Trace lay on a giant, narrow slab of cypress. The wood was strong as stone, which was good, because if Trace lost his shit again—which was a distinct possibility—he needed to know the table wouldn’t break.
The chains securing his wrists and ankles, on the other hand . . .? Yeah, those he would be able to snap as easily as chicken bones.
His chest still ached like a motherfucker, but at least he no longer felt like he was on a final countdown to detonation. The agony that had nearly cost him his dearest friends—and their neighborhood—a few minutes ago still simmered inside his soul, but, at least for the moment, they weren’t in immediate danger.
Warm fingers caressed his palm, and he curled his hand around Sam’s. She stood silently at his side, her gaze filled with concern and compassion as Micah busied himself somewhere out of his periphery.
Micah had made him take off his shirt, but he still wore pants. Not that it would have mattered if he’d been naked. Nudity wasn’t something to be ashamed of in this house. Not with all the exhibitionist three-ways he’d had with them.
His mind flashed to Cordray.
The thought of her name alone made the pounding in his chest intensify.
He groaned, and Sam’s hand tightened around his.
Being around Cordray was like being in the presence of an aphrodisiac. Just the sound of her voice was enough to make his pulse quicken. He longed to smell her dark scent. To touch her black, silky hair. To taste her skin the way he’d tasted her lips last night.
He closed his eyes and saw her face. She was a vision. Her body a temple. He wanted to outline every one of her tattoos with his tongue. Ink covered both of her arms, her hands, her neck. Did she have tattoos elsewhere? Did she have them on her stomach? Her hips? Her legs? Her breasts? He wanted to taste them all.
His breathing deepened. His cock stiffened. The ache in his chest ebbed.
Thinking about Cordray was a good thing. Very good. His body liked it. He liked it.
“Open your eyes.” Micah’s strong, commanding voice bit into his fantasy, and his eyelids flashed open.
Only to come face to face with his greatest fear.
Micah waved a flaming baton in front of him, it’s blue flame deceptively serene. Trace knew the damage fire could do. He knew it all too well. Maybe it looked pretty—benign even—but that shit was just smoke and mirrors hiding the danger lurking in the shadows.
His heart hammered.
His body trembled.
Perspiration broke over his chest and stomach.
Micah wore a glove on his left hand and reached to the side to grab a second baton, but this one wasn’t lit. He tucked it between the third and fourth fingers of the same hand holding the flaming baton, angling each away from the other the way an xylophone player holds a pair of mallets in one hand.
“What happened upstairs—the way you reacted to the flambé— gave me an idea.” Micah eyed Trace’s stomach as he smoothed his gloved hand over his skin.
Trace was practically panting now, his exhales coming in abrupt, urgent puffs. “M-master . . . please . . .”
“You’re afraid of fire, aren’t you, Trace?”
He gulped, and his dry tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth, almost making him gag.
“Answer me.” Micah bobbed his head toward Sam, who drew her hand out of Trace’s and took a step back.
“Y-yes, Master.”
As long as the fire was small and contained or he was able to get away, it was all good. But chain him to a table so he had no control and couldn’t flee, and then wave a burning cotton ball in front of him? Forget about it. Even the smallest, most innocuous flame became an inferno. One that made him feel like he was stuck inside a burning building with no way out.
As his agonizing past erupted inside his mind, an almost equally destructive detonation of emotional and sensual overload gripped him. Every sense was heightened. Every nervous response magnified. Things that would have been merely a nuisance a month ago were now either festering sores or cause for cosmic levels of rapture.
Cordray, for example. Less than three weeks ago, she’d been an annoyance. Now she was an addiction. Even now, with terror-inducing flames dancing in front of his face, the thought of her beneath him as he took pleasure from her body rocketed a sense of calm through his blood.
He was a study in extremes. While more fear than he’d ever known threatened to consume him, a pleasant calm more refreshing than anything he’d ever experienced coursed through his blood and maintained balance.
But as Micah brushed the unlit cotton ball over a patch of his bare skin, the scales tipped in favor of fear.
The unlit baton was wet, and it smelled of alcohol. Micah was rubbing alcohol on him. And now he was lowering the flaming ball of cotton toward his skin.
Surely, Micah didn’t intend to light him on fire!
The chains securing his wrists and ankles rattled as he pulled on them, his body straining.
Must get away. Must . . . save . . . myself.
The flame tapped the wet spot on Trace’s stomach, and Trace nearly wet himself as a blood-curdling scream launched out of his throat then went into lockdown as his esophagus constricted. Blue flames danced over his skin like ghostly tendrils. Just as he began to feel the heat, Micah swiped his gloved hand over the patch of skin, extinguishing the flame.
Trace let out a gasp of relief, his muscles briefly relaxing until Micah wiped another patch of skin with the alcohol swab. Before Trace knew what was happening, Micah lit him on fire again.
This time, the scream dislodged from his throat and shredded his vocal chords, his eyes wide with fear as the flames flickered like a fiery Grim Reaper over his abdomen.
But this Reaper was merely a puppet. A marionette controlled by a grand master. It rose to life at Micah’s command, and it perished the same way.
Again, Micah brushed his gloved hand over the flames, putting them out just as the heat reached his skin through the vapor barrier.
Trace braced for the next hit, but Micah hesitated.
“Do you want me to stop?” Micah lifted his chin, his shoulders stiff. The black Under Armour shirt he was wearing stretched over his pecs and revealed the ridges in his abdomen. A sheen of perspiration covered his forehead.
“Y-yes, Master.” He wanted more than anything for him to stop.
“Then open your mind to me. Let me in, and I’ll stop. No more fire. No more fear.”
Fear. The great motivator. And yet Trace couldn’t loosen the hold on his thoughts. He still couldn’t let Micah in. His hopes caved as Micah’s back straightened, and he began rubbing the alcohol-soaked ball over his skin again, this time creating a larger patch to burn.
Panic surged through his blood once more. The lit baton lowered. The moment it contacted the vapor, flames erupted over his chest. He could feel its heat on his face. Could smell its acrid odor.
He abruptly cried out, and then his eyes rolled back as he sucked in his breath, seeing his mother in his mind’s eye. The smell of burning skin filled his nose. The image of her tied to a stake, her skin blackened in patches, sprang to life. Memories flooded him. Painful memories of death and destruction.
He was no longer in Micah’s dungeon. He was a young boy, watching from his hiding place in the bushes as the angry townspeople tied his mother to a cross then dragged her across the yard, shouting and chanting that she was a witch. A demon’s mistress. Satan’s spawn. They held torches and waved them at her, lighting her clothes and hair on fire.
Brak and his father were nowhere to be seen. Already dead? Had these people already killed them? His instincts told him he was in danger. That if they saw him, they would kill him, too.
This was all his fault. He’d hurt those kids by the pond when Mason threw his rock into the water. He had lost control of the power dwelling within him, and he’d hurt them all. Mother had warned him not to use his power in public. She had told him bad things would happen if he did.
And now bad things were happening. And it was all his fault. He’d caused this. His lack of discipline had caused the townspeople to kill his family.
And now he would kill them. He would kill them all!
* * *
Cordray pulled into Micah’s driveway to find one of Asylum’s SUVs parked to the side and the garage door open. Her heart skipped a beat as she realized Trace must have driven here this evening. She must have just missed him.
The urgent feeling that he was in trouble still hummed inside her chest, but if he was here, how could he be in trouble? He was with Micah the wonder stud. If Trace’s power was getting the better of him, Micah should have been able to command it back into submission.
Even so, she couldn’t shake the feeling that Trace was in bad shape. It felt like Trace—no, that couldn’t be right. Cordray shook her head as she dismounted the Ducati, pulled off her helmet, and eyed the home’s exterior as she reached out with her senses. Why would Trace need her? He loathed her. But that’s exactly the message her heart was sending to her brain.
Unable to ignore his magnetic pull, she started up the driveway, glancing inside the SUV as she passed it. Trace’s duffel bag sat on the front passenger seat. She opened the door, grabbed it, then entered the garage.
A black and copper custom chopper sat in the bay closest to the door leading into the house. As she passed, she glanced down at the gas tank. Hand of God was written in bold letters.
Trace sure had a sweet ride. She ran her fingers over the smooth leather seat, catching a thrill at touching something that his ass had been on.
She tried the doorknob on the door leading into the house. It turned.
Strange. Micah wasn’t one to leave his house open like this, especially after what had happened with Apostle back in January. And since they’d learned Apostle was still alive, Micah surely kept his home more secure than this, just in case that asshole decided to finish what he’d failed to do the first time and make another attempt at killing Sam.
She poked her head inside. “Sam? Micah?” The place was much too quiet, and something smelled burned.
She set the duffel down, pushed the button to close the garage door, and then locked up behind her before she ventured into the kitchen.
Salmon shavings and lemon poppy seed waffles still sat on the counter, and something that resembled charred bananas but looked like a molten carcass rested in a skillet on the stove. Micah, Sam, and Trace were nowhere to be found. Looked like whatever had happened here had brought everything to an abrupt halt.
“Hello?” Her hackles went up. Something wasn’t right. She could feel it.
A bloodcurdling shriek rang out from the basement, muted by the closed door to the stairs.
Without thinking, she raced through the kitchen, around the corner, yanked open the door, and took the stairs three at a time to reach the bottom in about two seconds.
Following her instincts, she blasted through an impressive bedroom, which housed an even more impressive bed with a hand-carved headboard, and nearly blew the arched, wooden doors off their hinges as she burst into what had to be the freakiest room she’d ever seen.
Terra-cotta walls held over a dozen gilded mirrors. A medieval, wrought iron bed sat along the far wall. It was covered by a blood-red satin comforter and gold-fringed pillows. All manner of contraptions made of leather and black wood sat around the room. There was even an iron maiden in the corner.
In the center of it all, Trace lay like a mocha-skinned god on a thick slab of dark wood. His skin glistened with sweat, and his wrists and ankles were bound by heavy chains to the four corners of the table. He looked like he was in agony.
“What the fuck are you doing to him?” She rushed forward.
Micah spun around. He was holding a pair of wands in his hand. One was on fire. The other wasn’t. “What are you doing here?” Manic fear shone from Micah’s eyes.
Sam stood over Trace, caressing his face, murmuring to him as if coaxing him. Tears streaked her cheeks.
A jolt of pain shot through Cordray’s heart. “What’s wrong with him?”
On the table, Trace snarled and hissed, pulling on his restraints, making the chains jangle like metallic rattlesnakes.
In an instant, Micah was in front of her. “Can you see inside his mind?”
She frowned. “Answer me first. What’s wrong with him?”
“I don’t have time to play these fucking games with you. Can you see inside his mind or not?”
Her mouth flapped open and shut as she glanced toward Trace. His muscles rippled like magnificent waves under his skin, contracting, swelling, then relaxing in turns.
Needling her way into his thoughts, she gasped at what she saw. “Yes. I can see inside his mind.” She sucked in her breath and covered her mouth with her fingers.
The despair. The roiling anger. The desperate sorrow. It was almost too much to bear.
“What do you see?” he said urgently.
“I . . .”
“Tell me!” He shook her. “I need to know.”
So much of what she saw was one gigantic, jumbled mess. His thoughts raced one into the other, knotting into a frenzy of rage and desperation, but a common theme connected each memory. Because that’s what these were. Memories. Not thoughts. And his mother and her death dominated each one, as well as fury against those who had killed her, including himself.
“He’s angry,” she said. “Furious. He’s seeing his mother’s death, and . . .”
“What?”
“Fire is everywhere.”
Micah snapped to attention and hurried back to Trace’s side. He picked up the two wands he’d been using a moment ago and relit the one he’d extinguished before badgering her.
“What are you doing?” She rushed forward.
“Sam, step back.” Micah applied a layer of alcohol to Trace’s stomach. “Cordray, cut off his pants. I don’t want to catch them on fire. And stay inside his head. I want to know what’s going on in there. Tell me if anything new pops up.”
Everything was happening so fast. Sam shoved a pair of scissors into her hand, and Micah touched the flaming wand to the alcohol on Trace’s stomach.
Blue flames danced to life, making her suck in her breath as Trace’s eyes blasted open, locking on hers.
But he wasn’t seeing her. In his mind, he saw only his mother. He saw nothing of what was happening inside the dungeon. He was aware of Sam and Micah, she could sense that much, and he seemed vaguely aware that someone was inside his mind, but he was too wired to know it was her.
Micah brushed his hands over the flames, extinguishing them.
“Today, Cordray! Get those jeans off him.”
She glanced down at the scissors, then at the cuffs of his jeans, and then at the impressive bulge straining the fabric at his crotch.
A series of rampant memories flung through Trace’s gray matter in rapid-fire succession. Screaming. Taunts. He was racing through the woods, panicking, trying to escape. He was young. Not yet transitioned. Smoke. He smelled smoke. He broke into the clearing. His home. Fire. MOTHER!
Get out of my head, bitch!
Trace flung her from his mind with such force, she stumbled backward several feet and slammed into the wall, gulping to get oxygen past the painful lump in her throat. She’d felt everything the way Trace had that day. All of it. The excruciating sadness, the terror at seeing his home engulfed in flames, his mother being dragged by a rope knotted around her wrists toward a pyre.
“He threw me out,” she said, righting herself, disoriented.
Micah turned his dark, domineering gaze on her. “Goddammit, Cordray, get those jeans off him!”
“I am NOT your submissive, motherfucker! Quit bossing me around! Jesus Christ!”
“Micah . . . stop,” Sam said, still holding Trace’s hand.
But Micah was a male on a mission. “Just do what I tell you, Medusa. This isn’t about you or me right now. If we don’t bring Trace down from whatever seizure or mindfuck he backed into, he’s going over. Do you understand me? Do you feel where I’m going with this?”
Over? As in mutant?
Her knees wobbled. Trace? Mutant? Hell no. Without another word of protest, she sliced through the denim cuff at his ankle and began chewing the scissors up his pant leg. “What the fuck happened here after I left?”
“Shit went critical.” Micah worked at the side table. A smattering of tools sat on a tray, and a towel soaking in a bowl of water sat at his right hand.
She cut through the last inch of denim at his waist then started on the other pant leg.
“He’s terrified of fire, Micah.”
“I know.”
“Then why are you doing this to him? Why are you lighting him on fire when he’s afraid of fire?”
“Because I need to break him.”
“Why do you need to break him?”
“Because he needs to let me inside his mind.” Micah leaned over Trace. “Do you hear me, Trace? You will let me in or we’ll both die trying.” He turned toward her. “Did he hear me?”
Cordray forced her way back into Trace’s head. “Yes, but he’s so far gone I’m not sure it registered that you were the one who said it. He’s not even fully aware that I’m here.”
“Damn you, Trace!” Micah slammed his palm on the table. “Let me in, goddammit!”
Trace’s eyes blinked open. They glowed yellow. Like cat’s eyes. Not good.
“Fuck!” He turned toward her, raking his fingers through his hair. “Are you finished?”
She sliced the scissors through the waist above his other leg. “Yeah. Done.”
“Good. Pull them off.”
She hesitated. The only thing standing between her and Trace’s very erect, very imposing penis was a tenth of a centimeter of denim.
“Uh . . .”
Micah spun and glared at her. “Pull. Them. Off.”
“But . . .” Her mouth could have been one of those cotton balls Micah had dumped on the silver tray beside him. Every drop of saliva had dried up in an instant, and her salivary glands were in no hurry to replace them.
“Jesus, Cordray. It’s a dick. Haven’t you ever seen a stiff dick before?” He rolled his eyes. “Oh, that’s right. It’s you. You’ve probably scared off every poor fucker who ever imagined he had a chance to get with”—he gestured toward her—“that.”
Sam let out an exasperated sigh but didn’t say anything. Probably because she knew it wouldn’t quiet Micah down if she did.
Micah grabbed the denim and flung it away from Trace’s body. “For God’s sake, C, it’s not like he’s going to fuck you.”
The stab of hurt and anger that ripped through her was diminished only by the awe of seeing no less than eight-and-a-half inches of turgid flesh pop to attention from a sparse thatch of dark hair at Trace’s groin.
She had seen a stiff cock before. She’d even had one inside her. Back when she’d been normal. Centuries ago when she’d still been able to feel it . . . enjoy it . . . find pleasure in laying with a male. But what she remembered of Gideon’s cock paled in comparison to the one standing proudly in front of her now.
Not only was Trace longer, but he was thicker, too. The rounded head was smooth and shaded dark pink compared to the shaft, which was the color of cappuccino laced with a shot of espresso.
Her salivary glands sprang back into action, making her mouth water at the thought of swallowing him down her throat. Of climbing on top of him and reminding herself what a stiff cock felt like. And with Trace, she would feel every glorious inch sink inside her, filling her, stretching her.
God, just the thought of fucking Trace was enough to get her wet.
Micah had turned his back on her, quickly finishing whatever preparations he was making.
Then his head snapped up. “What the fuck?” He turned halfway, lifted his nose, and sniffed. A moment later, his dark eyes slid toward hers as he slowly met her gaze over his shoulder. His top lip curled as if he’d gotten a whiff of putrid meat as he sniffed again.
“Fuck me.” The words snapped from his mouth in a way that made her envision a cobra whipping its hooded head up over its coiled body. Silent but deadly.
He’d obviously scented her arousal . . . and didn’t like it.
She squared her shoulders and frowned, chin high. Fuck him. Maybe she’d laid out her cards like a virginal maiden at a Chippendales show, but to hell with showing him she was ashamed. Lots of women got turned on by naked men and stiff cocks. Like any hot-blooded female, she could attend an all-male review and mentally masturbate while watching the men strip and stick their barely concealed dicks in her face without feeling like it meant they had to get married. It was just a performance. It didn’t mean she was emotionally connected to the material.
Except Trace wasn’t performing.
And she did feel an emotional connection to him.
And the longer she was around him, the more she wanted—
Enough!
She didn’t need to be thinking about Trace’s stiff dick or him sticking it in her face . . . or anywhere else, for that matter.
And that cocky cuss Micah certainly didn’t need to know how she really felt. Although Sam had probably already told him.
“Just . . .” Micah waggled his fingers as if he were shooing away a leper. “Just stand over there and get ready.” He turned away, mumbling disgustedly under this breath.
“Get ready for what?” The harder she tried not to stare at Trace’s erection, the more she couldn’t look away.
She wanted to wrap her palm around it. Feel its warmth. It’s hardness. How smooth it was. How virile. How powerful.
She had no reason to think his cock would be any different than the rest of him. He was power. Potent in every way. From the forces he wielded with his hand and his mind, to his magnanimous stature, Trace oozed intensity that beckoned every cell in her body to transform into mush.
He had commanded her desire from the first time she saw him in Bain’s court. Even before that, if she was being honest with herself. Because when she saw him inside the minds of Bain’s guards, coming down the stairs of Io’s basement, matchstick loose between his lips, hand held in front of him like he was a great and almighty god come to bestow favor and punishment on his subjects, she’d been taken by him. His look. His devil-may-care attitude. Everything about Trace had beckoned every part of her.
Which was why she’d been adamant about slamming the door on him right from the start, especially after she realized she could feel him. She didn’t need a male in her life, stirring up trouble, stealing her heart so that she could be hurt again when he flung it back at her like discarded scraps after he was finished with her.
She’d gone down that road once before and found nothing but pain.
Damn her. Damn him. She loved him. She couldn’t deny it. But she didn’t want to love him. She didn’t want to feel such emotion again. Love made females weak. It made them stupid. Made them behave like flighty butterflies tittering higher and higher with nowhere to go but down.
As much as her heart pulled her to take a chance, she refused to fall into that trap again, even if she had to force herself not to.
But that didn’t mean she couldn’t savor the delicious visual of his body. Even a blind woman could appreciate that generous rod of steel.
“Take a picture.”
At the sound of Micah’s voice, she tore her gaze from Trace’s spank bait and met his gaze.
“What?” she said.
“Are you finished eye-fucking my friend, or should I wait? Because you smell like you’re only a few mental thrusts away from creaming yourself.”
“MICAH!” Sam glared at him from the other side of the table.
“Fuck you, Micah.” Cordray scowled and looked away.
Trace laughed. A dark, malevolent, echoing laugh that sounded more like the devil corrupting God’s angels than a vampire getting a good chuckle at her expense.
Micah’s head snapped around. “What’s going on?” His gaze shot back and forth between her and Trace. “What’s happening?”
Cordray scanned his thoughts. “He hears us, but he’s not fully aware it’s us. He’s trapped inside his own personal hell in there.” She frowned at the repeating loop of his thoughts. “And he’s getting worse.” She eyed the wands and small bowl of alcohol on the table. “Whatever you’re going to do, you’d better do it soon, or I’m not sure what’s going to happen.”
Micah grabbed the wet towel out of the bowl, briskly rung it out, and tossed it at her. “Here. Take this.”
Wet towel slapped her in the face as she haphazardly caught it. “What do I do with it?”
“Stand over here. Sam, you’ll need to move, baby.” Micah worked quickly, pointing with one hand and gathering his equipment with the other. “Fuck, but I hope this works or we’re all going to have to say quick good-byes to one another if it doesn’t.”
Sam let go of Trace’s hand and shimmied to the side.
Cordray took up station across the table from Micah. “Now what?”
Micah lit another wand that had been soaking in alcohol. “Get ready.”
“For what?”
“I’m going to try something, and I’ll need you to be ready to cover him with that towel when I say so.”
She nodded, but she wasn’t sure she liked where Micah seemed to be going.
Trace pulled against his chains and strained his head back, clenching his teeth as he let out an angry, strangled cry.
Micah poised the flaming cotton ball over Trace’s face. “Let me in, Trace,” he said loudly. Trace stopped squirming as his eyes flashed open and followed the dot of blue-orange fire Micah waved in front of him like a hypnotist’s watch. “Do you hear me? Open up your mind and allow me inside.”
“He hears you,” Cordray said softly. “But he’s resisting.”
Micah smoothed his free hand over Trace’s sweat-streaked scalp. “No more resistance. I’m done playing, Trace. I told you that you were going to let me in.” Micah spoke to him with deadly assertiveness. “And until you open your mind to me, this is how it’s going to happen.”
Trace rolled his head from side to side, eyes popping out of his sockets, clearly not down with this plan, even if he was only partially aware of his surroundings.
Micah tsked. “It’s too late for that, slave. You had your chance. Now shit gets real.”
Cordray held her breath as Micah drew a line of alcohol from his groin to his sternum.
Trace jerked, tugging on the chains as an alarmed grunt ripped from his throat.
Micah touched the flame to the bottom of the alcohol trail.
A terrified shriek exploded from Trace’s throat as the fire shot up to his chest.
Tensing, Cordray prepared to throw the towel over Trace’s stomach, but Micah chased the flame with his gloved hand, dousing it.
“Do it, Trace! Do it now! Open up to me so I can end this!” Micah slammed his gloved hand onto the table beside Trace’s head, making the chains rattle.
Cordray gasped as a gust blew her hair away from her face. She exchanged glances with Micah.
“He’s close,” she said.
Micah turned urgent eyes toward her. “Close to breaking?”
She nodded then glanced at the fire. “Do it again.”
The torrent of thoughts racing through Trace’s head changed. He was thinking about his mother again, but this time, the thoughts didn’t stop and loop back when he got to the point where she was being dragged toward the pyre. Now she was on the pyre. Screaming as fire overwhelmed her, licked her skin, vaporized her hair.
Cordray nearly dropped to her knees as Trace’s agony and terror consumed her.
“Oh God . . . his mother.” Her voice whispered from between her lips on an agonizing exhale. “They’re burning her. Oh God, they’re burning her! And the house . . . his father . . . his brother. They’re inside. They’re trapped.” She began weeping and flung her forearm over her face, locked not just into Trace’s memories, but his emotions, as well. “Make it stop! Please stop! I don’t want to see this!”
* * *
Micah sucked in his breath. He needed inside Trace’s thoughts before he destroyed not only himself but Cordray.
He grabbed Trace’s chin and yanked his head around, latching onto Trace’s eyes with his own. “Let me in, Trace. Now. I need inside.”
Trace was panting, eyebrows scrunched, a film of perspiration beading on his face. His lips and chin trembled as tight exhales burst from his mouth. He shook his head, yellow eyes pleading.
“Now, Trace. Let me in there. I can help you if you just let me in.”
A shiver raced through Trace’s body.
“They’re coming after him,” Cordray said. She still had her face covered, so her voice came out muffled. “They want to burn him, too. They’re going to set him on fire. Oh, God, no. No! Run, Trace! Run!” She blew out a relieved breath. “He’s running . . . he’s running . . . back into the woods. Blindly running. I can’t see where we’re going. They’re running after him. It’s all his fault. He did this. He killed his mother. It’s all his fault . . . he thinks it’s his fault.”
Damn it, he needed to bring Trace back before he lost him.
“Cordray!” He smacked the table.
She snapped out of her daze and hurtled her pained, tear-filled gaze toward his.
“Help me!”
With a sharp nod, she took a tremulous step closer to the table.
“Hold up the towel. Get ready.”
He was going to try something. Something dangerous. Something that could go very, very wrong. But his intuition told him it was the only thing that would provide the right impetus to unlock that goddamn stronghold Trace had on his mind.
Cordray held the towel in front of her.
“Are you ready?” he said.
She nodded shakily. Obviously, whatever she’d seen inside Trace’s head had fucked her up, too.
“Can you do this, Cordray?”
She stared back at him, eyes wide, mouth open. He’d never seen her so shaken. If not for the seriousness of the situation, he would have laughed.
“I need to hear it! Tell me! Can you do this?”
She nodded, fighting back her emotions. “Y-yes. Yes, I can do this.”
It felt like he was defusing a bomb. One that only had a few seconds left on the timer. If he failed, everything would explode and he’d lose his best friend, his home, Cordray, Sam, himself. His entire existence seemed to hinge on this one critical moment.
And time was running out.
He grabbed the small, folded towel he’d soaked in alcohol and rubbed it as carefully as possible over Trace’s chest and stomach.
“Micah . . . no . . . what are you doing?” Sam gasped and covered her mouth.
“Trust me, baby.” He took a deep breath and raised the flaming baton over Trace’s body.
Trace growled. He sounded more like an animal than a vampire. He was one step away from going mutant. If this didn’t work, Trace was a goner.
And it would be his responsibility to kill him.
He couldn’t let that happen. He couldn’t lose his best friend that way.
He nodded toward Cordray, who nodded back. He could feel her inside his head, so she knew his plan, as well as her part in it.
“Micah . . .” Trace’s deep voice curdled his blood. His eyes blazed. His fangs dripped with venom as he snarled.
Fuck. Maybe it was already too late.
Now!
He pulled the folded towel away and tapped the flaming baton to the alcohol. Fire erupted over Trace’s torso.
A monstrous screech split the air as Trace strained against the chains. Wind whipped through the dungeon. The sound of cracking and snapping wood took Micah’s gaze to the table, but thankfully it held.
Then lightning bolts of Trace’s thoughts fired inside Micah’s mind, intensifying rapidly.
“Not yet!” he shouted at Cordray, who held the wet towel at the ready.
As the wind tossed the pillows from the bed and lifted his floggers from their hooks, more memories, detonating at supersonic speed, launched into Micah’s mind, flying, streaming, discharging like a thousand nuclear bombs in less than a second.
Jesus! This was what Trace had been holding inside him?
“Micah!” Cordray’s terrified eyes collided with his as she lifted the towel. “Now?” Her long hair whipped around her face.
“Not yet . . . hold on . . .”
Trace shrieked again—the sound an agonizing wail of torment—as a lifetime of pain rocketed from Trace’s mind into Micah’s.
“Now!” The fire had burned through the vapor barrier and was hitting Trace’s skin.
Cordray threw the towel over Trace’s body just as the swirling wind blasted into Micah with enough force to pick him up and hurtle him against the far wall. He bounced off, tossed like a ragdoll onto the floor.
“Micah!” Sam raced toward him, dropping to her knees beside him.
He shook out the cobwebs and grinned weakly up at her.
“Are you okay?” She brushed his hair off his face, desperate concern pouring from her gaze.
“Better than okay.” His voice came out as a fractured whisper.
Her slanted brows bunched over her nose.
“I’m in,” he said. Trace’s mind was open. He was inside Trace’s head. “I’m in, baby.”