Destiny (28 page)

“Rina.”

Quiet. My head hurts. Let me sleep.

“Wake up, Rina. Please.”

Not now, Faith. So tired.
My head hung so heavy I thought surely it would fall off my neck. Where was my pillow? I shivered. And the covers. Did my friends have them all as usual? I swear, Faith and Kai were such cover hogs, it’s a wonder I ever let them sleep in my bed after partying all night—

Wait.

This wasn’t my home or my bed. Something firm yet soft held my arms above my head by my wrists, my arms stuck against a rough, rocky surface. I couldn’t feel my hands at all. My neck, on the flip side, ached like hell. I lifted my head, leaning it against the rock face behind me. Under my butt and legs, cold cement penetrated the thin material of my yoga pants, further pulling me back to consciousness.

I blinked. A fuzzy room—big, cavernous, drafty, and freezing. The sound of running water teased my ears, so gentle, like a babbling brook, yet this was no peaceful outdoor meadow. It smelled of moss and dirt, wet stone, fresh water…and blood.

Under the blood another scent came to me, as familiar as my own. “Faith?” I croaked. My eyes closed, stuck behind sticky lids.

“Yes, Rina.” Her soft voice sounded steady yet threaded with pain and sorrow.

My eyes snapped open, my vision blurred, but I looked around, frantic. “Faith. Faith!”

There. Several feet away, her small form crawled toward me on hands and knees. Metal clanked and scraped on the ground as she inched her way to me. Her whimpers broke my heart and tears welled in my eyes.

“Faith.” I couldn’t seem to say anything else.

I blinked back the tears until my sight sharpened. A shiny, too short, gold stretch dress she’d never be caught dead in by choice covered her thin body. Bite wounds riddled her arms and neck, her bare shoulders peppered with finger-shaped bruises. Bruised jaw, scratched forehead. The sight of her in such distress tore a sob from my raw throat. I wanted to reach out to her but my arms wouldn’t budge from above my head. I looked up.

Padded leather cuffs shackled my wrists to a metal ring embedded in the wall. Not a wall, exactly, more like a concrete pole twice as wide as my body, shooting upward and disappearing into the darkness far overhead. Dim light reached us from bare bulbs suspended on wire high above us. More weak light shone over a set of stairs and door along the far wall.

The walls themselves made me shiver with unease—half painted, covered in moss patches, cracked, and looking like they might collapse with the slightest tremble. The many metal rings set in the stone at regular intervals had me swallowing hard. Blood smeared the wall near most of the rings. The set of whips and chains of varying sizes hanging in side-by-side racks ratcheted up my nerves another notch.

Where the hell were we?

A frustrated cry escaped my friend when she came to the end of the chains attached to her ankle cuffs, the other end attached to a four-foot bit of metal rebar stuck straight into the ground. She reached out to me only to discover several inches kept us apart. Her fingertips trembled, trying to bridge the gap.

“Don’t hurt yourself, Faith. It’s okay.” What a joke. None of this was
okay
. “I’m so sorry. This is all my fault.”

She sat back with a sigh, curling her legs underneath her, her moves elegant as always yet with a shaky edge that hurt my heart. She looked at me with her beautiful, almond-shaped eyes. I’d missed those eyes, missed all of her. “No, it’s not.”

Of course, she’d say that in her calm way. “I should’ve known Dixon would do something like this, that he wouldn’t leave us alone, that—”

A male voice interrupted. “Dudette, chill on the self-guilt trip, will ya? And figure out a way to get us out of here. I know you can do it.”

My heart hopped into my throat. “Kai?”

I squinted into the gloom to my left, where the sounds of the babbling brook that couldn’t possibly exist taunted my ears. In the gloom I made out a tall, chain link fence, of all things, maybe eight feet tall. Hanging from it, bathed in shadows and arms splayed like Jesus on the Cross, a slim figure, a familiar figure.

“Kai!” My arms shook with my efforts to break my bonds and rush to him, free him. Beg forgiveness. My fault. All of this.

He coughed. “Hiya, Rina.”

“Oh God, I’m so sorry,” I croaked, tears welling yet again.

“Shut up, sistah,” came his smooth reply. “Just work your mojo and free us. Easy.”

I let out a strangled sound, half laugh, half sob. Suspended on a fence in a cavernous basement, likely beaten, tortured, and fed upon, Kai still managed to be his wonderful, lighthearted, snarky self. My throat constricted, and I struggled to take in enough of the dank air.

“It’s okay, Rina. Breathe.” Faith’s soothing tone caressed me, easing the knot in my throat.

I did what she ordered. I also clenched and unclenched my fingers and shook my legs against the ground, hoping to put some circulation in my extremities. How long had I been strung up like this? My shoulders screamed in agony from the position, so likely a long time.

Faith and I stared at each other, neither speaking for a while. Even Kai remained silent. I hoped it was
not
from pain, but I was too chicken-shit and overwhelmed with guilt to ask him. Finally, I broke our silence. “Do you know where we are?”

“The old armory,” Kai piped up from the shadows.

Faith nodded. “Basement.”

“Obviously.” I glanced around. “Any other exits?”

She pointed in my direction. “Two more behind you. Though they all lead to other parts of the building.”

I searched my memory for what I knew about the San Francisco armory. Former National Guard building. “Let me guess. Dixon owns it, right?”

“I think so.”

Lovely. “So we’re literally in Dixon’s dungeon.”

Slow claps echoed through the space. “Very good, my kitten.” Dixon stood on the stairs, grinning down at us. He blurred and reappeared between Faith and me and gave a mock bow. “A cheery hello to my pets. Reunited at last. Does it feel so good?” he taunted, voice singsong, then laughed at his own supposed cleverness.

I bit the inside of my cheek to prevent myself from responding. That’s what he wanted so I’d give him the opposite.

He strolled up to me and squatted, his tight leathers creaking, smile stretching in a nauseating leer. He trailed a cold finger from the hollow of my throat, flicked my ankh necklace, then moved down my skin, exposed by the vee of my black, baby doll tee.

Pausing in that sensitive spot between my breasts, he drew lazy circles there, making goose bumps break out on my skin. “Déjà vu, eh, pet? Only this time, I don’t have to share you with Magnas. Or worry his demented sidekick might kill you before I get to enjoy you.”

I bit my cheek so hard I broke skin and tasted blood. I swallowed it. I wouldn’t answer, wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

His finger paused and pushed against my breastbone, digging hard, forcing a grunt from me. “There you go. I love it when you make noise for me.”

I didn’t. I shifted one numb leg and lashed out at his face.

He caught my bare foot and squeezed until I yelped. “Yes, kitty. More of that.”

“Bastard,” I panted and kicked out with my other leg. My heel connected with his shoulder and knocked him on his ass. I expected him to strike back.

Instead, he laughed. “You will be such a pleasure to break.” He leaned forward and clicked together the two metal rings on the padded leather cuffs I hadn’t noticed on my ankles, then stood and whooshed away.

Silence overtook the space as we all held our breaths, straining for signs of him, the only noise that damn, trickling water. I sensed his presence in the room but couldn’t pinpoint his location. Then, a click sounded loud in the space, making me jerk. Light illuminated a spot to my left, right next to Kai hanging on the chain link fence.

I gasped. With the shadows no longer obscuring him, I got a good look at my friend. Broken nose, black eyes. Split lip. Burn marks on his chest, circular, and likely from a cigarette. A leather harness crisscrossed his torso, squeezing tight, his lower half bare except for some sort of short leather kilt.

He hung, suspended by chains wrapped repeatedly around the entire length of his arms and stomach, and threaded through the chain link fence, his legs similarly trussed up. Leather cuffs attached his wrists and ankles to the fence.

Kai peered at me through his swollen eyelids, his bloodied, cracked lips curling upward in greeting. “Hey, Rina.”

“Hey, Kai,” I replied, voice small. A tsunami of hatred for Dixon boiled up inside me. The rat bastard returned to my side, and I glared at him. “You’re so dead.”

He swept his arms down his body. “Been there, done that, kitten.” He winked. “Care to join me?”

I glowered at him.

He unhooked my cuffs from the wall, lifted me with ease from the ground, and slung me over his shoulder. Dizziness took out my vision as blood rushed to my head and hands, the latter tingling hard with painful pins and needles.

“Now we play, my pet.” He slapped my ass and squeezed. “And I make you mine for all eternity.”

“Never,” I gasped, banging my bound hands on his lower back. I might as well have been a gnat for all the attention he paid me.

“Hang on, Rina,” Kai encouraged me. “Don’t let him win.”

Dixon snorted. “As if she has a choice in the matter.”

“You said I did, remember?”

He slammed me hard against a wooden structure, forcing the air from my lungs. “Did I say that? Well, not now.” His silver eyes glowed with his power, and he used it to plaster me to the x-shaped structure. “Now you obey my every command.”

In a flurry of speed, he hooked my ankle and wrist cuffs to what I just realized was a St. Andrew’s cross then stepped in close, pressing his body flush against mine. He slid his hands up my arms and pushed my wrists into the hard wood. It would have hurt more if he hadn’t used padded cuffs on me. A surprising gesture of comfort given the amount of imminent pain the bastard intended to give me. Or maybe that was the point. Confuse me or damage me, but not too much?

He kissed my cheek, grazing his fangs along my jaw. “At my mercy now, little kitty. Isn’t it grand?”

I shook with fury and adrenaline, my heartbeat banging hard and fast in my chest as my mind scrambled for a way out. Lacking the ability to touch him, I had less than a zero chance of escape, no way to save my friends. A frustrated growl escaped my throat.

He tapped my forehead. “Thinking so hard. Here, I’ll make the next step easier for you. Open up, my sweet.” He produced a vial from an inner pocket in his vest. The eighth. Shit. He cracked open the top, grabbed my jaw, and forced my mouth open. “Bottom’s up.”

I tried to resist, but it was hopeless. I swallowed the foul poison. It tasted worse than the last. My stomach seized and a bad case of the shakes hijacked my body.

Dixon produced the last vial. Broke the seal. Popped the cork. Took a sniff. “Lucky number nine.”

“Wait. Wait. Please.” Faith pleaded with Dixon. “I see…”

Dixon froze, the vial pressed against my lower lip. “What are you on about, seer? You cannot see. My wizard made sure of that.”

“What wizard?” I didn’t actually expect an answer, but at this point, I’d do anything to stall.

As I hoped, Dixon took the bait. “He’s quite a catch. Will do whatever I want, to whomever I wish. For the right price.”

“My family will destroy him for helping you.”

“He’s a ghost, sweetheart. They’ll never find him.” At my furrowed brow, he added, “Not a true spirit. Just clever at hiding. But I digress. Where were we?” He tilted the vial. “Ah yes. Time to make you mine.”

“I see your crossroads, Dixon.” Faith tried again. “One path leads to your undoing. On the other…potential redemption.”

He smirked. “Pretty lies, seer.” His expression sobered. “You shall pay for that when I am done here.”

“Wait,” I hastened to speak, hard as that was with a vial pushed against my lower lip. “You said nine days, nine o’clock. Way off schedule here. The magic won’t work.” God, I hoped it wouldn’t work.

“Not to worry love. These last two? They’re Plan B, mixed up special today. The first batch weakened you enough. My wizard assures me these will finish you off. Handy to have a master of the dark arts on call, don’t you think?”

“My thanks for the compliment, Master,” a deep voice rumbled from across the room.

Faith shrieked. Kai cursed. All due to the short, slender man on the stairs, a man with skin so black the whites of his eyes shone bright like diamonds in sunlight. Even from this distance, his malevolence slithered over me, making me shiver.

“What is it, Theo?” Dixon didn’t bother to look at the man, kept his focus on me.

“Your sister is here. With…company.”

My heart hurdled into my throat. That meant Alexander would be here. The cougar would never let him out of her sight.

Dixon let out an unhappy grunt and popped the cork back into the vial. I would have sagged in relief had I been able to move at all.

He read my expression and patted me on the cheek.
Soon
, he mouthed. “And the wolves?”

Oh no, wolves?

“I sense them drawing near. The alpha, beta, and four others. The traps are set.”

Dixon’s smirk scrunched the tattoo on his cheek. “Excellent. I have to thank you, kitten, for enlisting their aid. I’ve always wanted pet dogs.”

I closed my eyes to shut out his incessant leer and the triumph gleaming in his silver eyes. Guilt gouged a crater in my gut. First Faith and Kai suffered, and now the wolves. Oh, and let’s not forget Alexander, Fin, Stella, and my boys, all hurt by Genevieve, Dixon’s freakin’ sister. Everyone in agony. Because of me.

A commotion sounded outside the dungeon. Heavy footsteps, clanking metal, and airy, melodic singing. A gifted soprano singing an aria I didn’t recognize. The wizard shot me an enigmatic stare that made my skin want to crawl off my body and hide. Then he disappeared in a puff of black smoke.