Things That Go Hump In The Night (23 page)

A metal collar and cuffs, their inside surfaces burred with short wire spikes, dangled from chains fastened to the frame at the foot of the bed. She saw that the legs of the bed had been bolted to the floor, holes cut in the carpet to accommodate the thick bolts.

A large, familiar cage loomed in the periphery of her vision, and despair mixed with nausea rose up in a bitter surge.

Somehow, I always knew I'd end up here, back in Erik's cage.

Still in thrall to his spell, Nicole couldn't fight as he slowly began to strip her.

Her skin crawled as he ran his hands possessively over her, caressing her as he removed her loose, knitted sweater, the tank top underneath, then her bra. Then he unbuttoned the waist of her jeans and unzipped them before pushing them down her thighs.

All the while, she could feel him feeding on her, exuding a creeping cold that smothered her fear, her anger, her loathing like a slimy blanket, leaving her numb and shivering.

Her panties and socks followed, leaving her naked except for her jewelry. Was he going to leave them on her?

A tiny spark of hope blossomed inside her at the thought that he might let her keep wearing the tracker.

He folded each piece of clothing as he took it from her and made a small pile on the floor.

Then he removed her earrings and the cameo pendant, and Nicole wanted to scream in protest.

She noticed the sweat running down his face and the fine tremor in his fingers as they brushed her bare skin. His shirt had big, dark wet patches over his chest and under his arms.

At first, she thought he was sweating like a pig in perverse excitement at being able to do whatever he wanted to her.

But then she noticed that he looked exhausted, like a long-distance runner at the end of a marathon.

Keeping her trapped in this spell was obviously costing him. Maybe she would have another chance to attack him...

Act beaten and scared
, she told herself.
Wait for him to drop his guard
.

Though "beaten and scared" wasn't going to be much of an act. She was already scared shitless, knowing that they were miles from anyone who could possibly come to her rescue.

At that moment, she felt a warm, tender touch brush against her soul.

Gabriel
, said her wolf.
He's coming for us
.

But how had he done that? She wasn't wearing a red string bracelet connected to him.

He is our mate. He will always be able to find us,
her wolf said with calm confidence.
We just have to fight the monster until Gabriel comes.

Nicole very badly wanted to believe her wolf. But it was impossible.

Even if Gabriel somehow found her out here, in a place with no cell reception and too many big trees for line-of-sight to a GPS satellite, he was nowhere near as powerful as Erik.

And Gabriel wasn’t a sorcerer, either. He had told her that much.

She was fucked. She knew that. But she wasn't going to make it easy for Erik.

"Kneel," Erik said, hoarsely.

Unable to resist the force of the icy magic wrapped around her, Nicole collapsed to her knees next to the foot of the bed.

She watched with growing horror as Erik picked up the collar and clicked it into place around her neck. It was heavy, and she instantly felt as if it were choking her, digging cruelly into her skin with hundreds of sharp claws. Then he snapped the wide, heavy cuffs around her wrists, making her gasp with pain.

The chain fastened to her manacles and collar was thick, and it clanked dully instead of jingling. Nicole held very, very still, so that the sharp burrs pressed against her wouldn’t scrape and tear her skin.

Erik took a length of black string out of his pocket and squatted before her.

"You betrayed my trust in you, Nicky," he said softly, his expression sad but resolute. "It's a pity that you've forced me to use this, but I won't give you the chance to run away again while I work on re-educating you."

He held up a large, intricately knotted loop of cord that reminded her of the bracelet she had worn until recently. Her stomach knotted in fresh terror.

They come in black? Oh, that can't be good.

"You're going to put another
philtata
-charm on me?" she asked, forcing the words out in a whisper as she eyed the noose.

"I see someone's been teaching you things." He smiled at her, and she felt chilled to the bone. "No, pet, this is
Qibītu-šiptu
, the Charm of Obedience
.
It's what we used in the old days to punish disobedient tributes."

"I'm not your slave," Nicole husked. It took all her strength to defeat the binding spell enough to speak.

"Oh, but you are." Erik chuckled, the corners of his blue eyes crinkling. "I made you, and so I own you, body and soul." His expression flattened out, and she could see the monster staring out from the eyes of the Swedish male model face he wore. "You've cost me a lot of time, money, and effort to track you down. I'm going to make certain that you don't run away again."

"Why?" she asked. "Why
me?
I'm nothing special."

That question had haunted her for years. What had she done to attract his attention? Was there anything she could have done to avoid his notice? Gabriel had told that she was a born
philtata
, so she supposed the answer was
no
.

But she wasn't the only
philtata
in the world. Why hadn't Erik just given up eventually and looked for someone else to take her place?

"My pet, how dare you call yourself
nothing special?
" He shook his head regretfully. "I worked so hard to craft a rare treasure...a born
philtata
who's also a shape-shifter, more nourishing and delicious than any
philtatoi
I've known. Do you know how many times I tried—and failed—to use the old spells to create a shape-shifter? Only
you
survived the transformation process."

She stared at him in horror, wondering how many others he had caught and killed before he set his sights on her.
Monster.

"No, I'm not ever letting you go," Erik continued. "You're my creation, my possession.
Mine
."

With those words, he dropped the black noose over her head and scooped up her hair so that that the string rested against her nape.

Instantly, it tightened around her neck under the metal collar. She felt it pulsing against her skin with cold malevolence. It made her feel dizzy and sick to her stomach.

Erik raised his hand and said something in that guttural, resonant language.

The noose flared with blue light, bringing a sharp, cold pain with it that made Nicole feel like she was being stabbed with an icicle.

She felt a spell rush into her, freezing her bones, and she swayed on her knees.

The movement triggered sharp, hot pain around her throat and wrists as the burred restraints tore into her skin.

"Now you're going to tell me which of the Children of Lilith living in the city removed your bracelet and tried to steal what belongs to
me
," Erik said.

He grabbed a handful of her hair and twisted painfully, forcing her head back so that she was forced to look up into his eyes. The collar bit mercilessly into her skin, and she felt blood trickling over her collarbones and between her bare breasts.

"Who was it, Nicky? Tell me!"

It was then that Nicole realized two things.

One: Erik didn't know about Archangel Security Networks and Gabriel. And he also probably didn't know about Mark Aquila and Werewolf Boot Camp.

Two: Whatever he had just done to her with the black string necklace made her want to tell him
everything
. He had called it a Charm of Obedience.

Oh hell no. He can't know about Gabriel and Rafe and Mark.

She'd had a lot of practice staying silent under Erik's torture the last time around, but this was different. It felt like the whammy he had laid on her not to tell anyone about him or the bracelet...only worse.

Nicole gritted her teeth as the pain began to throb through her entire body in ever-stronger pulses, and she stayed silent.
I won't let Erik hurt them. Any of them.

The pain level ramped up until she was blind and unaware of anything but agony and pressure and the brief flashes of relief between pulses.

Speak and the pain will recede. Speak and find relief.

It sounded like Erik's voice in her head, which was the creepiest thing about this whole creepy thing.

Nicole opened her mouth.

"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal," she began, drawing on her wolf to help her dodge around the compulsion to answer Erik's question.

As she continued speaking, the pain slowly receded back to bearable levels.

Erik's handsome face reddened with rage, and his mouth distorted in a snarl. He struck her hard, the blow numbing her cheek as she slammed into the wrought-iron bed frame.

The impact hurt. A lot. She felt sick with the fresh pain clawing through her head, as it joined the other kinds of pain already tromping through her.

The movement also shifted her restraints, and she gasped as the barbs chewed on the tender skin of her throat and wrists with sharp teeth.

Black speckles drifted through her field of vision as Erik yanked her upright by her hair.

"Tell me," he growled. "Who broke our
philtata
-bond? Who stole you from me?"

Panting, Nicole tried to tune him out.

In a broken voice, she finished with the Gettysburg Address and moved on to the Introduction and Preamble to the Declaration of Independence.

Erik grabbed her shoulders and shook her, which sent fresh agony through her. If she survived this, she was going to have a hell of a scar around her neck.

"Nicky!
Answer me!
"

More of that ice-cold magic radiated out from the noose around her throat, coiling around her and squeezing her like an anaconda, trying to force out the words to tell him what he wanted to know.

Nicole couldn't think of any more speeches or poems, so she began singing a pop tune, something she'd been listening to at work today.

Her desperate strategy seemed to be working against the spell—her head still hurt, but as long as she kept talking or singing, the pain stayed down at bearable levels.

And, most importantly, if she was singing, she didn't have to answer Erik's questions.

"You think you're being clever, you little bitch," he snarled, dropping his glamour.

He still looked like a demon, with horns, dark scales, and leathery wings. His malevolent blue eyes bored into her as his talons dug painfully into her shoulders.

"Let me tell you what will happen to your family if you don't tell me who removed your bracelet, my little
philtata
." As he spoke, she could see his fangs, yellowed with age.

Not your
philtata, she thought, but she didn't dare stop singing to tell him that.
Never yours
.

"I know where your brother lives, Nicole, and which university he attends," Erik continued. "I know where your parents live. If you don't prove to me how sorry you are for running away and for betraying me with another, then I will kill everyone you love, and they won't die easily. I'll make it last a long time, and they'll die knowing you were responsible."

Nicole had discussed this possibility with Mark and Gabriel, and she knew Archangel Security had set guards to watch discreetly over her family just in case Erik threatened them.

Mark had told her that he had drawn on his authority as a Hunter and had phoned the head of the Asura Clan, who had been appalled to hear what Erik had done.

Erik's relatives claimed they hadn't heard from him in years and didn't know where he was, but they had promised their full cooperation in stopping their rogue kinsman.

That meant Children of Lilith would join regular humans in guarding her parents and brother if something ever happened to Nicole.

Gabriel had promised her that, and she believed him.

Maybe he wouldn't be able to find her out here in the middle of Buttfuck Nowhere. But he would know
something
bad had happened to her, and he would make sure that her parents and her brother stayed safe.

So she continued singing, working her way through her iPod playlist.

Erik began to laugh, and it was the creepiest, scariest sound she had ever heard.

"You're every bit as entertaining as I remember, Nicky. I'm going to enjoy taming you again."