Trusted Bond, page 9
Chapter Five
I OPENED my eyes and it was dark. I had no idea where I was, and there wasn’t anything around me as far as I could tell. I put my hand up and couldn’t see it in front of my face. I waited for my eyes to adjust, but there was nothing to adjust to. When I tried to sit up, it hurt. There were sharp pains shooting down my side. My T-shirt was wet, and it was cold here. Colder than anywhere I was familiar with could have been in the middle of summer. The air smelled like dirt and fresh-cut flowers. My head was pounding, and when I went to touch it, there was a bump over my left eyebrow that hurt even when I merely brushed my fingers over it. I wondered how late it was even as I started to panic about Logan and where and how he was.
“Hello?” I called out, but my voice was gone. I cleared my throat and tried again, but still it was like I had laryngitis or something. “Shit.”
I really wanted to get up, but when I tried to move, I could barely breathe. I lay back down and waited. I must have fallen asleep.
When I woke up, I was really thirsty. My body was used to taking in a lot of water, and I never waited until I needed it, I just guzzled it all day long. That I felt like I had to drink was not a good sign. It was still pitch black wherever I was, and the weird smell was still there.
“Jin.”
I couldn’t see him, but I knew the voice, remembered the voice. I sat up, wincing, and did my best not to make any more noise. “Laurent. What’s going on?”
“What do you think?”
“I dunno. You tell me.”
“I took you from that semel.”
And I had my mouth open to scream back at him that he had taken me from my mate, had taken me from my home, when I hesitated. Even though the venom was roaring through me, I swallowed it down, the strain making my eyes water. “Do you know Logan Church?” I rasped, my body trembling. “No, I don’t know him. He’s just another in a long line of conquests, I’m sure. Just another semel enamored with having a reah on his land.”
He had no clue that Logan Church was my mate, and if I told him… it would be a mistake. It was one thing to remove an unmated reah from another’s territory; it was a death sentence to kidnap the mate of a semel. Laurent Bruyere had no idea what he’d done, but he would if I made it out alive. When….
“The point is that I found you,” he almost snarled at me. “After searching for more than two years… I finally found you. That stupid aset of Logan Church’s tribe… she was talking about some girl and Crane”—he drew my best friend’s name out—“Crane…. I knew if I found him I’d find you, and I did… I so did.”
I had to be very careful. If he found out that Logan was my mate, I was done. No matter how far gone I thought he was, his survival instinct would kick in. He was an animal, after all. And I had no idea how he had missed my mark, the one that told every other werepanther that I was a mated reah, the scar at the top of my spine, but he had and I was thankful. My hair was thick and long and a lot of it had to be moved aside and it was dark and unless he was looking…but still it was there, Logan’s brand on my flesh. If it stayed my secret I would be thankful. I cleared my throat. “So what now?”
“I think you know.”
“No. If I did I wouldn’t ask.”
“I want you to come back.”
“Oh.” I coughed because my throat really hurt. It felt bruised, like I had been choked. “What about your yareah?”
“She’s gone.”
“Okay. Where did she—”
“There was an accident. She’s dead.”
But how, was the question. Had he done it, killed his own yareah? “I know she hurt you.”
He had hurt me with his betrayal. Her response was understandable. Once upon a time, I had thought, even though he was not my mate, that Laurent Bruyere, the semel of the tribe of Dendera, was the man I would spend my life with. But when his yareah had returned home from her summer away and I had learned that everything he had said to me was a lie, my vision of the future had changed. I had been in bed with the man one moment, flat on my back on the floor a second later. Having had no idea that he was mated, the sense of betrayal had been first, humiliation following, and finally terror as the punishment of the yareah was handed down. I had to prove my claim, confirm to her I was a reah, and she wanted me in werepanther form. She wanted to see what sort of pain could be inflicted on me in that state. And it was her right. I had violated her bond with her mate, and I was not his reah. If I was his true-mate, I would have taken her place at his side, and she would have become his second mate or taurth. But as I was not his mate, she was allowed to make her displeasure known. Only the semel-aten, master of Sobek, could make a reah his consort. Another semel could not. Since I was not Laurent Bruyere’s reah and he could not keep me, it was his yareah’s right to show me the wages of sin. I had been made to pay. Forced to strip naked in front of the entire tribe, I had to show them that I could shift from werepanther to panther and back to human, proving my claim of being a reah. Once the humiliation was over, the punishment had begun. I remembered the flogging that her sylvan gave me after I shifted. I remembered her claws on my skin after I was made to go through it the second time, and I remembered the beating that was ordered and how I was tied down. Had I not been able to shift as fast as I could, then a fate I could not imagine would have been mine. As it was, I had run and never looked back. I had collected my best friend and left town the same day. Never did I see the leader of the tribe of Dendera again. I wondered now what had prompted him to simply take me by force instead of contacting me when he learned where I was. It made no sense. “Jin? Love.”
The endearment was enough to roll my stomach. “I’m sorry I hurt you.”
And I wondered if he meant then or now.
“I just… you left without permission and should have been punished. When I saw you, I wasn’t able to control myself.”
So after two, almost three years of missing me, the second he saw me, he beat me. He and his dead yareah were not as different as he supposed. “Can you forgive me?”
My side really hurt. “Where am I?”
“In a wine cellar.”
“I see. Where is it?”
“On my family’s property in Sobek.”
Which answered my question as to where I was. Somehow, some way, I had been taken to Egypt. Hearing how far I was away from my mate, my tribe, my home, I felt my heart clench. “Jin?”
Keeping him talking was the key to my survival. “Oh. You told me once that was a big piece of land. You said there was a beautiful villa.”
“There is.”
“Okay. You want to let me outta here, Laurent, so we can talk, maybe have some dinner?”
“I bought you a new condo in Dallas; it’s just three blocks from where I live.”
“Okay.”
“I want you to agree to come home with me and live there.”
“Whatever you want.”
There was a long silence. “Do I believe you?”
“Pardon?”
“Jin, I don’t think you’ll come with me. I think you think I’m crazy.”
“No.”
“Yes… you hate me.”
“I don’t.”
“Yes you do,” he said, and he shoved a cloth against my face. It smelled bad but just for a second.
I COULDN’T sit up. Everything hurt. It felt like there was no air. I was concentrating on not hyperventilating. I knew days were passing, but it was hard to even judge in the dark. I fell asleep and dreamed about Gatorade.
I was thinking about Logan and how great he looked when he got up in the morning with his hair all tousled and his eyes soft. I missed him. “Who do you miss?”
I guess I was talking out loud. “No one.”
“Who, Jin?”
“No one,” I insisted.
“Who, Jin?” He got louder. “Who do you miss?”
“Christ, Laurent, give it a rest,” I said irritably, trying to act like I always did. Trying not to sound scared. “Can I have some water, please? My body’s gonna go into shock.”
I felt the bottle in my hand, and it was a gallon jug. I realized that the plastic piece was still around the neck of the bottle. That was good. I hoped that meant he hadn’t put anything weird in it. I peeled it off and unscrewed the lid. I drank slowly, but I drank it all. “Another? I know you need it.”
“Please.”
When the second bottle was leaned into my hand, I felt his fingers trail through my hair. “This is so beautiful, Jin. It’s like silk.”
I didn’t answer, just sipped my water. “You look so good.”
How could he tell in the dark? “Please lemme out, Laurent,” I said between sips. “Only one more day, Jin. I’m almost finished. You can get out tomorrow.”
“Where am I going?”
“In the ground, Jin. I’m gonna shoot you and put you in the hole I dug.”
I almost threw up. The combination of his matter-of-fact voice and being in the dark made me panic. “Why do you wanna hurt me?”
“’Cause without you, I’ll be okay. As long as I know nobody else can have you.”
“But you were fine all that time I was gone.”
He laughed loudly and for a long time.
“Laurent.”
“I wasn’t fine! I wasn’t fine—I was never fine! Jesus, Jin, I hired a private detective to find you, but he couldn’t… you and Crane…. I wanted to know everything you did, everywhere you went. I wanted to know, Jin, but I didn’t. I never saw you again.”
There was a strange tone to his voice, and the way he repeated my name made him sound so lost, so sad, and yet so very angry. “Just thinking about other men touching you and looking at you… I hated it! I would’ve given anything to make it stop. Anything. “ His voice went up high, cracking, and it was scary the way it came out of the dark sounding so menacing. “I thought if I could just see you and talk to you, then I could make you understand.”
“Then let’s go somewhere and talk.”
“Why are you hurt? Who did you let hurt you?”
Strange topic change. “I was in a fight; I didn’t let anyone hurt me on purpose. You know that’s not me.”
“Do I? What do I know?”
“Laurent, you—”
He grabbed my hair and yanked my head back hard. I tried to struggle, but between the lack of food and the dehydration, I was weak. And I hurt everywhere. And I was freezing. And I was still healing week-old wounds.
“Let me go!”
“I don’t want to be away from you! I never want to be away from you! I love you!”
“This isn’t love.”
He was on me suddenly, pulling at my clothes, his mouth searching for mine.
“Get off me!” I screamed.
He shoved me down hard, my face smashing against the stone floor. “Laurent, get the fuck off me!” I screamed. “I bet I could rape you if I wanted.”
I fought as hard as I could as his hands tore at me. Normally I could shift and slip right through his fingers, but I was just too weak. I couldn’t change my form. “You’re burning up, Jin. Your skin’s so hot.”
He yanked my T-shirt up and pulled it roughly over my head. I felt his hands sliding over my chest and then digging into skin that until that second I hadn’t known was shredded. The howl filled my ears, and it took a moment for me to realize that I was listening to my own cry. “It doesn’t hurt,” he snarled at me. “Nothing hurts you, Jin.”
The pain became everything for long moments before subsiding to a manageable throbbing burn. I felt his claws sinking into me, registered the liquid warmth, and knew I was bleeding. The smell, never to be mistaken for anything else, assaulted me. “You’re bleeding,” he said nonchalantly as I got lightheaded. His hand was on my throat, the other in my hair as he snapped my head back. He found my mouth then and kissed me hard. It hurt. He bit my lip, and I tasted blood. “Open your mouth,” he demanded, and I felt his claws on my face, trying to get me to open my jaws. I felt his mouth on my neck, and he bit down hard. I yelled and bucked, trying to get him off me, but he wouldn’t budge. He sank his fangs into my shoulder, and I screamed. He bit everywhere he could reach, and it was like being knifed over and over. The pain was searing, and I yelled myself hoarse. “Goddamnit, Jin,” he roared, kneeing me hard between my legs, and because of the angle, he hit my groin.
I curled up into a ball and rolled over on my side. His hands were on me a second later, trying to yank down my pants. I started to retch, and he scrambled away from me fast. I got on my hands and knees, trying not to vomit. My stomach was twisted into a knot.
“So what? Just kissing me makes you sick now?”
I couldn’t stop retching, and I was so dizzy. The room felt like it was rocking from side to side. It was like that carnival ride that tips back and forth and finally right over before you hold in limbo upside down, suspended in midair.
He kicked me hard in the ribs, and I fell over on my side as I sucked in breath.
“Fuck you, Jin!” he snarled at me, and then he caught me in the face with the same foot. I felt like my head blew up, and there was only black again.
I TRIED to move. My left hand wouldn’t. It felt like it wasn’t even attached to my body. I hoped it still was. I couldn’t even roll to my side. I felt soggy. I went back to sleep.
I HAD a bad dream, so I got out of bed and walked down the hall to her room. I tiptoed over to my grandmother’s side of the bed. I stood there and waited. After a few moments, one of her eyes opened. I saw her smile in the dark.
“What’s wrong, lovebug?” she sighed, her voice sleepy and soft. “Cold, Nana,” I said, pointing at her.
She threw back the covers, and I climbed into bed next to her. She wrapped me in the blanket and cuddled me tight. I was so content, so warm, and so safe.
“You all right?”
I turned my head to look at Logan. “Hey,” I said, smiling at him. “I missed you so bad.”
He held me tight, and I was wrapped up in the down comforter, snuggled up into his shoulder in my bed. I sighed deeply, content. I just wanted his skin next to mine. “Sleep, baby,” he said, his voice like velvet. “I’ve got you. Go to sleep.” So I did.
IT FELT like a knife that had been set on fire was shoved into my back. Hard kick in my back. Punch in my chest. Vicious strike in my stomach, and then there was weight straddling me, sitting on my groin, hands flat on my abdomen. Laurent. “Your skin is the problem,” he told me, his voice without a trace of humanity. He sounded robotic. “It’s like it haunts me. I think I’m going to cut it all off.”
“Okay,” I said, my eyes drifting closed.
“Can you feel the knife?”
I could. I could also feel his hands closing around my throat, and then there was nothing again.
MY SHOULDER was throbbing. I groaned and rolled over on my back.
“It’s like if you were dead, it would be okay.”
“Okay,” I agreed.
“I mean I don’t get to go to bed with you anymore. I don’t get to lie beside you and look at you naked and hold you and… I want you to be mine. Do you even get it? Do you…?” He trailed off, and I felt his hands on me, rolling me over on my stomach. “Let’s get these pants off,” he said in a strange, quiet voice.
“Please don’t,” I pleaded, swallowing hard, trying so hard to stay awake.
“I have to, Jin. I have to be inside you.”
I would have begged, bargained, done anything, but my face was pushed down into the dirt on the floor. I couldn’t stay conscious.
I OPENED my eyes because I couldn’t breathe. There was something heavy on my back. “Get off,” I managed to get out.
“Oh, sorry,” he said, like everything was normal, and he shifted his weight so he was sitting on the small of my back instead of across my shoulder blades. “Do you know what my favorite thing about being with you was?”
I had no idea.
“Sometimes when you were asleep in my bed, I’d just stand there and watch you and I’d think, goddamn, that’s mine. He belongs to me….” He let out a deep breath. “I bet you have no idea what it’s like to look at someone and have that feeling of ownership just hit you. To be so crazy about another person that they belong to you and you’ll do anything to keep it that way. Have you ever felt like that?”
Every single time I looked at Logan Church. I would just see him and think that way, that breath-catching feeling of possessiveness. “And then it was just over and you were gone. You took the few things that were yours and left. And you know what bugged me at first?” he asked as he ran his hands over my bare back. “That you left nothing behind. There was no toothbrush, no stray T-shirt, no shampoo, nothing even in the refrigerator. You just completely disappeared like you had never been there.”
I was silent.
“I just wanted there to be something, but there was nothing. I had no pictures of you, no note. I mean, one day I had everything, and the next you were gone. Do you even care what that did to me?”
I tensed because I knew his questions were always punctuated with violence. He didn’t disappoint me. He got up fast, scrambling to his feet, and kicked me hard in the ribs. I passed out in the middle of it.
Chapter Six
I AWOKE to his weight on top of me. He was stretched out above me so that his groin was shoved against my ass. “You said you wanted me to fuck you? Is that what you said?”
I was going to answer, but he put his hand over my mouth. “Jin, baby, you’re gonna like this. I know I will. I love looking at your ass, now I’m finally gonna have it.”
I wasn’t going to ask why he hadn’t raped me when I was passed out, but the answer was unimportant, only the fact that I had not been violated. I tried to wiggle free, but his fist went hard to my left kidney. “Why are you fighting me? It’s not like you can anymore.”
