said, struggling to sit up.

  He shook his head. “I didn’t know.” He reached out to touch the livid burn marks on her body. “You always made light of what they did. You should have told me.”

  “Why? What could you have done?”

  He opened his mouth to speak, but, at that moment, a man entered the cell behind him and he turned away from her. “Have we got everything?” Jack asked. “The computer hard drives?”

  “Yes, and the place is wired and ready to blow.”

  “Then let’s get out of here.”

  Despair flooded her mind. He was leaving her. She sank back onto the cold metal of the table. Her eyes closed, only to blink open a moment later as Jack’s strong arms slid beneath her, picked her up and cradled her against his chest. She stared up at him and their eyes locked, intense emotion passing between them. Then a third figure appeared in the doorway, breaking the link. He was dragging someone with him.

  “Jack, we’ve got one of the guards and he’s alive. Should we take him for questioning?”

  It was Johnson, his piggy eyes blank with terror. Tasha hissed, and Jack swung back around to face her, his expression fierce. “He did this?”

  Tasha nodded.

  “Shall I kill him for you?”

  Tasha stared at the guard. Did she hate him enough to see him die?

  Oh, yeah.

  She nodded.

  Jack smiled. “My only regret is we can’t take longer to do it. Seth.” He waved a hand at the man holding Johnson. Seth grinned with a flash of fangs, and Tasha realized for the first time that Jack’s rescuers were vampires.

  Seth pulled Johnson to him and grasped his hair, jerking back his head to expose the line of his neck. He lunged, ripping his throat out in one swift move. Johnson squealed, flailed with his hands, and went still.

  Seth tossed him away and spat. “Tastes like shit.”

  Jack stared down at the body, a small frown on his face. “Tasha,” he said, “the implant that stops you from reading the guards, do you know where it is?”

  “Behind his left ear. I saw the scars when they had the operations.”

  Seth drew a long, wicked-looking blade from sheath at his thigh and crouched over the body. He probed for a moment.

  “Found it.” He held up a small silver plate.

  “Keep it safe,” Jack said. “Now, let’s get out of here.”

  He strode out, the other man falling in behind him.

  Tasha wriggled in his arms. “I can walk.”

  “No you can’t. Not fast enough anyway. Besides I want to carry you.”

  They emerged into the night. Jack paused and took a deep breath; Tasha did the same. The air was crisp, cold, and clean. As they stood in the darkness, the full moon appeared from behind the clouds, and deep within her something stirred to life. It tugged at her consciousness, filling her with a longing to run free through the night, under the moon. She twisted in Jack’s hold. “Put me down.”

  He stared down into her face. “You feel the pull of the full moon?”

  “I don’t know.” She wriggled again. “Please.”

  His grip tightened for a moment, and then he lowered her to her feet. She wobbled, stiffened her spine, and sniffed the air. “Am I really out of there?”

  “Yes.”

  She wrapped her arms around herself to ward off the chill, and then glanced up. There were more people out here, surrounding her, staring at her. Vampires, from the way the hunger gleamed in their eyes. For the first time, Tasha became aware she was naked. She peered up at Jack.

  “I’m not wearing anything,” she whispered.

  He laughed softly.

  “It’s not funny.”

  “No, it’s definitely not funny,” he agreed, his expression hot and hungry. But he unbuttoned his shirt, shrugged out of it, and offered it to her.

  Tasha stared, her mouth falling open. She couldn’t help it. He was so beautiful—long and lean, with the smooth swell of muscles under silken skin. All gilded by moonlight.

  “Tasha,” he murmured, and she could still hear the faint laughter in his voice. “Take the shirt.”

  She nodded, took the shirt, and put it on. When she glanced up from fastening the buttons, everybody was still watching her.

  “They’re still staring,” she said tugging the shirt down over her legs.

  “That’s because you’re beautiful,” Jack replied. “Besides, they can smell your blood and vampires love were-blood.” He smiled down at her. “But don’t worry; they’ve all fed well tonight.”

  “Jack, your ride’s here,” Seth said from behind them.

  A dark SUV pulled up close, and Jack opened the back door. “Get in,” he said to Tasha.

  “Why?” she asked. “Where are we going?”

  Suddenly, she was terrified. She hated this place, but it was all she’d known for the past eight years. Now a vampire was telling her to get into a van and go God knows where.

  She couldn’t move.

  Jack frowned down at her. “I’ll tell you when we’re on our way, but we need to leave. This whole place is going to blow any moment.”

  When she remained frozen in place, he reached over, picked her up, and placed her in the back of the van. He leaped up behind her, and closed the doors as the van pulled away. Jack’s arms came around her, and he turned her so she could see out of the back window.

  “Watch,” he said.

  A moment later, the night exploded in huge fireball, and a wave of heat radiated through the glass. Tasha sat back, felt Jack’s strong arms around her as she watched eight years of misery disappear in flames and darkness.

  Chapter Four

  “Where are we going?” Tasha asked.

  “Where do you want to go?”

  An overwhelming longing filled her. “I want to go home.”

  “Is that wise?”

  “Probably not. They told me my mom died in a car crash five years ago, and my dad thinks I’m dead. I’d hate to give him a heart attack.” She sighed. “I don’t know where to go.” Tasha went silent then, not daring to put her hopes into words.

  “You can’t come with me,” Jack said.

 
“Why?”

  He just shook his head and Tasha trembled, the chill of his rejection running through her. Jack pulled her to him, rubbed her arms until the shivers stopped, then wrapped his own around her. She laid her head on his naked chest and forced herself to relax. “You feel cool,” she said.

  “I need to feed.”

  “You didn’t feed back there?”

  “No. These days, I prefer my food to be willing.”

  “Oh.”

  He turned her face up to the light, and ran hand over her lips. “You’re almost healed.”

  “I told you I heal fast.”

  “Yes,” Jack said, “it’s one of the side effects of being a were.”

  “What are the others?”

  He didn’t answer, just contemplated her question for a while. After a minute, he pulled a phone out of his pants pocket. He pressed a button and spoke into it. “Seth, take us to Sebastian’s.”

  “Who’s Sebastian?” Tasha asked.

  “He’s the head of the Lykae—the local werewolf pack.”

  Tasha shuddered. “You are aware that my last meeting with a werewolf didn’t turn out too well.” That had to be the understatement of the century; the attack still haunted her nightmares. “I don’t want to go,” she said in a small voice.

  “He’ll teach you what you need to know. They look after their own.”

  “I’m not sure I want to be his. Besides, what if he doesn’t want me? And like I said before, I’m not even convinced I am a werewolf—maybe it didn’t take or something.”

  “You are.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Sebastian will be able to explain everything you need to know. It’s for the best until you find out what happened and why.”

  She had to try one last time. “Take me with you.”

  “No.”

  She fell silent. She wasn’t going to beg. He must have sensed something though because he tightened his hold. “In a lot of ways, you’re still a child,” he said. “You’ve been shut away for so long. Give yourself a chance to know this new world before you make any decisions as to where you want to go. Now we’ll be arriving soon. Give me your throat.”