chapter Twenty-one
True to their plan, they didn’t eat me right away.
They tied me to a chair. At first they’d tied me spread-eagle on the pool table, but when Jason had eyed me with a little too much interest as he’d fixed my bonds, Arabella had insisted on a chair instead.
And so we sat, and waited.
It seemed that Arabella was a different sort of Wendigo from Jason—less powerful and more drawn to the blood, though his reek was as strong as hers. Every so often, Arabella would shudder and convulse, and disappear for another round of eating Giselle. I guessed that she needed the flesh more often.
No wonder she wanted to change back.
During one of these interludes, I decided to work on Jason. I twisted my hands behind the chair, trying to loosen my bonds. They weren’t that tight, and I didn’t suppose it really mattered—they’d be on me within seconds and I’d be unable to escape. Still, it made me feel better to work them.
“Why are you doing all this?” I asked.
Jason looked up from his BlackBerry in surprise. “That’s a rather asinine question.”
“I’m an asinine human,” I shot back. “Humor me. I thought Wendigos were supposed to be strong and invincible.”
He pocketed his phone and moved across the room toward me. “There is no greater power in the world than that of a Wendigo. I have the strength of those that I have devoured.”
“So why eat me and change back?”
“My mate is not happy with her transformation. This is for her.”
I squirmed a little. “Okay, I get that. But why drag Beau into this? What has he done to you?”
He squatted near my chair. “Why am I after Beau?” Jason seemed to be amused by my concern. “Are you truly that worried about him?”
I shrugged. “Just curious. He was only using me for his heat.”
“I’m not so sure about that.” Jason reached forward and began to pull my T-shirt out of the waistband of my jeans. “At any rate, I’m sure we’ll find out shortly.”
I jerked as he tugged at my clothing. “What are you doing?”
He sliced my T-shirt open with his claws, jerking it apart and dragging it across my shoulders so it exposed my pale torso and my bra. “Making sure our kitty cat takes the bait, my sweet.” He picked up a roll of masking tape from a table and pulled off a piece. Then he crammed a sock into my mouth and slapped the tape over it, muffling me and making me gag. My heart hammered in my throat, my eyes went wide. What was he planning on doing?
Jason slid around the chair and wrapped his arm around the back of it, curling it around to rest on my breast. I yelled against the sock, shoving my tongue against it to try and loosen the gag.
He held up his phone and snuggled up to me, grinning at its camera. “Smile for your boyfriend,” he said and pinched my nipple.
I snarled as I heard the click of the camera.
To my relief, he got up and wandered across the room. His thumbs flew across the keypad as he typed in a text message, whistling to himself. Jason clicked one final button, then glanced over at me, the toothy smile revealing itself again. “All done. We’ll see if that brings your boyfriend out to play.”
I gave him a mutinous glare.
Jason just smiled, moving back toward me again, and chuckled when I shied away. He pulled my hair free of the ponytail and arranged it over my shoulders, looking at me thoughtfully. “It’s a shame you’re human,” he said, trailing a finger over my bra again. “But if Beau can look past it …”
My breathing stopped in fear.
But he simply smiled at me, stood up, and left the room.
Hot tears of fright threatened, and I gave in for a few seconds before nearly choking on the gag. I forced myself to recompose, and thought hard, my mind frantic.
How could Beau possibly take down two super-fast, superstrong shifters?
How could I?
“Well, well,” a voice cooed near my ear. “It looks like the cavalry has arrived.”
I looked up, half-conscious, from where I was slumped in my bonds. Arabella loomed over me, and I blinked at her.
She slapped me across the face so hard that lights danced in front of my eyes. “Wakey wakey.”
Bitch. I groaned, “F*ck you” around the sock.
She put her hands on her knees and stuck her face in mine, eyeing me with entirely too much interest. Her fetid breath fanned my face. “You are just full of surprises, aren’t you?” She reached out and poked the end of my nose.
Alarmed by her too-chummy attitude, I looked around for Jason. But it was just me and the crazy girlfriend. Lucky day.
Arabella sliced my bonds from the chair and grabbed me by the arms. Her grip was so tight that I thought she was going to break my arms, and tears of pain streamed from my eyes. My nostrils flaring as I sucked in a frightened breath, I struggled against her grip, but it was useless. Despite my terrified jerking, she dragged me over to the window.
Was she going to throw me out of it?
She flung open the curtain and shoved my face against the glass. “Take a look, sweet-cheeks. Take a good look.”
It was a little hard to look with my face plastered to the window, but I quickly scanned the wintry lawn, looking for anything out of the ordinary. Bare trees. Large patches of muddy lawn, and …
I gasped and nearly gagged on the sock. It took me a moment to recover before I could look again and make sure I wasn’t mad.
Beau stood down there in cat form, his large body visible near the tree line. He was beautiful—long, swishing tail and buff feline form. There was nothing to distinguish him from any other cougar, but I knew it was Beau. He’d come for me.
Oh God, he was going to get killed.
More shadows melted out of the trees, and with them, more animals. A giant brown bear appeared at Beau’s side. Ramsey.
More shadows—more cougars, who stood a few feet behind Beau, unequivocally stating that he was their leader.
Beau began to walk forward and then it was like Noah’s ark threw up on the lawn. Animals of every shape and size, predators of every imagining, began to appear on Jason’s front lawn. A giant Siberian tiger prowled next to Beau, at his other side, a lion. An eagle circled in the sky, swooping low around them. I counted dozens, then I gave up when they continued pouring out of the trees. I could even pick out Sara’s small wolf form.
They were showing their allegiance to him. Supporting him in his bid to get me back.
It was beautiful.
It was very, very bad.
Arabella grabbed the back of my head, her hand snarling in my messy, loose hair. “You must have a magic snatch for him to bring out the cavalry like this.” She grabbed between my legs in a painful clench: I snapped my thighs shut, trying to shove her away. She laughed, but there was a desperate edge to it.
I shoved at her and bolted, but she grabbed me by my hair and threw me to the floor, knocking the wind from me. “Dumb bitch.”
I flexed my hands, gasping for breath to return. The pool table was enticingly near and I crawled under it, then worked on pulling the tape off my mouth.
A pair of new shoes appeared on the other side of the pool table. “Arabella,” Jason said warningly. “Have you seen the front lawn?”
“I have,” she said, sounding a little defensive. Was she scared of Jason, too?
“Didn’t I tell you quite specifically that he was to come here alone if he wanted to see her alive again?”
“That’s what I told him,” she said, her voice rising. “Since he’s not listening to you, he must want her dead.” A hard, raspy edge entered her voice. “Let’s just eat her, already.”
I stilled, not daring to breathe.
“Not yet. He wants her. I know he does,” Jason said, furious. I watched as his feet thunked across the floor and over to the window. “He filed for a mate visa yesterday. He’s trying to get her permanent status in the Alliance.”
A mate visa? Beau wanted to marry me?
“He what?” Arabella sounded furious. “He can’t possibly mean to mate a human; he’ll be laughed out of the Alliance.”
“Then why is my lawn filled with a display of force?” His voice was becoming rougher with anger. It was frightening to hear. “He needs to come up here, alone.”
Alone? No—they’d kill him.
Jason looked under the pool table and grinned at the sight of me. I stared at him, muffling my defiance and hoping he didn’t notice that I was missing the tape across my mouth. I’d spit out the sock and clutched it in my hand.
He grabbed me by my ankle and dragged me across the carpet like he would a rag doll. He stroked my hair and admired me like one might a fragile possession. “Arabella’s not hurting you, is she?”
I looked over at Arabella, who was glaring at me with hate.
“Good,” he said, taking my silence for obedience. His hand continued to stroke my hair in that odd, possessive way. “If he intends to have a siege, we’ll give him one.” Jason smiled coldly. “But I have to wonder how long it will last when he hears your screams when I’m f*cking you.” He gazed down at me, almost tenderly. “Do you think that would bother him?”
Yes, I thought and tried to shove him away.
He batted my hands away as if they’d been nothing, grinning.
“It would bother me,” Arabella snarled and shoved between us. Her force knocked me against the nearby wall, and my head cracked against a painting. “You said I could eat her! Not that you would f*ck her.”
Jason gave her an amused look. “My dear, I have no interest in a human.” He took her hand and began to kiss her wrist, then delicately up her arm. She watched him with intense, crazily possessive eyes. “But think of how much it will bother him. First I steal you away from him, then he finds that I’m f*cking his little pet human.”
“But I don’t want you touching her,” she whined.
Jason stared at Arabella, his mouth thinning as if he was finding her needy side very annoying. After a moment, he sighed. “All right, my pet. I won’t touch her. She’s all yours—”
Arabella’s smile was brilliant.
I swallowed hard.
“—as soon as we’ve killed Beau,” Jason finished.
“But—” Arabella began.
“I have to go to the bathroom,” I blurted.
Both of them turned to stare at me in annoyance.
“Sorry,” I said in a small voice, trying to sound pathetic. “I can’t hold it much longer.”
It was the oldest ploy in the world. Please let them fall for it.
To my vast surprise, Jason acquiesced. “Take her to the bathroom, and we’ll finish where we left off.”
Oh, boy.
Arabella gave me an impatient look and grabbed my arm. “Come on.”
She dragged me toward the bathroom. Giselle’s bathroom. Bile rose in my throat and I clutched a hand to my mouth. “Not that one,” I said between pressed fingers. “Please.”
She looked at me in disgust and wavered for a moment. I knew what she was thinking. Give in to my stupid demand, or push me into the bloody butcher shop and risk Jason’s wrath if I freaked out?
“Come on,” she said gruffly and dragged me across the hall and down the stairs, back to the first floor.
Thank God for that small miracle. I allowed her to drag me through the house with no protest, and when she threw me into the bathroom, I didn’t utter a squeak as I slapped against the wall. “Five minutes, or I break your leg,” she snarled at me. “I can still eat you with a busted leg.”
I nodded at her as she closed the door of the bathroom. When it shut, I heard her pacing the hall.
I had five minutes to think of something, fast.
I ruled out the window right away. Instead of regular glass, there were small blocks of thick, bubbled glass too small to squeeze through.
Think, Bathsheba, think.
I had two massively powerful shapeshifters in this house with me. Beau and his small army waited on the lawn. Neither was going to make a move until the other did. Beau wouldn’t come inside unless he knew it wouldn’t cost us our lives. Arabella and Jason wouldn’t vacate because right now they held the advantage.
I had to get Arabella and Jason out of the house, somehow.
A small, decorative set of candles on the back wall caught my eye. A fire! Candles needed matches.
I quietly pulled open the drawer under the sink and rummaged through it. No matches.
There was nail polish, hairspray, hair doodads, a curling iron, and a blow-dryer. Arabella’s stuff. My hand passed over the nail polish again, and then the curling iron, and then stopped.
The curling iron might get hot enough to start a fire.
Excited, I glanced around and looked for an outlet. There—on the far end of the wall. Good. I plugged the curling iron in, turned it on high, and looked for someplace to hide it.
A half-full wastebasket sat on the far side of the toilet. Even better. I shoved the curling iron in the bottom, and filled the rest of the wastebasket with loose toilet paper, then dripped the nail polish over it. Last, I set the aerosol can next to the curling iron. That would explode, right? I hoped so. If I was lucky, it’d catch fire.
“Hurry up,” Arabella yelled, and I hastily flushed the toilet. I took a quick look at the cloth shower curtain, then shoved the wastebasket over as far as the curling iron’s cord would stretch and tucked some of the shower curtain in it. Perfect. Unless you were looking closely, the beige cord of the curling iron was invisible against the wall, and the shower curtain ruffles hid the basket.
The faint stink of hot metal was already starting to fill the room, mixing with the scent of nail polish, and I panicked. I needed to conceal the smell. I grabbed the nearby perfume bottle and smashed it on the floor.
Arabella flung the door open. “What are you doing, you stupid bitch?”
As soon as she opened the door I bolted past her, barreling for the kitchen.
She grabbed my elbow and snapped me backward so hard that my arm throbbed and burned, and I collapsed at her feet. Arabella wrapped her hands in my shredded clothing and dragged me back down the hall. “You’re done.”
Exhausted and hurting, I cradled my arm and let her drag me back to the pool room, praying for a miracle.