Page 3 of Captive Mate
Matthew wasn’t quite as big as his brother, but he was more powerful, somehow, even lying there whammied by his brother-in-law. All those years of leading a pack left their mark. And he was a hell of a lot smarter. When I’d first met him, I’d been struck by how shrewd and observant he was — before he went under the influence of a fucking powerful enchantment, anyway. That tended to scramble a few neurons. I’d basically stuck a magical egg beater in his head and taken it to his brain — figuratively speaking. Although I was going to file that idea away for literal use at some point in the future. I knew a few assholes who deserved it. Maybe Ian.
“He’s still your brother,” I replied. That was Ian’s weak spot, I knew it. I had to lean on it, hard. “Do you do whatever the pack council says? Are you just their puppet? Even if they want you to betray your own family?”
“Fuck you,” Ian said, his eyes narrowing. “Don’t try to manipulate me. Like you give a shit about Matt. You’re the one refusing to remove your spell. This is your fault, not mine.”
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. He had half a brain after all.
Nate frowned down at Matthew, biting his lip, deep in thought. Double fuck. Maybe Ian could squeeze an idea out once in a while, but Nate was really the brains of the operation, even if he clearly thought with his little head as much as his big one — see Exhibit A, his mate.
“It may not be all that dramatic, but being cut off from your magic is worse than being beaten, for a warlock,” Nate said slowly. “Probably for a shaman, too? I mean, the only real difference is he’s a werewolf. And in chains like that, he can’t shift, either, which has to suck. Right?” Ian nodded, and for the first time since my capture, a frisson of real fear skittered down my back. “Okay, so no killing, and no torture. We can just leave him locked up here. Toss a loaf of bread and some water down the stairs every day, give him a bucket, someone can come down and empty it every morning. We won’t actually be hurting him. Unless you count having to stare at that abomination of a piece of furniture twenty-four seven.”
Triple, triple fuck. My chains rattled as my hands started to tremor. In my chest, my heart began a sick double-pound. How thefuckdid he know? He couldn’t know. He couldn’t, because no one knew some of the things that’d happened to me when I didn’t have my magic to defend myself. Kimball and his shaman hadn’t known where I’d come from, not exactly, and whatever they’d guessed or discovered had died with them.
Ian smiled — the smile of a predator, which of course he was. Not the smartest predator, but he had instincts, and he’d probably already picked up on the dilation of my pupils. “Okay, works for me. He can go nuts down here all alone until he cracks. Maybe Matt’ll forget about him after a few months.”
“I won’t crack,” I said, and then swallowed hard, basically giving myself the lie. Could they see the sweat breaking out on my forehead in the low light? “Easy peasy. I’d like some time alone, after all these fun little chats.” Fuck. I was an idiot.
No, focus. Focus. I couldn’t do this. I had to make them think it was a bad idea. Torture, maybe they’d reconsider torture.
“He wasn’t bluffing before,” Nate said before I could try another argument. “But now he is. He’ll definitely crack if we leave him down here. And I believe him that Matthew will die if we kill him. So I’d call locking him in the basement a win-win.”
Ian nodded and strode across the room, scooping up Matthew and heaving him over his shoulders with the resigned air of someone who’d done this before. He stayed as far from me as he could, his lip curled with disgust. I wanted to sneer back at him, but I had enough to do trying not to hyperventilate.
With Matthew slung across his back, Ian grunted himself to his feet and headed for the stairs. Nate followed, turning his back on me without even so much as another glance, let alone a word.
Gods, no. They couldn’t justleaveme here like this.
“I could kill myself down here and kill him with me,” I yelled after them, my voice rising to an embarrassingly high pitch. “This is a bad fucking idea. You’ll regret it!”
“I doubt that,” Nate called over his shoulder. “And just so you know, I’ll be the one throwing the water bottles down the stairs. So remember to duck.”
Two sets of footsteps echoed up the stairs, and then the door at the top slammed shut. They’d left the light on, thank every god there was, but I was alone, and it was silent. And I knew it was going to be like that indefinitely.
I closed my eyes and sought my center again. I wasn’t going to crack. Fuck that.I wasn’t going to crack.
Chapter 2
Let Me Out
Cold. Black. The rattle of chains when I shift my position, never relieving the ache in my muscles and bones. I can’t stretch my arms out all the way, and my elbows are starting to seize up. Alone, and I can’t scream. My throat’s too dry.
How long? Can’t remember. Can hardly remember the feel of air, or sunlight, what the stars look like. Trying to count imaginary stars only lasts so long. So cold, so cold. My throat’s so dry I can’t swallow.
My eyes popped open. The contrast between the pitch-blackness of my nightmare and the gloomy blur of the basement made me wince, and I squeezed my eyes shut and sat gasping against the couch, drenched in sweat. Inside myself, I flailed, trying to reach my magic, but it was gone, still gone, out of reach, and I felt so empty and hollow…
Something creaked — the door at the top of the stairs. I’d been straining my ears for — how long? I didn’t know. Searching for any sound at all, and sometimes catching distant voices or the muffled thud of footsteps upstairs. Twice a day the door had opened. In the mornings — maybe, because if I were them I’d be doing it at different times and at irregular intervals, just to fuck with me — someone, maybe Nate, lobbed a large plastic bottle of water and a chunk of bread down the stairs. The first time probably wasn’t Nate, because the asshole’s aim sucked.
In the evenings, one of the goons came lumbering down the stairs and carried the bucket I used for waste into the basement’s attached bathroom to empty it.
If they thought making me use a bucket while a working toilet was only ten feet away was effective torture, they were right. I hated being dirty. Hated it, hated it, hated it, and when I could, I bathed several times a day.
On the fourth day, probably, the bread had been so dusty and dry and my stomach so upset I’d forced it down and then thrown it up again.
The smell was still festering a day later. Maybe a day. Too long, anyway. No one had come yet that morning.
Just as well, because I didn’t think I could keep any more bread down, or even the water. My stomach churned, and my head was swimming. All my limbs felt loose and weak.
I didn’t deserve this. Yes, I’d helped a trio of psychopaths try to kill the Armitages. I’d plotted with Jonathan Hawthorne, possibly the most terrifyingly emotionless bastard I’d ever met, so that he could enslave his own son. (Hawthorne would’ve deserved this.) I’d turned another one of my co-conspirators into a mindless half-undead monster and driven him into battle, where he’d injured I didn’t know how many of the Armitages’ pack and allies.
