Chapter Six

They might not allow them together a fourth time. Or worse, they could force someone new in with him. Or her. Ky didn’t doubt they’d keep trying until both of them performed as they wanted, whatever that might be. At this point, he was a little unsure they wanted him to play stud. If all they needed was for him to father a next generation, then the humans needed to do far more research on lycan biology. He was damned proud of his people for not revealing everything, like the fact conception could happen only when a female was in heat.

He’d begun to suspect that them being pushed together was some sort of psychological game. Get them attached and then use the other as leverage.

He shouldn’t want her in here tonight. His resolve to keep his distance from her waned. His wasn’t physical desire anymore, although he wanted her. Badly. He still considered her the most beautiful creature he’d ever met. His interest in her had transformed into a mental addiction. To hear her voice, talk to a real person who wasn’t judging him or torturing him, and experience closeness to another had become an obsession.

As the sun set and the full moon started its ascent, something he felt rather than watched, since he’d been provided windowless housing, thoughts about the bleakness of his existence consumed him. This is why he wanted her, needed her. She was the only positive in his world.

He craved the sun too, not realizing how much he’d taken for granted its rays on his skin. The liquid food that tasted of kale and other vegetables now made him physically ill every time he drank. Yet, in order to survive, he forced himself to drink and struggled not to vomit immediately. His body required bloody meat, as in barely seared. He’d dreamed a hundred spice concoctions to flavor every possible kind of meat. Boredom and loneliness percolated into a toxic detritus in his brain that fed paranoia.

He hallucinated demons at night with their red eyes, but intellectually knew they weren’t real. He sensed magical and paranormal energy whenever faced with creatures like demons and felt none in this place other than a few lycans and that one witch way back when he’d first entered. The demon eyes were all in his head.

He kept track of days since the last time he saw Vivi by hatch marks on the floor, not that he could be 100 percent sure after they knocked him out that they hadn’t messed with the marks. Since dawn this morning—well, really, since she’d been ripped away from him weeks ago—he hadn’t thought about anything other than getting a few more minutes with her.

He’d considered all possible angles for their game of keep apart and throw together when the drive for sex raged highest. Perhaps they sought to force him to want her more by holding him hostage with anticipation. Or this wasn’t about him at all, and it was about her in some way.

Maybe they were testing her biology and his, like they were lab rats.

His moments of non-drugged lucidity over the past month were consumed with waiting in the cell. The last time they had him out of the cell and in the room—the one where they strapped him onto a table—they hadn’t physically hurt him but inflicted pain while asking questions, mostly about magic. He’d given the fuckers nothing. It was enough for the humans to know about his kind. They weren’t capable of handling knowledge of magic.

He scratched at his right shoulder. The sensation of something gliding over his shoulder didn’t disappear. He whipped up his sleeve. What the…

An intricate tattoo of an angel in armor kneeling while holding a broadsword in front of him spanned his biceps up to his shoulder. He craned his arm as much as possible to look at it. The angel’s glittering pale eyes seemed to stare at him. Almost judge him. The eyelids blinked.

He gasped.

“I’ve lost my bloody mind.” Ky gripped his head and cradled it in his arms. “It wasn’t blinking. Not possible.”

A quick look for the tattoo again and… It wasn’t there.

“Officially lost it,” he muttered.

Something slid across the skin of his opposite shoulder. He didn’t breathe as he lifted the sleeve.

The ink had moved.

“What are you?” He gulped in air.

It didn’t speak. As if a tattoo could speak. Well, it could move. So why not talk?

This time, he could see its details clearer. It looked like… “Michael?”

It blinked at him and bowed its head.

“How’s this possible?”

“Weg von der Tür!” Move away from the door, an electronic voice boomed in German.

He flinched and dropped his sleeve but didn’t move off the bench. The voice was new in dealing with him. This was the humans’ new tactic, since he’d started rushing whoever entered. He once made it about twenty yards up the hallway before they activated the electronic collar. Sure, he knew he had no chance of escape, but the drive to try hadn’t died.

His collar tingled its warning strike a half setting down from level one—enough to shoot jolts through his shoulders but not enough to knock him down.

Did they see the tattoo? Were they going to try to cut it out of his skin to study it? Better question was why he assumed they hadn’t done something to put it there. Deep in his gut, he understood, it had nothing to do with this place or the humans and everything to do with the angel to whom he’d prayed for decades.

“I won’t let them hurt you,” he whispered. I’m talking to a fucking moving tattoo now.

Locks unclicked, this time electronic and not deadbolts. The assholes got smart about keeping him incarcerated. Lights suddenly at full strength blinded him.

His heart lurched. He shielded his eyes. Someone was shoved inside, but he couldn’t see enough to make out if it was her. All he smelled was the stench of sweaty humans who acted brave with their electronic control of them but reeked of fear.

Let it be her.

The door latched and his eyes acclimated to the dark again. One sniff. Tingling started in his chest and powered outward to energize his nerves. He felt weightless and unable to hold back the smile.

“We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” Vivi said as she took up her post on the opposite side of the room, sliding to a sit on the floor. She gave him a half smile, but the lines of her face signaled exhaustion.

He stood, his vision still adjusting to darkness after the burn of bright lights at her entry. “Take the bench.”

“You stay this time. I’m good over here.”

Once he could see, he drank in the sight of her. Same athletic, skin-tight outfit. Same fit curves. He steeled his heart to suffocate anything vulnerable from surfacing. No attachments.

Yet she was brightness in his never-ending hell.

He was so relieved to see her that his mind emptied of everything else. They were both already half dead with little hope of seeing this beyond another few weeks or months, at least for him. His body grew weaker each day, each hour.

Long minutes later, the silence sat heavy between them.

“Not much to say tonight, huh?” Her voice came out hoarse, but all reasons to have caused it to sound like that—screaming from torture topped the list—made him crazy with need to punch something or kill someone.

“Your mood over there is mercurial today.” She shifted around to get comfortable, released a long sigh, and rested her head back. The move exposed the slender column of her throat and the metal collar circling it. “It’s moot to ask you how you’re doing, I suppose.”

“Why are you hoarse?”

She worked her jaw back and forth once. “I had a cold the past two days. Much better now. I don’t know how humans do it with the stuffy nose and the painful throat for days. Awful business.”

“That’s impossible.” They didn’t get human illnesses.

“Apparently, if you feed us that tasteless swill and keep us housed in the dark while constantly sedating us, our immune systems go to crap. Go figure. A human sniffled and coughed on me the last time I was taken to the…” She swallowed hard and stiffened before finishing softly, “The room.”

Her eyelids drifted closed. “Looks like they need to step up their game to keep you in better shape. My memory is hazy since I last saw you. Pretty sure they did something awful, and I’m not sure I want to remember. I don’t like the shampoo they made you take a bath with. Smells like a cheap air freshener.”

He pulled up the front of his shirt and sniffed. “Smells like the same shit they hosed me down with as a welcoming bath on day one. Maybe while I was knocked out they did it again.”

Ky got up and sat next to her on the floor. Not touching, but near enough that the heat of her teased him. Her body vibrated with energy next to his. Her sweet scent slugged him right in the gut.

He wanted her.

Badly.

She turned, angling herself to stare up at him. Her thick, dark hair hung over one of her shoulders unbound. Her skin, pale and smooth, glowed in the red light from the only bulb allowed on in the room. Everything became hazy.

…

His body sagged as if someone pulled the plug.

“Ky? You okay?”

No answer.

“Ky?” she asked louder. She scooted next to him on the floor and felt for a pulse. Present but faint.

He was out cold.

There had been no twitching like the collar jolted him. He simply passed out.

She swallowed hard as she looked him over. There was blood on his shirt. A lift of fabric wafted a hint of the fake-floral-scented soap but revealed no obvious injury. Still, she hovered her hand above his skin. Somehow, she knew they’d cut into him. On purpose. Maybe they took something out or put something in. An uncontrollable shudder racked through her. Bile burned the back of her throat.

Had they done this to her, too? She massaged her left side, feeling nothing, as was the gift and curse of rapid healing. But intuitively she knew. They had done something there, like him.

Externally he might look healed, but internally he wasn’t rapidly healing like he should. Perhaps due to malnutrition and general abuse.

The inherent magic deep within her stirred. It wanted out. It wanted her to ask it to mend his internal damage that his weakened body wasn’t taking care of. How she knew this, she wasn’t sure. The magic enabled her to know. And he was dying.

He’d never know if she did this. The humans would never know. Using it wouldn’t cause her to glow or anything obvious. Its use would be undetectable by any non-magical person. But it would drain her if she needed to fight today.

“Ky,” she whispered. She shook him gently.

He didn’t stir.

Her moan of despair echoed through the room. “Don’t die. I don’t want to be alone in here.”

Shouldn’t have admitted it out loud. This gave the humans a new weakness to use against her—him—but she didn’t care.

Don’t die. Don’t die.

Mystical energy sizzled inside her. It made her ache to activate it for use on him. The buzzing in her ears intensified. She hadn’t used this power in a long time, since she’d been in here. Years.

“This once,” she whispered. Because no one would know.

She pulled him in to her and wrapped her arms around his cold body. The chant came on instinct in Gaelic. She whispered,

“Wrap thee in light, bind thee with love,

Protection from pain surrounds like a glove.

Brightest of blessings, surrounding thee this night,

For thou art cared for, healing thoughts sent in flight.”

She thought it over and over. Her hands burned with heat, but she pushed on. Only when he breathed easier did she stop. The magic drew energy from her into him. Stupid to give up energy, but she wouldn’t let him die without trying.

Drained, she sat with his head in her lap, her back supported by the wall, and for the first time in ages, everything inside her was at peace. This acceptance of all parts of her equaled tranquility. Acknowledgment of the magic inside her, instead of warring with it, eased the chronic headache and the effort suppression cost. Despite exhaustion, she felt rejuvenated.

“You’re safe,” she whispered and moved hair off his forehead to expose his face. His hair had grown since the last time. He now had a beard, not that it detracted from his beauty. It made him more rugged.

“Thank you,” he rasped out.

Crap…

He wasn’t out?

She froze.

“Talk to me. Your words ease me.” His eyelids drifted shut again. “I don’t know what the humans did to me or why I have this thing on my side. So tired…”

In Gaelic, she said, “My secret is I hate violence. I can’t stand the thought of hurting anything. The blood, the hitting…all of it.” She shuddered. “In this place, though, there’s no choice. Be aggressive or die. I’m more of an adopt-the-orphaned-wild-animal person. Not a tree hugger. Trees aren’t nice beings in general, and we never got along. But a baby squirrel or mouse I’m good with.”

She paused to see if he responded. He seemed to sleep. “My family let us run wild as kids. Didn’t treat us like I heard typical lycan girls were regarded. We ran the moors, fished, and learned how to be one with the elements. My sister was the bold one. She’s the one who understood all otherworldly things quickly. I did what I could to keep up, but I was never as good at the magic. She had all the elements at the snap of her fingers, whereas I had a few things I was good at, like healing and communicating with anything in the woods. Except trees. Again, they’re bitchy to me.” She played with his hair again. He didn’t stir, which made her braver. “Nova was so beautiful, with red hair whereas I got brown. The guys liked her. Of course, not lycans. We never got to meet men of our kind who were our age. Then I did one day. He turned out to be a neighbor, or so it seemed. It wasn’t like I was a kid at that point, but it also wasn’t as if Nova and I had dates or went out on the town or anything. He was interested in me and not my sister. I was flattered, but naive. In retrospect, in comparison to you who…Ky, you are all that and more. That guy who faked being my neighbor in order to get close to me was a total jerk and not half as hot as you. If I’d known lycans like you existed, that guy would’ve never even turned my head.”

She sighed. “I’m babbling. He and I would meet in secret at night. I trusted him. I told him about our family and the elemental magic we could manipulate. He kind of freaked because it’s taboo. Next thing I know, the Council sent its seekers to investigate. My parents used magic to hide Nova and me. My parents were found guilty of using elemental magic and executed. While my sister and I were running from Council hunters, these humans took us, and I ended up in here. I’m going to find out what they did to my sister before I get out. I haven’t seen her since I was brought here.”

At that point, she expected a reaction from him, but he remained unresponsive. Out. She traced one of his eyebrows. “I swore I would never use my abilities again. They’ve done nothing but get me in trouble. I haven’t until today, but I don’t regret it.”

Her eyelids drooped. A few minutes of rest sounded good.

She jerked awake, unsure how long she’d nodded off, but she wasn’t holding him anymore. Vice versa. He cradled her against him. As Vivi stared into Ky’s deep blue eyes, she couldn’t help but feel that her being here in his arms was so right. Never had she felt both safe and respected.

The fact she now accepted him and had started to like him meant she might give in to what the humans wanted sooner rather than later.

Just as she felt herself drifting, a jolt of alarm went through her. Something was off. The sounds outside the room lacked the background hum of humans moving and speaking. A quick scan of the cameras confirmed the lights were on.

“I know you did something to me that has to do with this,” he whispered as he rubbed over the magic mark on her arm. “You shouldn’t have.”

She blinked. Whatever the humans were doing was out of her control. Best to focus on Ky’s words. Too late to be believable, she said, “I didn’t do anything. You’re a super healer.”

A smile kicked up the corner of his mouth. Holy Mother. That smile.

He whispered in Gaelic, “You denied your magic for too long.”

“You heard?”

“I know a lot about magic. Things beyond what you could possibly imagine. It’s a part of how I do my job. My brothers and I hunt magical creatures who threaten people or the world. One thing I picked up is that you can’t ignore its call, not if it’s a part of you. Those who do eventually lose their mind.”

“I’m already losing it.” She moved out of his hold to sit next to him. When she turned, his face was very close. She fixated on his lips that looked soft. Her heart bashed against her ribs as a whirly sensation set up in her stomach. She whispered, “Forget it happened.”

There was a wild flare in his gaze, something beyond his strong will. He placed a palm against her cheek and caressed her.

“My lips are sealed.” He stared, probably doing the same mental gyrations as those going on in her head—of distance and the percentages that he’d go with it if she kissed him.

He leaned in.

Somehow, her heart managed to beat harder. Her skin felt flushed and sweaty.

He pulled away at the last minute to move back and fixate on the opposite wall.

She laughed awkwardly. “Close call.”

“Close call,” he whispered back. “Never forget I’m a monster. It’s truth, Vivi.”

“You’re just you. A survivor among chaos beyond our control.” He had to know she hungered for him.

“Do you want me to kiss you?” he asked hoarsely as he leaned close again. “I’m too weak to resist.”

She nodded.

His fingers slid into her hair. He looked down at her, his face painted in shades of shadows in the dimly lit cell. He stared at her mouth.

At first, it was a touch of his lips to hers. A swipe of his tongue and then another. He probed, seeking something she wanted to give. She opened and took him inside, tasting the richness of him.

God, him.

Her hands climbed to his nape and then his shoulders while she tilted her head to give him the best access possible. She moved astride his lap, straddling his powerful thighs. Before she realized it, her hips had taken up a rhythm of their own.

He cupped one of her breasts, teasing the sensitive bud. She broke away to cry out as she rubbed her center against him. She was lost. No more fighting this.

…

He tried to pry his eyes off her but couldn’t.

As elated as he was to have these moments with her, he felt hollowed out. This might be the last time he saw her. A few more sessions in the room might be his end. Or hers. He wasn’t sure he’d make it another month. His strength slipped a little more each day, along with all hope of escape.

She touched his jaw and searched his eyes. Her eyelids lowered, and with lips closed, she leaned in to press her mouth to his. A small moan came from her that had him harder than he thought possible.

He pulled away. “We’re being manipulated into this and into being dependent on each other. I wonder why, but I won’t force you or us into anything.”

“They’ve taken choice from us, true. They’ve done some whacked shit to control us, yes. But know that I choose this. I cherish you giving me a choice.”

“We don’t know if what’s here between us is real or manufactured by the circumstance.”

“Feelings are built from mutual experiences. No one can erase what’s been done to us in here. No one outside, if we get out, can understand this level of loneliness or the state of constant uncertainty.”

“When we get out. Not if.”

“When.” A shadow of a smile fixed her lips. “You were staring earlier. Admit it.”

Oh, sweet Jesus.

He was in so much trouble. Holding back every alpha, demanding, attentive, and relentless instinct to show her how addictive the two of them touching actually could be had hurt in the past. But now? Now craving turned into obsession.

This was headed somewhere that was a bad idea.

He said, “You were staring, too.”

“Not denying it.” She tipped up to kiss the nape of his neck.

If they got out, they might part ways—no, they would part ways. They had to, but he’d remember her for the rest of his life. She was that special. His body knew it. His heart, which he tried not to consult, wouldn’t be far behind if he wasn’t careful.

“I tried to keep away, Vivi. I tried.” He wet his lips as his hand floated up the back of her neck to dig into her scalp.

The door unlocked and burst open unexpectedly.

He prepared to fight. They deserved all night this time. Maybe not a naked night, but a night of closeness. A night together, something he’d risk death to have.