Caged Page 9

  I plucked a stray strand of red from across her lashes, tucked it behind her ear. “Back in a sec.”

  “S’okay.” She slurred her response as though speaking within a dream she refused to wake from.

  A slight creak arrived with my push off the mattress. The soft pile of the carpet depressed a touch with each step. I lowered my face to peer through the tiny glass window.

  Dark eyes flitted from side to side. My eyebrow lifted at the mess of blonde framing them; the earlier waves had disappeared from the hair of Kyle’s date. Without even knowing the reason why, my pulse increased, and my shoulders tensed.

  I opened the door enough to peek around, rubbing at my eyes in an attempt to clear my sleep vision. “’Sup?”

  “Sorry.” Her hands lifted, and she jigged on the spot like she hadn’t toileted in days. “I didn’t want to wake you.” Her manic whisper matched the twitch of her eyes.

  “Something wrong?”

  “It’s your friend.” Her arms swung wide in a double point toward the room next door. “I think he’s sick.”

  “Sick?” I stared at her like she’d said something absurd. “What do you mean, sick?”

  “Spewing.” Her hands did some weird mime from her mouth as though I wouldn’t otherwise understand the word’s meaning. “He’s asking for you. Said to come tell you he needs you.”

  “Sure.” I went to pull open the door, but recalled my lack of attire and nudged it back to keep me concealed. “Give me a moment to … I’ll be out in a minute.”

  The door gave a quiet click as I closed it. I stood for a few beats.

  Kyle, ill? How?

  My hands brushed over my head as I trotted round the bed to the bucket seat. Stale sweat tugged my nose into a scrunch before I’d even picked up my shirt. I tossed it aside a moment, concentrating on my boxers that smelled no better than my outer garments.

  The scratchy slide of rough denim over my feet arrived loud against the quiet of the room. I tugged my jeans over my hips, reached for my discarded T-shirt, but paused at the rustle of bedding. I looked across at Shelley’s form, smiled at the flop of her body as she rolled to her back. Her arm stretched up and rested over her crown, like she planned on doing a few pirouettes, and lifted her right breast free of the covers.

  My dick stiffened at her nipple pointing toward the ceiling. I rolled my eyes at its timing and drew my T-shirt over my head as I moved nearer.

  “Shel?” Downy hairs covering her cheek leaned toward the trail of my knuckles as I brushed across them.

  “Third drawer on the left,” she garbled in a murmur.

  My chuckle tried to escape, and I captured it just in time. I bent over her, placed a soft kiss where my fingers had been. “Won’t be long.”

  A blown out breath responded, lending vibrations to her lips.

  I padded away before I could laugh.

  The female hadn’t moved when I pulled the door open. A flick of the catch ensured I could get back in, and I stepped out to the corridor.

  “How much did he drink tonight?” I asked.

  Her hands wrung as she walked backward in front of me. “Not much.” She shrugged, peering off as though recollecting and doing a mental calculation. “Three … four …”

  “Glasses?”

  She nodded, and her hair bounced with the movement, along with her breasts enclosed in the same dress she’d worn earlier. “We ordered wine—white.”

  I paused at the door to Kyle’s room. “He eat anything that could have been off?”

  Her dark eyes showed another round of concentration. “He had steak. Maybe that did it?” She lifted and dropped her shoulders again. “I don’t know.”

  “Okay, no worries. I’ll find out from him.”

  The handle let out a tiny squeak when I tugged it down. An inhalation on entering identified Kyle’s scent. I held the door open until the female stepped in behind me and moved farther into the room, fast realising something about the interior bothered the crap out of me.

  It could have been that no chair sat at the desk like in my room next door, or the empty bed with only slight creasing to the covers. Or it could have been the lack of sexual odour that should have been present after a round of fornication.

  I rubbed at the static tug to the hairs across the back of my neck. “Kyle in the bathroom?”

  At the swish and click of the door, I half-turned back to her, stalling at a stab of pain to my thigh.

  I peered down until my gaze fell on what looked like a dart hanging out of my flesh.

  Brow creased, I wrapped my fingers around it, yanked it free, and stared hard at it before looking back to the female.

  She hadn’t moved from the door, but she no longer stood alone.

  I recognised the male beside her. He’d barged my shoulder on Witchurch High Street, and the sight of him curled my lip as much as it had then—until my eyes fell on the gun in his hand.

  “Whan …” I rolled my tongue at the unformed word.

  Even the rumble in my chest that should have evolved into a growl seemed out of my reach as grey seeped into the edges of my vision.

  I took a step forward, staggering a little to the left when my foot met back with the carpet.

  All uncertainty, all nervous energy, had disappeared from the blonde. Only a smile affected her features as she stood across the room.

  “Wh …” My femoral artery seemed to expand, pressurising my thigh muscles from the inside until they no longer had the strength to hold me up. My right knee hit the floor, followed by my left. “Koyer …” I let out a weak growl at my affected speech.

  The female smirked up toward the male.

  Everything within the room wavered for a second, almost spiralled beyond recognition, before I refocused and caught the female’s approach.

  I willed my vocal chords to work. I needed to know what they’d done with Kyle. My chest heaved beneath the effort to stay alert as heavy darkness invaded my mind and attempted to consume me. An uncontrollable elasticity softened the muscles of my torso until deep numbness set in; the sensation crept higher, spread into my shoulders, like the growth of a vine on fast forward.

  “You don’t need to worry, Ethan,” she said.

  The high-pitched tone stroked at my brain. Deciphering the words almost stole my consciousness.

  “Your friend hasn’t been harmed …”

  Through vision narrowed to pinpricks, I glared up at the female, watching her with great difficulty as she dropped to my level.

  She smiled. “… yet.”

  “You …” My lips barely formed the word as they moved with the consistency of silly putty. “Are …” I blinked back the shadows infecting my eyes. “Dead …” The image of her face slanted off-kilter. “Bitch!”

  My breaths spurted from me as I watched her irises bleed blackness into white. When her fangs shot down as though hammered through her gums, the pound of my pulse echoed in my head.

  “You’re too late.” She let out a tinkle of laughter that hit my hearing like deranged chimes. “I’m already dead, wolf.”

  Thoughts whirled through my mind: Kyle, and where they’d taken him, or if he was okay, Shelley, alone in the next room and stupidly the idea she’d be mad as all get out when she woke to find me gone, Dad, and how the hell he’d react once he found out we weren’t where we should have been.

  As the realisation sank in—I’d be under any second, and nobody could help Kyle because I wouldn’t even be able to help myself—a surge of adrenaline pulsed into my veins.

  With a quiet roar of pathetic proportions, I kicked back with my useless feet, and thrust my wasted body forward.

  13

  I roused to a dense thudding inside my skull, becoming aware within seconds of the dull ache in my right thigh.<
br />
  At a twitch of my fingers, and a flex of my toes, the rapid pace of my shallow pulse slowed—until I inhaled, and more scents than my brain could distinguish flooded my senses.

  Werewolves. Humans—yet … not. Other races I couldn’t identify. Cat? Vomit. Urine. Faeces. Mildew. Copper—blood, I guess. Rotting flesh. Semen? Filth and grease.

  I slammed the shutters down on my olfactory system and switched to breathing through my mouth, although the surrounding vileness still forced its way through.

  The lift of my lids offered no relief either. I’d no idea what I expected, but something other than the dark stone above me would have been preferable.

  I stared at it.

  Maybe I hoped my vision would clear, and with that, the view would change.

  It didn’t.

  The dark ceiling continued to loom, as did the shadows that seemed to press in on me with the hunger of vengeance.

  Without moving, I took a moment to listen past the thrum of my mind.

  Too many heartbeats bounced at me—too many breaths. Along with whispers, groans, murmurs, sobbing, a snarl, rattling, the quiet pad of pacing, brushing, drip-drip-dripping like a leakage of liquid.

  “Pssst.”

  My muscles tensed. After a split-second to deduce the direction of the sound, I rolled my head. Looking to the left produced splinter-like stabs to my eyes. Thick iron bars appeared in the gloom as I focused. Between those bars, a girl’s face appeared.

  “You’re awake.” From her kneeling position, her hand lifted in a wave. “Thought you’d be out for hours yet …”

  My body didn’t want to obey my command to move when I tried to shift to my side.

  “… they usually are …” The girl’s shoulders twitched up and down.

  Another attempt to turn flopped me round to face her. My head hit the ground with a hollow thunk, and my groan arrived as loud as a siren to my ears.

  “… but you woke up, like, mega quick.”

  Her fingers wrapped around the bars that separated us. White blonde hair hung in matted strands on either side of her narrow face. Amongst the tails that fringed her forehead, huge pale green eyes stared out.

  I tried bringing a hand to my face, but a gravitational-like force prevented it moving in the direction I wished it to go. When I finally succeeded, a small grunt burst from me, and I realised I’d held my breath through the process.

  A tentative finger tour of my face revealed no further damage than what I’d already incurred. I went higher, checking over my head. The same injuries as before remained there, yet my skull continued its heavy metal drum solo.

  “You sure you wanna do that?”

  The drop of my hand brought the girl back into view. Her eyes looked bigger than ever as she pressed her face between the bars as if she could squeeze through if she only tried hard enough.

  Maybe she could. What did I know?

  “Do what?” A cough spurted out with my croaked words.

  “Move.” She shifted from the bars for a moment. Dust blew into the air like fireflies behind her shuffling body and clouded around her when she turned back. “I only have a little.” Her hand thrust through the bars, a clear liquid sloshing inside the bottle she held, and my rusty inner cheeks contracted at the potential reprieve. “Take it,” she whispered. “I don’t mind sharing.”

  “Hey, little girl.” The voice came from somewhere behind her and hit my ears like nails down a chalkboard.

  The girl stiffened. Her gaze locked onto mine and held only dread.

  “Share with me,” the voice hissed.

  I urged onto my front with a roll, tucking my arms and knees beneath me. A few grunts scratched my throat, a suppressed growl of frustration grated with the consistency of sandpaper. I finally made it onto my hands and knees, my limbs holding as much strength as those of a newborn giraffe.

  When I turned back to the girl, I lifted so I could see beyond her. There, pressed against more bars on the far side of her space, a skinny male stretched an arm toward her, his black eyes swirling.

  Vampire. My lips vibrated—I’d about had my fill of the damn race.

  “You should have stayed down,” the girl whispered.

  I gave my attention back to her. An ache throbbed through my temples.

  “It’s safer to play dead.” She dropped the water bottle, retracting her hand to her own side. “They don’t come for you so soon.”

  “Who?”

  Her eyes rose toward the ceiling. “Them. The ones who brought us here.” She shrugged. “I think, anyway.”

  I made the mistake of inhaling, and a barrage of animal scents bombarded my sinuses.

  “Only time they take me out my cage is for the bathroom,” she said.

  My nostrils twitched at odours that seemed to get sucked up from right beneath me. I had smelled cat earlier, but the array of feline odours stretched beyond one breed, as well as a canine stench that hadn’t only come from wolf.

  My lids slammed shut. Roiling started in my stomach, churning like a cement mixer, and a retch rocketed up through my throat until I dry heaved.

  “You okay?” The girl continued to whisper, like no one else would hear if she only kept it low enough.

  She had no chance at remaining undetected—at a guess, I’d have said the space held a host of supernatural abilities, and enhanced hearing had to be one of them.

  I gave as much of a nod as I could, caught sight of the water she’d left, and decided the time had come to brave the three foot journey to get it.

  One hand lifted, and I plopped it back down with the grace of a dinosaur, before raising the other to take its turn. The denim of my jeans snagged against the concrete floor beneath me as I nudged my right knee across. My breaths arrived deep, carrying a constant rumble with each movement, until a final one gasped from me upon reaching the prize.

  Teeth came in handy as a bottle opener, and I made the final twist, unscrewing the cap and spitting it to the ground. The first glug battered my throat. A retaliatory cough sputtered it back out, and the girl dove aside.

  I regained my composure with a few throat clearances and tried on a smile that in no way passed for one. “Sorry.”

  She sat back up. “Sure.”

  Up close, what had appeared to be a girl seemed more like a young woman—one not much bigger than Shelley.

  My jaw tightened at the thought of her still in the hotel, followed by the clenching of my chest when I realised I didn’t know that she had been left behind.

  Restraining my panic took immense effort. “So …” Whilst my voice remained controlled, my head screamed on the inside. “… you have a name?”

  Her lips curved a little. “Lauren.”

  I sipped at the water and made another attempt to smile. “Can I ask you something, Lauren?”

  Her eyes blanked, and her lips clammed.

  Like that’d stop me. “Were you awake when they brought me in?” I coughed off the remaining hoarseness in my throat, keeping my gaze steady on hers.

  She gave a small nod, but her lips didn’t loosen.

  “Did they …” I winced against the words and potential answer before I’d even formed the question. “Did they bring anyone else in with me? Or was I—”

  “Just one other.” She glanced to her right. “Another man.”

  My pulse dropped down to third gear in its rhythm. “He have red hair?”

  Her shoulders lifted. “Dunno. I can’t see in the dark.”

  “What about a female?” I tried to keep the intense dread that thrummed through my veins out of my expression. “A woman?”

  “No. Just you two.” She turned back. “Why?”

  I released my long-held breath, took another sip of water. “Did you see where they put the other … um,
man?”

  She jerked her chin to her right again. “Two cages down on the other side.”

  “Can you show me?” Croakiness crept back in. I cleared it with a sharp bark. “Point it out?”

  She gave a small nod to her right. “You’re gonna need to crawl that way …” Her eyes tracked the lift of my hand, and her shoulders gave a small jolt as I wrapped my fingers around bars close to her left arm.

  “I’m done crawling.” Every muscle in my upper arm and shoulder yelled at me to quit before I’d even gotten my feet firmly planted and passed some of the strain to my calves and thighs. With a little hauling and shoving, and a whole lot of grunting, I found myself upright.

  My breaths panted from the exertion the manoeuvre inflicted. Forehead pressed against the bars, I closed my eyes as I steadied my body from the whir of my pulse.

  “Oh, please let them put me up against you.” The high male voice held only derision.

  My lids lifted to the vampire. About an eight foot gap separated us—in the form of Lauren’s cage.

  His lips pulled back, fangs slid out, and a high peel of laughter rolled over me. “You’re so big; I’ll bet you’re full of juicy goodness.” A line of phlegm trailed over his lips and marched across his chin—a procession of spit.

  At a guess, I’d have said he hadn’t fed in a while, but that brought him no sympathy from me. Gripping the bars harder, my lips pulled back to release the snarl his nearness induced.

  “Oh, fudge.” Lauren stumbled to her feet. Her palms lifted, to me more than the vampire. “No, no …”

  All amusement vanished from his face. Only a cold hardness confronted me in its place. “I shall look forward to bleeding you dry.”

  At the threat, and his tone, a small spasm tugged at my shoulder muscles.

  “Ignore him.” Lauren’s voice came out a hiss.

  The prickle at the base of my skull warned me I’d yet to regain full control.

  “Please … don’t wind him up.” Lauren’s words carried a tone of desperation.

  I forced myself to focus on the young female.

  “It’s not worth it,” she murmured. “He’s not worth it. Let me show you where they’ve put your friend.”