Page 125 of Wicked Sexy (Wicked Games 2)
“I set you free,” he says gently, as if by killing everyone I loved, he’d done me a great kindness.
My hands stop shaking and curl to fists. “We’ll have to agree to disagree on that. You know why I’m here.”
“You’re here to kill me,” his disembodied voice replies, matter-of-fact. “Or at least that’s why you think you’re here. But how will you justify it to yourself? You’ll have blood on your hands. Won’t my death make you just like me?”
“I’m nothing like you.”
He sighs. “Your relentless denial bores me. You’re exactly like me, Tabitha. If you’d only embrace your true nature—”
All at once my patience snaps, and I’m shouting. “Open this fucking door!”
“Now, now,” he scolds lightly. “That’s another ten lashes.”
“I’m not afraid of your threats, Søren! I told you nine years ago that eventually I’d finish what I started, no matter how long you tried to hide! You’re a rabid dog who needs to be put down! You could whip me a thousand times and I’d still find a way to kill you!”
That smug, silken laughter again, stoking my rage. “Oh, dear sister. I never said I was talking about whipping you.”
On silent tracks, the steel door slides open. What I see on the other side makes me gasp in shock.
“No,” I whisper, realizing too late what he means.
Thirty-Four
Tabby
The cave the tunnel opens into is vast, the ceiling so high above it’s wreathed in shadow. The walls are bare rock, rough-hewn and craggy, a dark gray color veined with pale mineral dep
osits that glimmer in the dim light. The floor is made of the same rock, polished to a mirror sheen. A long bank of computers sits along the wall to my left. The monitors cast a dim blue glow, which matches the blue glow of the LED strips circumnavigating the room a few feet above the floor. On the opposite side of the room is a sitting area, a modern sofa and three chairs in white leather, a white bearskin rug. Above me to the right is a large, elevated platform with a spiral steel staircase at one end, leading down. The air is warm and still, and smells strongly of sulphur.
Directly in front of me, suspended from a thick woven steel cable attached to a leather collar around her neck, is Juanita.
She’s gagged. Her wrists are bound behind her back. She’s barefoot, dressed only in denim shorts and a T-shirt with the MMA wrestling logo on the front. The cable from which she’s suspended is measured perfectly so that she has to stand on tippy-toe to avoid being strangled by the collar.
When she sees me, she starts to cry uncontrollably. The sound is muffled by the ball gag in her mouth.
I cry out and lunge forward. I’m instantly flanked by four of Søren’s guards, pointing high-powered rifles at my chest. They’d been standing just inside the door.
I jerk to a stop. The guards slowly move in front of me, keeping me in their sights.
Twisting on the cable, her bare toes slipping over the polished floor, Juanita softly sobs.
From above comes Søren’s voice, floating down like gossamer. “Welcome home, Tabitha.”
I look up and see him leaning over the metal railing of the platform, smiling down at me. He’s holding a coiled bullwhip in his right hand.
My pulse thundering, I shout, “Let her go!”
His smile grows wider. Light from behind him haloes his golden head. He’s dressed in perfectly fitted black trousers and a white button-down silk shirt, the cuffs rolled up his forearms, the collar open at his throat. Like mine, his feet are bare.
He moves away from the railing and begins to descend the spiral staircase, his movements graceful and leisurely, one hand trailing along the staircase rail. He’s taller than I remember. More muscular too. His shirt stretches across broad shoulders and the planes of his chest, highlighting a balance of form that would be impressive if only I didn’t know what horrors lurked beneath.
And yet for all Søren’s polished beauty and grace, it pales in comparison to the sheer, rugged, masculine perfection of one Connor Hughes.
Connor. My heart does a somersault inside my chest.
Don’t think about him. Don’t think!
When Søren reaches the bottom of the staircase, he pauses for a moment, looking me over. A mad light shines in the depths of his frozen blue eyes. He opens his fingers so the whip unfurls to the floor in a sinister, slow-motion slither.
