chapter Twenty
Twenty minutes later, I pulled off the high-way and onto the service road, following the GPS to the address I’d been given.
I had no plan. My mind was racing at a million different angles, and the best I could come up with was Free Giselle and Sara; escape by any means necessary. In other words, I was doomed.
I pulled up to a familiar driveway, my eyes widening at the sight of the iron gates with JTC emblazoned across it. No f*cking way. What was Arabella doing at Jason’s house? I remembered the maid’s fright and the way he’d sniffed the bloody handkerchief, and I swallowed hard.
I pulled up to the speaker box, pressing my finger on the call button.
“Who is it?” Arabella’s sweet voice came through the speaker.
Who the hell did she think it would be? “It’s me. I’m here, and I’m alone.”
A buzz sounded and the gate began to swing open. “If you’re not alone, I’m going to disembowel Sara,” she warned.
My finger stabbed at the button, my mouth watering as if I was going to throw up. “Don’t hurt her,” I yelled in. “I’m alone. I swear.”
No response. I drove up the long, winding driveway.
No one came to the door to greet me. I hesitated before ringing the doorbell, and headed to the side of the massive house, trying to look into the windows and see what I was up against.
Most of the windows were closed, the heavy curtains drawn over the panes. There was a window at the back of the house, though, and it revealed an empty, white-tiled kitchen bigger than my first apartment. A sunny, cheerful yellow split door nearby led into the kitchen. I placed my hand on the doorknob. What if there was an alarm? Well, Arabella was expecting me anyway. I turned the knob.
No alarm. Good.
My heart hammering, I tiptoed into the house. Around me was a blanket of silence, uncomfortable and oppressing. My shoes sounded heavily on the floor. I crossed the kitchen quickly, spotted a knife in a butcher block, and grabbed it. No sense charging in without a weapon. Clutching it tight in my hand, I turned down the hall.
Somewhere in this maze of a house, Arabella was waiting for me. To kick my ass or eat me, I had no idea which. I slid forward along the wall, and I suddenly understood why they did that in movies. If you had your back to something, you felt less vulnerable. If I could have pressed both my front and my back to the wall, I would have done it.
The stairwell loomed up ahead, and I walked toward it. Quietly.
A whiff of Arabella’s heavy perfume, powdery with a rancid undertone, caught my nose. At the smell a few things clicked in my brain. Whenever we’d been at a scene where the Wendigo had been present, the smell of rot and decay had been present. Inside my house, the putrid stench had been chokingly strong.
That was why Arabella had been able to hide her true nature for so long—she’d nearly choked us with her perfume, disguising the awful smell of death that accompanied her stolen powers. Jason wore an equal amount of cologne. And now I realized why Arabella was hiding at Jason’s house.
They were working together.
My eyes watered and I crouched low, eyeing my surroundings. No sign of her. Maybe the smell was everywhere inside.
The house felt eerily deserted. I glanced at a nearby clock—I still had a few minutes before my deadline. With a final glance around me, I proceeded silently up the stairs. If I had been a vicious Wendigo looking to get revenge on my ex-boyfriend, I’d have hidden my prisoners on the highest floor, in the most inaccessible room.
The second floor was more open than the first, which made me nervous. I stuck close to one side of the hallway, pausing only to quickly pass a red and white bathroom.
Then I paused again. And turned back.
The bathroom wasn’t decorated in red.
Blood covered the floor, splattered across the ceramic bowl of the toilet, across the edge of the columned sink. The edge of the fabric shower curtain was soaked in it.
A hand dangled out of the bathtub, long red nails perfectly manicured.
I knew whose hand that was.
Giselle’s.
Where was Sara? Was she still alive?
Jason’s voice rang out from down the hall. “ ’Sheba, I see you’ve arrived.”
Gripping the knife tighter, I followed the sound of his voice.
I found him two rooms down, reclining on a pool table. His hair was a mess and his neat, expensive clothes were ripped at the shoulders and seams. He grinned at the sight of me. “You’re here. Welcome!”
I froze, fear pounding through my blood. “Where’s Sara?”
“I haven’t seen her,” he said, his grin widening. I could smell his thick cologne from where I stood several feet away.
A very, very bad feeling crept over me and I turned back to the door.
Arabella stood there, reeking of floral, powdery perfume and rot. A bit of red tinged her mouth, and as I watched, she delicately wiped at the corners. “Oh, is Sara not here?” she said in a dulcet voice. “Shit. I guess we lied. That makes me a bad, bad girl, doesn’t it?’ ”
I took a step backward, reaching for the wall. Back against the wall. Back against the wall. My palms began to sweat, and I adjusted my grip on the knife, “Sara’s not here?”
Arabella grinned at Jason. “What a moron.”
Sara wasn’t here? Relief flooded through me. My sister was safe, then.
Arabella went over to the table and caressed Jason’s jaw. “JT’s plan was brilliant.”
My gaze grew horrified as a few more things clicked into place. Beau’s story about his childhood friend, then enemy. The absolute terror of his servants. The big honking JTC on the main gate.
I was a moron. “Jason … you’re JT?”
His smile seemed entirely too toothy. “I was wondering how long it would take for you to catch on. I really had you going.”
“You sure did,” I agreed, moving along the wall until I bumped into the corner, and huddled there. The smell of both of them was overpowering, and coupled with my frantic mind, I thought it might make me faint.
With a possessive look on her face, Arabella watched JT slide off the table.
“So,” JT said as he sidled toward me.
Cornered, I brandished the knife and glared at him. “I suppose this is the part where I’m supposed to ask you what you plan to do with me.”
He took another step forward and I swung, but he was unnaturally strong and fast. He knocked the knife out of my arm so hard that I thought my wrist would snap from the impact, then he shoved me against the wall. The plaster gave a little behind me, and the wind was knocked out of me from the force of his blow.
I struggled for breath, trying to gasp it in. When it finally returned, I sucked in huge, noxious lungfuls of Jason’s scent and gagged.
He planted his mouth on mine, forcing his tongue into my mouth. I gagged at the taste of carrion and tried to shove him away, but it was like shoving against brick itself. I pounded on his shoulders, waiting for him to be done with me.
Arabella cleared her throat, sounding annoyed. “Jason.”
He pulled away from me and chucked me on the chin, looking amused. “You, my dear, even taste immune.”
“Immune?” I stared up at him.
He grinned. “Yes. My Arabella isn’t fond of the physical changes of being a Wendigo. Legend says that to transform back, you have to drink the blood of an immune. And I wondered where would we ever find such a creature?”
I swallowed hard.
“Then … I started stalking a little female who’d gone out with my enemy. She was sweet and pretty, but human. And because Beau wanted her, she was going to have to die,” he said, gazing at me in a possessive fashion. “At least eventually, after I’d had my fun. Humans are so easy. Easy to stalk. Easy to frighten. Easy to follow and scare.”
All the times I’d been sure that something had been wrong in my house. I couldn’t put my finger on it. The dead blondes who looked like me. The occasions when Jason had shown up out of nowhere to woo me. How long had he been playing with me like a cat with its prey?
“Then I found out from Giselle that my little human had a werewolf for a sister. And I thought that was odd, because her older sister didn’t smell like a wolf at all. Isn’t that fascinating?”
I looked over at Arabella, whose eyes were glittering as she focused on me.
“Arabella said your blood smelled pure to her, so I checked for myself. And sure enough,” he said, digging one claw under my chin until blood welled. His nostrils flared and a leer flitted over his face. “You smell nice and clean.”
I jerked my knee up, trying to catch him in the groin.
His hand grabbed my knee before I could make contact, his movements whipcord-fast. “Nice try.”
“So you brought me here because you want to eat me? Is that it?” I said bravely.
“Actually,” Jason said, “we brought you here because you’re Beau’s mate. First we’re going to lure him here and kill him. That’s for me. Then my darling Arabella gets to eat you. Something for both of us.”