Blood Enchantment (67 page)

My status has just been elevated to something above that. The clock of my life is ticking, counting down like an expertly crafted bomb.

Every piece of their elaborate plan is falling into place like dark puzzle pieces raining inside my head.

Lisbeth stands to inherit everything if I no longer live. They kill me, and she gets everything using my name. No one will question anything. She looks exactly like me.

Tor is her husband, so in a finely engineered plan, he will gain his rightful inheritance through marriage. By Norwegian law, the next of kin will take hold of the estate. Lisbeth only has to wait until she's thirty, and every cent will be hers.

“I don't understand.” Actually, I do. But I'll never accept it.

Lisbeth arches her perfectly sculpted platinum brows. I shiver, essentially looking at myself. God help me if I ever look like her or that I could mold my expressions into ones as cruel as the one she wears.

I know when there's no hope. I swallow past my fear. “Fine, kill me. But why
hurt me
,” I finish in a low voice.

Lisbeth paces over to where I lay, her eyes roving my naked form. I feel the heat rush to my skin, and I'm sick over my embarrassment. Why should I even care if this woman sees me naked?

My tears begin again.
Because she should love me
. And somehow, her hate and need for revenge make everything hurt so much more.

Lisbeth's eyes rake me with contemplative intensity. “If I didn't despise her so much, Greta's shame would be charming.”

“I think I recounted the sweetness of taking her virginity,” Tor reminds her adoringly.

My eyes close. I feel so violated. Tor recalls the robbing of my innocence as though it were just another day.
Any
day.

But to me, it is a day I'll never forget.

“Yes,” Lisbeth hisses. Her rich, blue eyes narrow as they gaze down at me. “But you made her your slut.”

Tor gives her a smile full of soft tenderness and lifts his shoulder.

I shudder at their exchange.

“I did. Along with help from a few friends.” He gives a crooked little “aw shucks” grin.

Lisbeth ignores Tor, moving closer to my position.

I flinch.

“I hurt you because Father chose
you
,” she says in fierce answer, her fists balled at her sides. “How were you
any
better?
More
worthy.”

She kicks me so suddenly, I'm unprepared, and I hear, and feel, a rib give. Lisbeth knocks the wind out of me, and I can't even clutch my side, protect myself.

Instead, my uninjured eye burns with unshed tears. My breath is imprisoned in my chest, and I don't even have the strength to gasp. White searing pain lances my chest.

Tor puts a cautionary hand on her arm. “Now, Lisbeth. You can be an audience to the next event, but if you hurt Greta too badly, she will, unfortunately, pass out.” Tor's voice holds a pout.

My breath returns, wheezing between my teeth.
I hate them
.

Lisbeth is breathing heavily, obviously excited by my pain. Her eyes are clear. “Can't have that.”

“No, we cannot,” he agrees.

Additional precious oxygen floods my lungs, and I swallow air like a starving woman.

“When do the men arrive?” she asks, eyes still riveted to my abused face, the ghost of a grim smile touching her lips.

Men?

The hard-won air leaves my body in a sudden gust, and I whoop in another swollen breath that tastes like dirty seawater. I splutter, fighting the desperate breath because each one is agony as it expands my lungs.

Tor smiles down at me. “Shortly.”

Lisbeth takes his hand and places it against her cheek. His large hand palms her face. “I love you,” she breathes in a sultry whisper.

They kiss, twining together like poisonous vines.

Their rapturous embrace symbolizes the loss of my hope, and my body relaxes. I can't stay in adrenaline-fueled fight or flight indefinitely.

At some point, I have to come apart.

Closing my eyes, I allow the chill to overtake me as my mind shuts off.

I don't truly feel Tor give a brutal pinch to my nipple—the numbing of my soul has begun—nor do I hear their voices murmuring together like conspirators.

My ears are full of the sound of the sea, shuffling underneath me like a pillow of desolation.

Paco

My dull senses spark to life.

Every bit of my body is tight with injury, sluggish with reaction, and burdened with healing.

I keep my eyes closed, lying perfectly still and hanging on to the fact that I'm still alive.

Tallinn did keep warning me.

He said that there was an animal inside me—a primal, raw, and savagely instinctual animal that slept, waiting.

I feel him now—prowling.

That part of me slept through my life until now.

Maybe Zaire, a friend from my early childhood, always saw that buried part of me lurking in the shadows of the civility all men have been molded into.

The owner of Club Alpha has either given me the greatest gift of my life or delivered the greatest finale.

Bindings cut into my wrists and ankles. I know by the feel that they're plastic, not a tie made of organic material.

I might have been able to work with rope, twine, or something that could be stretched to opening.

My eyelids slowly rise. Both are swollen. I can still feel the imprint of a heel on my face.

The sea is the first sound I'm consciously aware of. It drifts underneath my body. The noise is almost like the breathing of a sentient being. The sound beckons, as though it yearns to lull me back into sleep with an embrace like the grave.

I fight the pull, fully opening my eyes to scan my surroundings.

Tallinn's dead.
The phrase breathes through my mind like stolen wind. That realization pauses my perusal for a bloated moment I can't spare.

If he
is
dead, what would Tallinn wish for the most, if he were here—right now?
My life.

I continue my perusal of the “room.” The space is really a box of concrete. Water creeps in at the corners, and a bare bulb swings slightly in an invisible current of air that slips through the poorly insulated area. I shiver from the cold as I spy the single exit. A five-panel wood door completes the prison. No windows.

My eyes trip over the slumped form of a man in a stool. He's leaning into the corner, muscular arms folded in, head tipped back into the crack formed by the corner of the wall.

Soft snoring is the second sound I hear, as though the sea and this man have contrived a discordant melody.

I finish my scan of my accommodation as my eyes fall to the door again. One exit.

I shift slightly and wince. I'm so sore I don't know which of my injuries is worse, the ribs? Head bashed in—the slit of one of my eyes, impairing my vision? Too numerous to choose just one.

But that I've not been killed doesn't bode well. One can't torture the dead. It would have been far easier to kill me. Therefore, if I’m still breathing, I must serve another purpose.

Lifting my head, I gaze down the length of my body and see I have been deposited on a soiled mattress. I look first at my feet then slowly check every inch of myself on the way up.

I wiggle my toes. One shoe is missing. I frown, absurdly offended by the missing footwear. Lifting a knee, I stifle a groan. I recognize a deep contusion when it presents itself.

I finish my analysis and lower my head.

The snoring of my “guard” continues.

I center my body, letting my mind shuffle through my thoughts like a deck of cards—remembering what I've been taught.

“Paco, in the unlikely event your Latin ass is restrained—” Tallinn chuckles. “I want you to do this, assuming you've been bound in front of your body because they're lazy.”

I lean back in my desk chair, watching Tallinn through hooded eyes. “And you wouldn't be
flajo
?” I smirk.

His grin looks like a baring of teeth, but his eyes glitter with interest. “Lazy? Not on a bet. Not where torture's involved.”

I frown, not understanding the expression, though the meaning is clear.

“Come here.” Tallinn cups his fingers in a come-hither gesture.

I stand and smoothly walk to his position.

“Arms up.”

I lift my arms.

“Wrists together.”

Our eyes meet.

I don't like the promise of being bound.

Tallinn smiles. “See?” He wags his fingers. “A real guy isn't going to voluntarily let anyone tie them.” He chuckles. “Unless it's a hot chick. We'll make exceptions for the females.”

My lips quirk. I put my wrists together.

“Very civilized of you, Paco.”

The hint of my smile vanishes.

The long plastic opaque cord tightens with the sound of a reverse accordion.

The plastic bites into my flesh. I flex. Nothing moves or gives.

“How do you plan to escape?” His eyes regard me like twin discs, in a shade of brown so dark they war with black, the whites like snow.

“If you were to do your job,
escape
tutorial would be unnecessary,” I point out.

Tallinn's face falls into grim lines. “I
will
do my job. But if someone interrupts me while I'm doing my job, then you learn
this
until I come and rescue you.”

“Hmmm.” I twist and bend my wrists.

Nothing.

I am not a weak man, in part because Tallinn has encouraged cross-training in a way that causes me to hate him. I also deeply respect the man.

Tallinn watches my novice attempt and makes a low noise of dissatisfaction. “Nah, that's for sissies.” His eyes find mine again.

I glare, and he chuckles. “You'll have to hurt yourself to escape. There's no out that feels good in this scenario.”

He raises my bound arms above my head. “Now pretend that you're trying to meet your shoulder blades.”

I bunch my shoulders together tightly.

“Now take your hands down like you're doing a judo chop.” I smirk then do as he says, arresting my momentum at the waist.

“Good,” Tallinn says thoughtfully. “Now, on the third time, instead of stopping your downward stroke, swing outward, hard. Like you're one of those swan divers.”

Tallinn jerks his thumb toward the perfect view I have of the cliff.

My eyes take in the lithe form of a diver as he prepares to plunge. His arms swing out like slashing knives in opposing directions. They meet in a perfect diamond of precision to slice the ocean's surface below.

I turn back to Tallinn, lifting my bound wrists like a hammer above my head. My shoulder muscles contract with the awkwardness of the constrained movement.

One.

I raise them again.

Two.

The air of my bound limbs brushes past my face. I bring my arms down in a fast downward movement.

Chop. Three.

I snap my wrists apart, and the zip tie peels away, lashing my flesh as it does.

I hiss, rubbing my tender wrists and looking at my instructor.

He lifts his palms inoffensively. “Get Away from the Bad Dudes 101.”

I scowl at him, my anger dissipating when I see the severed plastic lying at my feet.

One side of my lips twist.

“A plus, Paco.” Tallinn winks.

I do what he taught me, casting a furtive glance at the sleeping man.

I only need my hands free to kill him.

I'm not saddened by that knowledge that I’ll have to take a life. The awakened part of me is invigorated by his imminent demise.

I lift my arms, swinging sharply upward.

Back. Forth.

The third time has the plastic tie streaking off like a sprung rubber band. I tense at how loud the plastic is in the quiet of a room where the only sounds are waves lapping and the soft snoring of the
muy flajo
guard.

I stare silently at the strip of shredded milk-white binding sitting between us.

I flip over on the mattress.

The material is covered in rust-colored stains and other bodily fluid filth. It appears as though this place has been used for prior
engagements
.

I stand.

Pins and needles of returning blood circulation drives slivers of pain into already abused muscles and joints. My opponents were quite thorough, though I killed two of my assailants before they took me down.

A smile I didn't think was possible covers my face. I won't be fighting to
defend
. I will be fighting to incapacitate.

I take in my still-bound ankles and
search my weaponless body for a means to free myself.

Hopping off the mattress, I swing wildly with my arms to regain my balance. I steady, my eyes flicking to the sleeper.

Low snoring continues. I look at the man, so peaceful in his unconscious world. My eyes lovingly trace each thing I can use to kill him. Finally, I spy a tightly bound ponytail at his nape—the handle of his destruction.

I bounce over to him, using my arms like a circus tightrope performer. When I'm a half meter away, his eyes spring open.

His hand is clearing the jacket where his gun lies as my left palm flattens against the side of his jaw in a move that looks as though I'm pushing his face away.

I shove hard to his left as my opposite hand grabs the ponytail and jerks in the opposite direction, swinging his head hard.

A new noise fills the echoing space: a definitive
crack
, but his weapon landing on the floor with an unmistakable clatter has me warming my hands in his pockets, in search of a knife.

My fingertips brush metal. I jerk the knife out of his pocket. He slumps forward.

I bend over, flicking the blade as I do, and cutting the tie between my ankles.

The door slams open behind me, and I pivot like a dancer, diving the two meters onto the mattress, using it as a springboard, and hitting the assailant as a bullet misses me by inches.

I slap the arm holding the gun sideways, knocking it away.

He plays into my strike by trying to hold onto the gun. I crush his instep with the foot that still wears a shoe. He howls, reflexively bringing the butt of the gun down on my head.

Ducking, I stab his throat with my knuckles, and as he rears back, I lift my elbow like I'm getting ready to fly, smashing into his nose.

Blood sprays, and I dip as his gun hand begins to fall. Chopping the wrist, I take the gun from his loosened grip and bring the butt down on the back of his neck.

He falls, and I whirl to face the welcome of a darkened corridor, lifting the barrel like an extension of my arm.

Agonized screaming plows through me.

My intellect is in denial, but my heart knows who is making those crazed sounds.

Greta.