Lover Awakened (28 page)

Her name had been Catronia. An aristocrat of wealth, she was mated to a half-breed merchant who conducted business in the human world. Evidently she was alone a lot, as her
hellren
traveled extensively, but the rumor was she'd had the blood slave before her mating
.

Phury asked to be welcomed into her household, and as he was well-read and attentive, she permitted him to a room despite the fact that he was vague about his lineage. Courts were full of posers, and she was attracted to him, so she was obviously willing to overlook certain formalities. But she was cautious, too. Weeks passed, and though she spent a lot of time with him, she never took him to the slave she was said to possess.

Every chance he had he searched the grounds and the buildings, hoping to find his twin in a hidden cell of some kind. The problem was, there were eyes everywhere, and Catronia kept him busy. Whenever her
hellren
departed, which was often, she would come to Phury's quarters, and the more he evaded her hands, the more she wanted him
.

Time… time was all it took. Time and her inability to resist showing off her prize, her toy, her slave. One evening right before dawn, she asked him to her bedroom for the first time. The secret entrance he had been searching for had been located in her antechamber, in the back of her wardrobe. Together they went down a vast, steep staircase.

Phury could still remember the thick oak door at the bottom swinging open, and the sight of the male chained naked, legs spread, on a tapestry-covered bedding platform.

Zsadist had been staring at the ceiling, his hair so long it fell onto the stone floor. He was clean shaven and oiled, as if he'd been prepared for her sport, and he smelted of expensive spices. The female went right to him and caressed him lovingly, those rapacious brown eyes of hers stamping ownership all over his body.

Phury's hand had gone for the dagger at his side before he'd known what he was doing. As if sensing the motion, Zsadist's head had slowly turned, and his dead black eyes had crossed the distance between them. There was no flash of recognition. Just seething hatred.

Shock and sorrow had rolled through Phury, but he'd kept focused, looking for the way out. There was another door across the cell, but that one had no knob or handle, just a little slot about five feet from the floor. He'd thought maybe he could break thr
—

Catronia began to touch his brother intimately. She had some kind of salve on her hands, and as she stroked his twin's manhood, she was saying hateful things about what the size of him would be like. Phury bared his fangs at her and lifted the dagger.

The door across the way suddenly swung open. On the other side was an effete court male wearing an ermine-trimmed robe. He was frantic as he announced that Catronia's
hellren
had returned unexpectedly and was searching for her. Rumors about her and Phury had evidently reached the male's ears
.

Phury crouched down, prepared to kill the female and her court-man. But the sound of pounding feet, many of them, echoed into the room.

The
hellren
came pounding down the secret stairs, he and his private guard spilling into the room. The male had seemed flabbergasted, was clearly unaware that she had a blood slave. Catronia started speaking, but he slapped her so hard she ricocheted off the stone walls
.

Chaos exploded. The private guard went after Phury. The
hellren
went after Zsadist with a knife
.

Killing the court's soldiers was a long and bloody process, and by the time Phury could get free of the hand-to-hand, there was no sign of Zsadist, just a bloody trail out of the cell.

Phury took off down the corridor, running through the underground of the castle, following the red streaks. When he emerged from the keep it was nearly dawn, so he knew he had to find Zsadist with alacrity. As he paused to get his bearings, he heard a rhythmic noise snapping through the air.

A whipping.

Over to the right, Zsadist had been strung up from a tree on the cliff, and against the vast backdrop of the sea, he was being whipped raw.

Phury attacked the three guards who were lashing his twin. Though the males fought hard, he was in a wild fury. He slaughtered them and then released Zsadist, only to see more guards coming out of the bulkhead in a block of five.

With the sun about to rise, and the glow burning his skin, Phury knew there was no time left. He slung Zsadist over his shoulders, grabbed one of the pistols the guards had been armed with, and shoved the weapon into his belt. Then he eyed the cliff and the ocean below. Not the best route to freedom, but far better than trying to fight his way toward the castle. He started running, hoping to launch them far enough out so that they fell into the ocean.

A throwing dagger caught him in the thigh, and he stumbled.

There was no catching his balance or stopping his momentum. He and Zsadist tumbled over the lip of the cliff and skidded down the rock face until Phury's boot got caught in a crevice. As his body was yanked to a halt, he scrambled to hold on to Zsadist, knowing damn well that the male was out cold and going to drown if he fell into the water unattended.

Zsadist's blood-slick skin slid out of Phury's grip, slipped free
—

He caught his twin's wrist at the last second and squeezed hard. There was a massive jerk as the male's heavy body was stopped, and pain ricocheted up Phury's leg. His vision faded. Came back. Faded again. He could feel Zsadist's body dangling in midair, a perilous sway that challenged his hold unmercifully.

The guards peered over the edge and then measured the gathering light, shielding their eyes. They laughed, sheathed their weapons, and left him and Zsadist for dead.

As the sun gathered on the horizon, Phury's strength quickly drained, and he knew he couldn't hold Zsadist for long. The light was awful, burning, adding to the agony he already felt. And no matter how hard he pulled his leg, his ankle remained trapped.

He fumbled for the pistol, pulling it free of his waistband. With a deep breath, he aimed the muzzle at his leg.

He shot himself below the knee. Twice. The pain was astounding, a fireball in his body, and he dropped the gun. Gritting his teeth, he'd planted his free foot into the cliff and pushed with everything he had in him. He screamed as his leg splintered and came apart.

And then there was the yawning void of empty air.

The ocean had been cold, but it had shocked him into consciousness and sealed up his wound, keeping him from bleeding out. Dizzy, nauseous, desperate, he'd forced his head above the choppy waves, his death grip on Zsadist the only-constant. Dragging his twin into his arms, keeping the male's head above water, Phury swam to shore.

Blessedly, there was a cave entrance not far from where they'd taken the plunge, and he used his last reserve of strength to get the two of them toward the dark mouth. After dragging himself and Zsadist from the water, he was all but blind as he went as far into the cave as he could. A curve in the natural architecture was what saved them, giving them the darkness they needed.

In the back, away from the sun, he sheltered them behind large rocks. Gathering Zsadist into his arms to conserve their body heat, he stared ahead into the blackness, utterly lost.

Phury rubbed his eyes, God, the image of Zsadist chained on that bedding platform…

Ever since the rescue he'd had a repeating nightmare, one that never failed to be a fresh horror each time his subconscious coughed it up. The dream was always the same: Him racing down those hidden stairs and throwing open the door. Zsadist tied down. Catronia in the corner, laughing. As soon as Phury was in the cell, Z would turn his head and his black, lifeless eyes would look up from out of an unscarred face. In a hard voice he would say, "Leave me here. I want to stay… here."

That was Phury's cue to wake up in a cold sweat.

"What's doing, my man?"

Butch's voice was jarring, but welcome. Phury scrubbed his face, then glanced over his shoulder. "Just enjoying the view."

"Lemme give you a tip. That's what you do on a tropical beach, not standing out in this kind of cold. Look, come eat with us, okay? Rhage wants pancakes, so Mary's backed a dump truck full of Bisquick into the kitchen. Fritz is about to levitate, he's so worried about not being able to help."

"Yeah. Good deal." As they headed inside, Phury said, "Can I ask you something?"

"Sure. What do you need?"

Phury paused by the pool table and picked up the eight ball. "When you worked in homicide, you saw a lot of fucked-up people, right? People who'd lost their husbands or their wives… sons or daughters." When Butch nodded, he said, "Did you ever find out what happened to them? I mean, the ones who were left behind. Do you know if they ever got over the shit?"

Butch rubbed his thumb over his eyebrow. "I don't know."

"Yeah, I guess you don't really follow up—"

"But I can tell you I never did."

"You mean the sight of those bodies you worked on stuck with you?"

The human shook his head. "You forgot sisters. Brothers and sisters."

"What?"

"People lose husbands, wives, sons, daughters… and sisters and brothers. I lost a sister when I was twelve. Two boys took her behind the baseball diamond at school and used her and beat her until they killed her. I never got over it."

"Jesus—" Phury stopped, realizing they were not alone.

Zsadist stood bare-chested in the doorway to the room. He was flushed with sweat from his head to his Nikes, like he'd run for miles down in the gym.

As Phury stared at his twin, he felt a familiar sinking sensation. It was always like that, as if Z were some kind of low-pressure zone.

Zsadist's voice was hard. "I want both of you to come with me at nightfall."

"Where to?" Butch asked.

"Bella wants to go to her house, and I'm not taking her there without backup. I need a car in case she wants to take some of her shit with her when she leaves, and I want someone to case the place before we land there. The bennie is that there's an escape tunnel out from the basement if things get rough. I checked through it last night when I went to pick up a few things for her."

"I'm good to go," Butch said.

Zsadist's eyes shifted across the room. "You, too, Phury?"

After a moment, Phury nodded. "Yeah. Me, too."

Chapter Twenty-two

That night, as the moon lifted higher in the sky, O eased up from the ground with a groan. He'd been waiting on the edge of the meadow since the sun went down four hours ago, hoping that someone would show at the farmhouse… only there was nothing. And there hadn't been for the past two days. Well, he thought he'd seen something before dawn this past morning, some kind of shadow moving around inside the place, but whatever it was, he'd caught it just once and then not again.