A Cursed Embrace (WG 2) (37 page)

Two smaller demons dragged Taran away, each clenching an arm. “Celia,
Celia!
” She swore when she spotted my unmoving form. Her body thrashed violently and her pale skin dripped with the cold sweat of her terror. Her nightmare had come true. The demons had us, and they weren’t letting go.

Taran tried to gather her magic. A faint brush of her dwindling power raked against my failing senses. One of the monsters halted her efforts by crushing her wrist. As numb as I felt, her wails of pain sent a spear of ice down my spine. They launched into flight with her at the same moment my body left the ground. Below me Bren fought six demons in his desperate effort to reach us.

We soared upward, the flap of the demons’ wings a faint whisper in my ears. Taran unleashed a guttural scream. My eyes burned as blue and white light exploded out of her. The creatures holding her burst into nasty bits while she remained suspended above the treetops. Poor Emme used the last of her strength to keep Taran from falling.

Emme’s hand quivered and her lids fluttered. She was losing her hold. Taran’s body bounced and twitched in the air as the first of the wolf pack arrived. Heidi clawed her way up the nearest tree and leapt off a thick branch, fastening her powerful jaws on to the waist of Taran’s jeans. She ricocheted from tree trunk to tree trunk until she brought my sister safely to the ground.

Tears drenched my cheeks, knowing at least Taran had been spared.

My vision clouded as I scanned the forest floor. What seemed like the entire pack chased us. Aric and Koda thundered in the lead, growling with murderous fury. But I realized their efforts were hopeless as the demons lifted us higher into the darkening sky.

Misha, Misha, please find us.

And then the world went black.

C
HAPTER 29

The sound of clanking steel gradually stirred me. At first, I thought I was home, waking to an earthquake. But instead of warm sheets, only cold metal chilled my back.

Metal?

I pried my eyes open. My vision blurred, and the pounding in my head intensified. Every part of my body felt stiff and sore, yet I couldn’t remember why. Then, slowly and painfully, my eyes cleared and the memories rushed back.

I sat up abruptly, only to pitch sideways and curse when every one of my injuries screeched.
Shit.
My chest, and my right hip and thigh throbbed mercilessly, while a burning sensation coursed through the deep gashes in my shoulders.

When I tried to move again, I realized my wrists were bound behind me. My tigress freaked. I thrashed like a caged beast and dug my nails into the rope. But it was useless. I couldn’t tear free.

“Celia. Celia,
stop
!”

My growls drowned most of Shayna’s hoarse calls. I searched around anxiously but couldn’t immediately spot her. That’s when it hit me; the heightened senses my tigress gave me were gone, even though her presence had returned.

I was . . .
human
. And it scared the hell out of me.

I shook my head, disoriented. My weakened gaze slowly adjusted and focused on my sisters, slumped and bound across from me. God, they’d taken a beating. Cuts and bruises covered their bodies, but what distressed me most were their bullet wounds.

A tear streaked down Shayna’s dirty face. “We’re in the back of a semi, dude. Tell me you’re okay.”

I couldn’t tell her what she wanted to hear. None of us were okay. Just alive. For the moment.

A million thoughts scrambled through my brain, but as I continued to stare at their injuries, something didn’t make sense. I cleared my throat to speak, further irritating the harsh dryness. “Why haven’t you healed?”

Emme’s face crumbled. “I can’t, Celia. Our powers are gone.”

That horrible dread found its way back into my bones. “What’s happened? The last thing I remember is the demons flying us out of the Den.”

Emme bowed her head, sobs shaking her slight form. Shayna took a calming breath, then another, before finally speaking for her. “The demons carried us to an industrial park, Celia. You were still unconscious, but when they tried to bind your wrists, you woke up and started slaughtering them. You did a lot of damage, and at first I thought we were going to escape. . . .” She shuddered and grimaced into her shoulder.

I didn’t understand her reaction until Emme focused her bloodshot eyes on me. “They shot you four times, Celia. I don’t know how you’re alive.” Fresh tears streamed down her face and she curled into a tight ball.

My lack of memory told me two things. One, my tigress had regained consciousness before I had. And two, she’d woke fighting. Good. That’s what we needed.

Emme choked on a sob. I inched toward her and so did Shayna. We lay against her, trying to keep her body warm with ours. Shayna blew out a shaky breath. “It’s worse than we thought, Ceel. The Tribe recruited a band of dark witches. One of them possesses the ability to bespell the bullets to block our powers—or at least she did possess.” Shayna tried to swallow except the effort seemed too cumbersome. “The Tribesmen bragged about giving her to their Tribemaster once she’d exhausted her use.”

“Tribemaster?” I asked, despite knowing what she meant.

“The demon lord, Ceel. The real one.” She shook her head. “I don’t think the creatures we fought at Death Valley were it. I think we’d fought . . . his babies.”

My body scorched with newfound pain as my pulse raced. If Shayna was right, we fared far worse than I could have imagined. The demons Danny had called forth tossed the
weres
around like pillows and almost killed us. No way did I want to meet Papa.

Emme sealed her lids tight. “What do you think they’re going to do to us? They’re hungry, I can see it. But they haven’t . . .”

Tried to eat us?
Emme had a point. Why wait? The Tribe had a plan for us. But what did we have that they could want? I didn’t want to find out. I scanned our dirty metal cave. A single bulb dully lit the area around us. Otherwise, the compartment was dark and empty, and reeked of rust and garbage. I pushed up to a standing position. “Any idea where we are or how long we’ve been driving?”

“No,” Shayna answered.

I spit some blood onto the filthy floor. “Well, screw this. Come on.”

I shimmied against the sides. Shayna and Emme grunted, barely able to roll. Emme shook her head. “We can’t, Celia. Maybe it’s your metabolism burning through the magic of the bullets. But you’re in better shape than we are.”

My brain hammered against my skull, and blood continued to pool in my mouth. My sisters could barely crawl. Dear Lord, how was I going to get us out of here? “Just try, okay? I’m going to play with the door to see if I can get it open. If we’re on an open highway, maybe someone will see us.”

I reached the roll-up door and anchored my foot beneath a metal latch. The semi clashed in a percussion of steady bounces, sending me sprawling into my sisters. I twisted forward again, banging into the door when the truck came to an abrupt halt.

The air brakes had barely stopped screeching when the trailer door swung open, momentarily blinding me with bright sunlight. Before I could react, two demon children dragged me out of the semi with their clawed hands. I flinched away from their serpentine tongues licking my face and squinted wildly, trying to keep a position on my sisters.

Emme cowered and cried harder. Shayna kicked and flailed, making the Tribesmen holding her laugh. I decided not to fight. No, not yet. I needed to conserve my remaining energy. If Emme was right, I’d get my strength back somehow.

Misha, Misha, where are you?

Even as I
called
Misha, I thought of Aric, hoping he and the other wolves were tracking us. The thought of what might happen in the meantime, though, made me panic, so I willed myself to relax. My sisters needed me, and I needed a plan.

I took in my surroundings, trying to figure out where the hell we were. Before us stood an imposing building resembling a castle, its high walls and towers fashioned from tan and gray brick. At first, I thought we were someplace foreign, until a large sign in front of the building gave away our exact location.

The Old Idaho Penitentiary

Tours Sunday through Saturday, 12 p.m. to 5 p.m.

I focused hard on the sign and thought of Misha, hoping our
call
would somehow transfer the information.

I hadn’t concentrated long before our demon captors hauled us through the gate and into a large courtyard where a slew of Tribesmen awaited us. The courtyard mimicked a well-manicured and surprisingly pretty park, unlike the lockdown unit we entered next.

Tribesmen crammed the unit. The former prison had become their lair. As we were dragged through,
weres
and vampires catcalled and whistled while demons greedily licked their fangs. They taunted in an obvious attempt to frighten us. It worked. I tried to edge away from their unnerving stares only to encounter disturbing visions that sent my heart fluttering into a frenzy.

Hundreds of cells, each housing one nightmare after the next, lined the three-story-high enclosure. Naked women in varying stages of pregnancy crammed several cells nearest to us. A few of these broken souls curled on the filthy floor, quiet and still, reeking of urine and feces. Others cackled in hysteria, clawing at their bodies or pounding their heads viciously against the cinder block walls. Worse yet were the parasites that crawled beneath the surface of their bellies. I shuddered, understanding then what had become of the women who’d disappeared. The slaughtered men had gotten off easy.

Emme and Shayna shut their eyes, but I couldn’t do the same. I needed to know everything we faced. But then I saw her. The awkward young woman from the club the night we were attacked. The one ignored by the males who’d flirted with her friends. My God, I hadn’t realized she’d been one of those missing. I searched her face for any signs of verve or hope. Only to have her dead eyes stare past me, an empty shell of what once held promise.

The demon wrenched me away before I could pledge to help her. But as the being stealing her life squirmed the length of her protruding stomach, I knew nothing could spare her now.

About halfway down the cement corridor, the Tribesmen stopped unexpectedly. Inside the adjacent cell lay a pregnant woman screaming and convulsing violently. It was hard to watch the suffering, mostly because there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it.

What happened next, though, proved more than I could bear. The woman’s stomach erupted like a bloody volcano, splattering the paint-chipped bars and cracked floor with nauseating fluid. From her remains, a demon child’s head emerged. His clawed hands carved open the rest of her body. His tongue eagerly lapped the blood caking his face. Once free, he jumped against the bars, making the vampire and werebear holding me shudder. They gagged as his revolting and putrid-smelling form writhed next to us. I vomited uncontrollably, unable to take the gore.

One of the larger demons opened the cage and grabbed the newborn by the throat. He tossed him in the adjacent cell, then flung the woman’s lifeless body into the heap. That cell housed a flock of them, happily munching away on what remained of their mothers.

The next block contained about thirty vampires in the late phases of bloodlust, chained at their necks and waists to the rear walls. Judging by their size and degree of starvation, the bars alone wouldn’t have held them. As we passed, it became apparent that even the chains weren’t enough. One of the bloodlusters broke free and took hold of the werebear through the bars. The bloodluster tore into the bear’s throat and drained him in a matter of seconds.

A horde of demon children serving as guards tried to contain her as the others hauled ass to our final destination. A vampire yanked open a large metal door, with a tiny window, leading to the prison’s former death row. Death row. Awesome. Irony had a way of spitting in my face. I only wished I could punch back.

Only four cells and a short hallway composed death row. Our captors shoved us into one cell together, but they didn’t shut the barred door right away. One of the werewolves lugged me to my feet by the front of my T-shirt. He sniffed my neck in a way that made my stomach roil.

“Leave her alone!” Shayna screamed.

“No! Please no!” Emme begged.

I was too scared to move.

“What are you doing, Bryan?” one of the vamps asked.

The wolf’s breath was hot and nasty. “I want to taste Aric’s whore.”

Terror gripped me when he licked my neck, and I began to hyperventilate. But when he groped my breasts, my fear turned to rage. I swore once I’d never let anyone hurt me that way again, so I leaned back and slammed my head hard into his face.

Blood spurted from his nose like a jet stream. His fist drew back, but my dulled reflexes slowed my response. His blow launched me into the cinder block wall, where stars exploded in my vision and my body collapsed like sand.

A sick throbbing sound pulsated behind my left ear before a rush of fluid seeped out. I tried to stand when I saw him coming, only to immediately topple over. Shayna and Emme scrambled in front of me in a pathetic attempt to shield me. But I knew they were powerless to stop him.

Just when I thought he would kill us, the vampire twisted the
were
’s arm behind his back and pulled him away. “Tribemaster wants them alive,” he told the
were
.

The
were
growled.
“That whore is mine! No one hits me and lives.”

The vampire rolled his eyes. “Relax, idiot, you’re already healing. Besides, do you really want to be fed to the demons over this stupid bitch?”

The
were
stormed away, foaming at the mouth and swearing. The threat of death by hungry demons proved a suitable deterrent. The others followed, slamming the metal door behind them.

The bleakness of our situation hit Emme and Shayna all at once. They collapsed against each other and sobbed. The room swayed and turned repulsing colors, yet my sisters’ despair compelled me to gather my senses.