Handcuffed by Her Hero (36 page)

The man released his lip. And
returned her smile. “I’m going to walk out of here in fifteen minutes. A car
with a full tank will be waiting for my use. And you’ll come with me, Rayna.
Willingly.”

Rayna let out a laugh now. But
Franzen didn’t join her. Neither did Zeke. The dark snakes in his blood
slithered faster, flashing fangs that were set to chomp on him any second.
“Fuck,” he muttered under his breath. “Fuuuuck. This isn’t good.”

Rayna cocked a saucy pose and finally
quipped , “You going to enlighten me on how that plan will roll for you, Willie
Wonka?”

Mua siphoned out a calm breath. “King
and I invested some sizable amounts of money into researching new technology
for insertable human chip technology.”

“Of course you did,” she spat.

He let her slur pass with a mild
roll of his eyes. “We already knew from the widespread use of chips as tracking
devices for pets, cattle, and research animals, that the chips worked for basic
tracking purposes. Our main concern centered new attachments for disciplinary
uses.” At that, his gaze shifted to Zeke. “You, Sergeant Hayes, are the inaugural
recipient of such a chip.”

Rayna’s sass was dynamited by
stiff fear. “Wh-what?” Her eyes, darkened by horror and hatred, locked on Mua.
“What the hell are you saying?”

The man didn’t detract his stare
from Zeke. “But you already knew, didn’t you?” His inspection went from
interested to openly curious. “It feels different, doesn’t it?”

Zeke parted his lips, baring his
teeth. Did the fucker think he was going to give up an answer that easily? “You
used Luna for it,” he snarled instead. “Yesterday. Right?”

“Luna?” exclaimed Rayna. “What
about Luna?”

“We ‘ran into her’ yesterday. She
hugged me good-bye—in a really weird way. That was what triggered it. It was
that goddamn hug.”

Mua curved a small smirk. “I
admire her, you know. She’s a very determined young lady. Willing to do the
hard work to get what she wants.”

Rayna stumbled forward. Her chin
shook. Zeke balled his hands to control himself from hauling her over and
crushing her to his side. But he had a feeling, a bad one, even that wasn’t
going to help this time.

“What the hell does that mean?”
she finally demanded.

“Hmm,” Mua said. “Let me try to
be simple. When your little friend Luna embraced your big lover Zeke yesterday,
she officially unveiled the newest phase of our insertable discipline
technology. A vial attached to his chip was activated, releasing a dose of
concentrated neurotoxins into his bloodstream.”

“What?” Franzen barked.

“What?” Rayna gasped.

“Fuck,” Zeke muttered. But then
weirdly, he laughed. If they were playing on the same side, Mua’s ingenuity
would actually be impressive. “All right, let me go next,” he went on,
directing a glare right back at the urbane asshole. “You control the on and off
button to this thing, right? And as long as Rayna is Stateside, the button
stays on.”

Mua’s hands were still raised in
front of his shoulders. But with a subtle flick of his right wrist, he got his sleeve
lowered to expose a silver contraption that looked like a fancy watch. Embedded
into it were a row of buttons that all glowed green, next to a little slider
bar. “The slider’s position means the chip is set at the lowest secretion right
now,” he explained, looking at Rayna, “And it shall remain that way, as long as
you leave with me right now.”

“The fuck she will.” Okay, this
shit scared him. But it was no worse than a HALO jump behind enemy lines at
midnight. Or going home to find out you didn’t have a home anymore. Just like
those times, he wrapped himself around the defense that saved his ass every
time. Pure defiance.

Mua went on as if he hadn’t said
anything. “If we receive clearance for a flight by the end of the day, Sergeant
Hayes will emerge from this escapade with nothing more than treatable
dizziness, sleeplessness, and a little muscle pain. If we’re delayed or if your
friends throw ‘snags’ at us, the slider gets moved.”

Rayna hadn’t said a word. Hell,
she barely moved. The terrified depths of her eyes spread their misery across
her face as she finally looked at him. Her lips shook as she whispered
desperately to him. “Oh, God. Oh, Zeke.”

He fought for something to say.
Nothing emerged but a horrible, haunted growl. Meeting her eyes…he could barely
stomach it. She was the monster’s property again because of the poison that had
been shoved into him. Because of the evil that lived in him.

“No.”

It was hardly a word once it tore
out of his lips. The letters ceased to be consonant and vowel, more a vehement
rebellion that began in his gut and curled into his whole body. “She’s not
going to do it, you filthy fuckwad.” He clutched her close, inhaling her,
feeling her, branding her onto the mind he’d likely lose in another second.
“She’s not yours. She’ll
never
be yours!”

With his lips against her neck,
he growled, “Because. You’re. Mine.”

Mua let out a prissy snort. And
as Z had expected, clicked a button on his wrist.

Fuck.

He expected the toxin blast to be
like a nuclear drop. A flash of light, blissful nothing.
Kaboom
. Done.
He’d either be dead or rocking turnip salad for a brain; either scenario ended
Mua’s hold over Rayna forever. And Franz and Runway would finally have their
legal justification for plowing the bastard full of lead.

Trouble was, the shit was more like
napalm. Thick as lava, burning like his blood had turned into the River Styx. He
moaned and it wasn’t pretty. It was a messy, shitty hell. He fell away from
Rayna, rolled to the ground and felt a chair go flying from his kick. Inside
seconds, he was on his way to a full seizure.

“Zeke!” Rayna’s scream tore into
his brain like a meat cleaver dipped in battery acid. “Oh my God, no! Noooo!
Turn it off! Turn it off now!”

“Rayn-n-n-na.” He had no damn
idea how his mouth formed the word. “No.
No
, god-d-d-damnit!” Or those,
either.

“Who am I listening to, Rayna?”
Mua’s voice was full of sickening silk.

“Me!” Zeke shouted.

“Me!” she cried. “I swear to God,
Mua, if you don’t turn it off now, I’m not moving another inch!”

“N-n-n-ot moving anyway.” Holy
hell, why did he have to have such a high pain threshold? He should be
unconscious by now.
No. Stay aware. Stay alive. Keep
her
alive
. “You—not—moving.
I—order—it!”

“And I am
not
your sub.”

“Rayna!”

“Mua,
turn it off
.”

The bomb was suddenly doused.

His nerves, muscles, and mind
danced in gratitude.

His heart crashed in despair. His
soul curled up in its own shadows.

“Rayna,” he whispered to her from
that abyss. It was all he could do. Though the pain was gone, his body rebelled
against movement. His mind struggled to remember his own name. Did it even matter
now?

It was so fucking cold. Snow fell
on his face. Ice, too. No…the ice was his creation. It was formed of his tears,
flowing and freezing across his face as well as the lips continuing to plead
her name. He was trapped in a glacier of helplessness called his own body. In
short, he really was in hell.

For two miraculous seconds, summer
returned. It warmed him like an Indian sunset and smelled like cardamom
sprinkled on apple tarts. He sighed as he breathed in the bliss of it.

“Zeke. I love you.”

Then summer was gone. His sigh
turned into a moan. He let it fade to silence as the shadows in his spirit
turned to pitch black midnight.  

Rayna didn’t know who was more
eager for the private jet to get here and land, her or Mua. The sooner the damn
thing landed, the sooner they’d be on it and airborne—and the sooner Zeke would
be safe.

She was certain her fervent
glances into the sky outnumbered the man’s by now.

Man
?

She dropped her head and kicked
at the floor of the Spanaway Airport terminal. How had she remotely thought of
that word to qualify the creature standing before the plate glass window? She
wasn’t sure
monster
filled the bill anymore. Not when she thought about
everything that had happened this morning. Not when she remembered everything
he’d done to Zeke.

Not when she lifted a hand to the
tidy nick at the base of her own neck now.

Her insertion site was small and
sterile. No gashes or screwdrivers like they’d used on Zeke. One of Mua’s goons
had done it in the car on the way here. He’d even used surgical gloves and
alcohol.

Just like the woman King had used
to put in the piercing between her legs.

She shuddered and sucked in a
breath.

Real monsters didn’t hack out
your humanity in bites. They drilled it out, bit by excruciating bit, with
needles.

No, Rayna. This piercing
isn’t your shame. It’s your true medal of honor. Don’t forget…

She bit back a sob. She clung to
his words, to his voice in her heart, but hated them at the same time. She
looked to the sky again, pulled by its numbing gray pallor, longing to drag it
over her heart like a giant, dark blanket.
Don’t forget
? How the hell
did she do anything except remember? How the hell did she take another step,
pull in another breath, have another thought without being reminded of what she
was…a woman who held the life of the man she loved in every move she made until
that plane landed, and she made Mua destroy his magic Rolex for good.

The snow turned into a sopping
rain. The runway remained bleak and empty.

What the hell was taking so long?
Seattle had a hundred private jet charter outfits. It took no more than three
computer mouse clicks to order one up.

Exhaustion slammed her. She
looked up and headed for the ladies room. A couple of Mua’s men hustled to her
side. They were brand-new minions since Mua had allowed Franz to go ahead and
arrest the team who’d accompanied him to the wedding.

“Seriously?” she asked them. “I’m
going to pee and wash my face, boys. If you want the play-by-play, ask Mua if
you can borrow his tracking toy.”

The men backed off, though they
took up positions at both sides of the bathroom door. She went inside, used the
facilities then did her best to wash off the stress of the day. Her face and
hair were at Broom Hilda status, still streaked and tangled respectively due to
her face plant in the grass beneath Zeke, as well as the meltdown she’d had while
watching him writhe from the neurotoxin attack. She braced herself against the
sink, weathering the violent shivers just from the memory of it. Somebody had
propped open the window at the end of the stalls. She stepped beneath it,
gratefully sucking in the crisp air, trying to wrap the memory of rain, wind
and pines into her senses. All too soon, her world would be nothing but sweat,
heat, mud, and bugs. 

She doused that thought by
thinking of Zeke. They’d surely gotten him to the base by now, started him on
detox from the poison Mua had pumped into his system—and gotten together a
contingency in case the monster chose to ram that slider again for the sick fun
of it.

The sky roared to life with the
engines of a descending plane.

Her chest constricted with a mix
of happiness and horror.

“The beginning of the end, Ray,”
she whispered. “Let’s get going.”

When she emerged from the
bathroom, the henchmen attached themselves to her sides, one at each elbow.
Their grips were ironclad, matching the tenacious triumph on Mua’s face. He
spoke on a throwaway cell but motioned them forward, making it known that he’d
watch her board first from the safety of the terminal.

The first goons pushed open the
glass door toward the tarmac where a sleek white corporate jet had skidded to a
textbook stop. The men tightened their holds and pulled her into the rain.

Despite the icy drops on her
skin, her face burned as terror detached her mind from her body. If she
consciously thought about her steps being part of Mua’s victory procession,
she’d crumble in grief. The son of a bitch wasn’t getting the satisfaction of
watching that.

The boarding door peeled back
from the plane. A steward descended the short stairway and locked it down from
the bottom.

Just before ten soldiers in full
battle gear spilled out from it.

She was too petrified to scream, not
that she could have. Both her watchdogs were instantly shot down, their grips taking
her down with them. Their deaths saved her skin. She was able to flatten
herself as the terminal’s big window was shattered from inside. An object had
been flung from it.

“Grenade!”

The bellow came in Franzen’s
distinct baritone. Rayna gasped from the awareness.
Franzen
? What the
hell? What was the man doing here, leading a mission that would ensure Zeke’s
mind was fried from the inside out before they were done?

Now she knew where Z had picked
up his big, dumb, and grizzly streak.

She scrambled back toward the
terminal as the explosive went off, deafening her as it blew a hole into the
pavement and set the service shed on fire. But she didn’t stop her frantic
crawl back to Mua. She huffed in desperation, begging fate that she wasn’t too
late to stop the monster from throwing the switch on Zeke.

Past the ringing in her ears, she
heard Franzen yell again. “Rayna, no! Goddamnit, Chestain, don’t you dare go
back—”

She jerked open the door. “I’m
not
your
sub, either,” she said under her breath.

The second she clambered back
inside, Mua jerked her to her feet. His hair tumbled into his face. His
nostrils were wide, his teeth were bared. “What the
fuck
is this?”

“You think I have a clue?” She
fought to jerk back. Being this close him made her nauseous. “I haven’t peed
without you knowing about it, Jabba the Hut. Tell me when I’ve had a chance to
coordinate shit like this.”

Mua coiled his hand into her
hair. “Your sarcasm is not attractive, my dear. You’ll soon learn to bite that
pretty tongue of yours. We’ll start with a lesson right now—and I know just the
person to help you learn it. Let’s hope Sergeant Hayes is up for the task.”

“No.” She croaked it. “Please!
Mua—”

The rest of it died before it
reached her lips. Shock was a damn good mute button. “Huh?” she finally rasped,
blinking at the contraption on the man’s right wrist. Though it was still
silver, and still sported all the mechanisms Mua had unveiled this morning on
Garrett and Sage’s lawn, nothing was lit. The thing was no better than a fancy
stage prop.

“What the fuck?” Mua repeated.

“Hey, Mua.”

The saucy taunt, issued from the
back of the small waiting room, captured Rayna’s curiosity as much as the man
who held her. She rapidly altered the perception. Mua wasn’t curious. He was
horrified.

Guess that was how monsters
looked when the real version of their favorite play toy was transformed into a
twisted piece of expressionist art—and dangled from the fingers of a catsuit-clad
woman with a matching feline smirk.

“Looking for this?” Catwoman teased.
She tossed her chin with a purring
tsk
. “You boys are so stupid about
where you put your gadgets when you shower. Somebody could come along and
tamper with them so easily.”

“Luna.” Both syllables were
twists of raw rage. “What the
hell
have you done?”

“No shit,” Rayna seconded. Her
own reaction to the woman’s appearance was an unnervingly mixed bag. She couldn’t
believe this long-legged hybrid of Lara Croft and fetish fatale was the same
meek, spaced-out subbie she’d seen at Bastille less than a week ago—or the
woman so desperate to get Zeke for her own, she’d done Mua’s dirtiest work for
him.

“What I should have done
yesterday,” Luna declared. “Or for that matter, the day before. It’s called the
right thing, Mua, and I’m doing it now.”

Mua erupted with a snarl. “You
fucking fool!” His fingers tightened against Rayna’s scalp. “What’s done is
done
,
Luna.”

“No.” She threw the chip
controller down then crushed it beneath her boot. “It’s not done. I was
listening this morning, asshole. At the mansion, when all of you boys were off
having your fun at the wedding, I engaged the radio capability on your phone.
Yeah, guess what? Dorky little Luna knows a thing or two about all that technical
shit, too. I heard it all, Mua. I listened to every second of what you did to
Zeke.” Her face contorted. “You said it would be simple. You said he’d suffer
nothing worse than a Taser hit!”

“You have no idea what you’re
talking about.” His breaths, harsh and desperate, resounded in Rayna’s ear.
“You weren’t there, you little idiot. You have no idea—”

“I have
every
idea.” She
hooked a heel beneath the mangled machinery and kicked high, sending the thing
through the window he’d broken with the grenade. “You tortured him, you goddamn
monster. I listened to every disgusting second.” Her glare gleamed with
brilliant purple fury, though tears glistened when she shifted her focus to
Rayna. “And I listened to what it did to you, Rayna.” A heavy swallow moved
down her throat. “And I heard what you told him.”

Rayna gulped, too. She didn’t
know what to do with that. Was it supposed to encourage her? Scare her? Luna
talked about the right thing, but yesterday, the woman’s idea of that was the
pain slut’s version of a Judas kiss.
Come here, Zeke. This neurotoxin will
only hurt for a second, then we can be together forever.

“I was wrong.” Luna spoke it to
her with the conviction of knowing just where Rayna’s thoughts had gone. “About
all of it. What I did for him—what I did
to
him—wasn’t love.”

Mua cut in with a biting laugh.
“Very sweet, darling. But very late.
Too
late. What you did, despite
your charming crisis of integrity, is going to land you in prison.”

“I know.” Luna gave him another
saucy smile just as a handful of soldiers burst through the back entrance of
the terminal, filling in behind her. “But unlike you, Mua, I’m going to look
damn good doing it.” She flipped her ebony hair with the confidence of a rock
star before hiking herself onto one of the snack bar tables and thrusting her
wrists forward. “Cuff me, guys. And if you want to spank me on the way to the
courthouse, I won’t mind a bit.”

It was done. Game over. Rayna
only wished someone in the room would convince Mua of that. As the team
advanced on them, he hurled her away. Her head snapped around as she fell to
the floor. Sights flew past her vision in a blur. Mua’s features, warped with
outrage. The sweat running down his neck. The tension of his fingers as he
curled them in a fist. The violence in his body, heaving with every word he
roared. “You stupid twit! You mindless, witless slut!”

His shrieks tore through the
room. They impacted Rayna like underwater explosions. The whole room suddenly
seemed submerged, a frustrating lethargy against the terror of her new
realization.

Mua’s hand wasn’t curled in a
fist.

It was curled around another
grenade.

“Nooooo!”

She screamed it a second too
late. Two soldiers tackled Mua the instant after he pulled the pin and threw
the grenade, a fast ball that landed the thing beneath the table where Luna was
still preening for her soldiers.

She didn’t think. She lunged
toward Luna and grabbed her with both hands. The two soldiers, who now saw the pineapple
themselves, helped continue her momentum out the terminal’s back door.

There was a terrible, consuming
boom. Searing heat. Biting pain. Noise, so much noise and chaos. She tumbled
and hit the ground. The soldiers shouted.
Assets down! Assets down!

Then the cold came. The chasm
loomed, threatening to swallow her. She shuddered, shaking her head, mentally
skittering back from the edge of that hole. “Don’t want to go,” she protested.
“Don’t make me go. Don’t make me—”

“Rayna.” The voice was firm,
forceful. “Can you hear me? It’s Franz. Are you with me, sweets?”

Her head pounded from her
chattering lips. “Don’t make me go. Don’t make me—”

“It’s gonna be okay, Rayna. Do
you hear me? Hang on, damn it!”

Sirens and horn blares. Shouts
and orders. Thunder and the din of pouring rain. None of it made the black pit
go away. None of it pulled the icebergs from her blood or the glaciers from her
muscles.

“Ray-bird.”

A sigh caught in her throat.
Escaped her in quaking spurts. She wanted to think she wasn’t dreaming. She
wanted to think the envelope of his arms was real. She wanted to think he was
really whispering against her forehead, kissing her eyelashes, brushing the
warmth of his breath across her face.