Proditor : Book 5 of the Heku Series (56 page)

Kyle growled, “How can we not find him?”

“
I’m leaving the kids with
Anna, and going to Quinn’s house in Alaska. That way when we find
her, I’ll be closer.”

“
I’ll go too,” Kyle said,
standing up.

“
Quinn will be here
shortly. He’ll fly us up,” Chevalier said, and left to make
arrangements for the kids.

***

“
Put this on,” Exavior
said, and threw a bikini at Emily. “It’s been a week since you
ashed my guards and it’s time you got over it.”

Emily threw the bikini onto the floor.

“
Now,” Exavior growled, and
handed it back to her. He stormed out of the room and slammed the
door.

Emily got out of bed slowly, and stood,
steadying herself on the bed. Since her time on the rack, her legs
felt like jelly and her back ached constantly. She slowly undressed
and slid on the bikini, then wrapped in a towel before stepping out
into the hallway, using the wall for support.

“
I forget how fragile
mortals are,” Exavior said, and picked her up. The guards laughed
and nodded in agreement as Exavior carried her down the stairs. He
kicked open the door to the hot tub, and sat her down in it before
stripping completely and sliding into the water beside
her.

Emily moved away from him and he chuckled,
“I won’t hurt you.”

“
You already did,” she
whispered, and leaned back against the jets.

“
I apologize for that. I
don’t handle disobedience well,” he said, and put his hand on her
knee.

Emily pushed his hand off and moved further
away from him.

Exavior grinned, “You can fight me all you
want, but one of these days, you’ll realize you love me too.”

Emily gasped when he appeared on his knees
in front of her and pressed his body to hers as he kissed her. She
pushed against him, but he wrapped a hand around the back of her
neck and held her close as his other hand rubbed against her back
and untied the top of her bikini.

Exavior pulled away from her slightly and
looked into her eyes, “Let me love you.”

“
No,” Emily said, and put
an arm across her exposed chest.

“
Why won’t you make love to
me? What are you afraid of?”

“
I’m not afraid… I don’t
love you.”

“
How do you know when you
won’t even try?” he asked, and ran his lips lightly along
hers.

Emily turned her face, “No.”

“
You’re testing even my
control,” he whispered, and flicked her ear with his
tongue.

“
Stop,” she snapped, and
put a hand against his bare chest.

Exavior pulled her arms to her sides and
looked at her body under the water, “I need to talk to the tailor.
We’re covering you up too much. We shouldn’t hide perfection
underneath cloth.”

Emily pulled her hands away from him and
covered her chest as she crawled out of the water.

“
Don’t leave,” he said, and
watched her grab the towel.

Emily turned to Exavior, “Let me go.”

He stood up and got out of the water, not
bothering to cover himself, “No, you belong to me now.”

“
Chevalier is looking for
me,” she told him.

“
Oh I have no doubt. I’m
sure the Valle and Encala are looking for you also.”

“
They’ll find
me.”

“
Yes, they will, but by
then you will love me.”

“
I’m not going to love you,
Exavior, not after what I’ve seen and been through here,” she said,
and opened the door to the hallway.

Exavior chuckled and got back into the water
as she disappeared down the hallway.

***

“
Chevalier, this is
Reverend James Johnson. He married Exavior and Emily,” Quinn said,
motioning to a terrified mortal in black robes.

Chevalier smiled at him, “Thank you for
coming.”

“
I can’t tell you what you
want to know,” the Reverend said. “He is evil, and I have no doubt
he would kill me if I were to tell.”

“
We can protect you,”
Chevalier told him. “The girl is my wife and I need to get her back
before he hurts her.”

“
She’s… she’s your
wife?”

“
Yes, Exavior’s marriage is
a sham. He thinks he loves her, and will go to any length to get
her to return that, even kill her,” Quinn told him.

“
She said no,” the Reverend
said, smiling slightly. “I’ve never had a bride say no to the vows…
he said yes for her, and I had to keep going.”

“
We know that and don’t
blame you,” Quinn said. “Right now, all we want is to get her away
from him.”

“
I’m sorry, I can’t help
you,” the Reverend said, and stood up.

“
Please,” Chevalier said,
and motioned to the door. “Our children need her.”

The Reverend turned toward the door, and his
eyes fell on the two beautiful children, “These are hers?”

“
Yes, and they need their
mother.”

***

“
Good morning, my love,”
Exavior said, and kissed her softly.

Emily pulled away from him and sat on the
edge of the bed.

“
Come back and let me hold
you,” he said, and pulled her naked body against his. He’d banned
her from wearing anything to bed since the hot tub, and replaced
all of her dresses with sheer and lace ones that allowed him to see
her body any time he wanted.

Emily felt his bare chest at her back and
watched out the window. New snow was falling, and the morning was
dark and gray.

“
Did you sleep well?” he
asked, and began to kiss the back of her neck.

Emily didn’t answer. She hadn’t spoken to
him since they were in the hot tub. In the four weeks since that
time, she’d kept to her room, too humiliated to be seen in the
partially transparent clothing Exavior had forced on her. Once a
week, Ivan came and he and Exavior made the Chief Interrogator
immune to Emily’s ability.

“
You have to talk to me
eventually,” Exavior said, and ran his fingers down the curve of
her waist.

Emily got up from the bed and took the
sheets with her, covering herself as she disappeared into the
bathroom. She came out a few minutes later in a sheer black slip
dress with her arm covering her chest.

“
I didn’t give you those so
you can hide yourself,” Exavior said, now sitting on the edge of
the bed, fully dressed.

Emily walked over and sat in the bay window,
pulling a blanket over herself.

Exavior growled and pulled her out of the
window by her arm, and then gently pushed her against a wall. He
smiled as he looked down at her body and the subtle hints of her
curves he could see through the dress.

“
You know… time’s up,”
Exavior told her. “Tonight I’m not taking no for an answer. You’re
my wife, and I’m going to treat you as such.”

Emily gasped, “No.”

“
Yes, no more rejection
from you,” Exavior said, and kissed her roughly. He pulled away and
ran his eyes down her body again, “It’s been too long, and tonight,
it’s time.”

“
Then you are no different
than Jeff,” Emily said, and fell to the floor when he backhanded
her.

“
I’m nothing like that
lowlife.”

“
You’re exactly like him,”
Emily said from the floor. She wiped the blood from her lip with
the back of her hand, “And you’re right… tonight is the
night.”

“
It is?” Exavior said,
surprised.

“
Yes, the night I get out
of here,” she said, and wiped the trickle of blood from her
nose.

Exavior growled and appeared out in the
hallway. The mansion was perfectly silent, and piles of ash lay
across the floor. He swept into the bedroom and pulled Emily to her
feet by her hair. He slapped her again, and then dragged her out of
the room by her neck.

“
You’ll pay for that,” he
hissed, and threw her into the interrogation room. She landed hard
against the wooden table and turned to him just as he backhanded
her again. She felt the crunch when her cheekbone shattered as he
hit her.

“
When I lived in Rome we
called this the equuleus,” Exavior said as he forced her back into
the rack. “The French call it Bac de Torture, that’s one of my
favorites. Course, Streckbank from the Germans was nice, it means
‘stretching frame’.”

Emily screamed when he turned the crank and
stretched her, pulling at all of her joints.

“
Now… how to revive my
staff,” Exavior said, sitting down on a chair beside her as her
pain continued.

“
I see that something also
needs to happen between us for this to continue. How exactly am I
going to prove to you that I am better for you than that Equites?”
Exavior asked, looking around at the various torture devices at his
disposal.

He touched her leg softly, and looked up at
her, “This is going to set us back though. It’ll be another week
before you’re able to get around, maybe longer. I have something
else in mind, too.”

After an hour of intense pain for Emily, and
idle chit-chat for Exavior, he released her and slid a spiked
punishment collar on her. He fastened it with a lock and sat her
up. She groaned as the metal spikes dug painfully into her neck,
and her body ached from the rack.

Exavior hung her from the high shackles
again and tightened the chains so her feet were far away from the
floor. He stood back and admired her body through the thin fabric
as she hung from the shackles. Emily looked up at him and kicked
toward him, but he easily stepped aside. With one swift movement,
he again sunk his hand into her stomach and sent a stab into her
lungs.

“
Stop kicking at me. This
is for your own good.”

Emily groaned as he twisted his hand and
increased the pain.

“
I’m going to try something
new. I just thought of this one,” he said, and disappeared. He
appeared a short time later with five heku dressed in rags and in
various stages of starvation. He slipped metal collars onto them
and chained them to the wall as they fought to get at the mortal.
The smell of her blood was driving them insane.

“
Good, just as I’d hoped,”
Exavior said, and took the small knife from his pocket. He cut
Emily’s wrists slightly, and the blood dripped down her arm. The
ravaged heku growled and hissed, and fought to get to her. Their
clawed hands came within inches of reaching her.

Emily screamed and tried to kick away from
the heku prisoners.

Exavior looked up after only six hours, and
frowned, “I’ll be right back.”

Emily’s screams faded as her voice went
hoarse, and she watched, terrified, as the heku tried to get to
her, pulling angrily against the chains.

The Thukil and Council City Cavalry walked
into the quiet mansion and looked around the main entryway as
wolves flooded in from the cold outdoors. Mark motioned for teams
to break off and search the entire building. He saw the elaborately
decorated ‘V’ banner, and knew he had found the home of
Exavior.

Their footsteps were so silent that no sound
was heard throughout the entire house as they searched. Silas and
Kralen were the first to step into the room with the couches and
doors, and immediately found where Emily was staying. They stepped
into her room and her scent hit them strongly. They knew it had
only been a few hours since she’d been there.

Four members of the Thukil Cavalry followed
her scent into the room and met up with Kralen and Silas.

“
Mark,” Silas
whispered.

Mark appeared in the room and inhaled
deeply. He looked around the room, heading directly into the
bathroom. He came back out and opened the closet door, then frowned
at the assorted dresses and stepped back out.

“
She’s been here recently,”
he said, and looked around.

“
We’ve found nothing but
piles of ash around the building,” a member of the Thukil Cavalry
reported.

“
So she fought back… but
Exavior couldn’t be turned to ash. He must have her,” Mark said,
and turned when more of the Council City Cavalry walked into the
foyer.

“
We found the prison, but
she’s not there,” one of them said.

“
Get the Elders here,” Mark
said. “Search this place again.”

Silas called the Elders, and then set out
with Kralen and began to search again.

All nine Elders entered the house together,
having flown in as soon as they received Silas’s phone call. Kyle
walked in after them and inhaled, catching Emily’s scent
strongly.

“
What have you found?”
Chevalier asked, walking into the bedroom where Mark
waited.

“
We’ve searched the house a
few times. We haven’t found her, but her scent is strong. I think
she’s still here,” Mark said.

“
Exavior?” Sotomar
asked.

“
Not a sign of him
anywhere. All we’re finding are piles of ashes, but he was immune,”
Mark told him. “His scent is fading.”

“
He ran? From us?” Sotomar
growled.

“
May I have a word alone
with Chevalier?” Mark asked, and the other Elders left
quickly.

“
What?” Chevalier asked,
concerned.

Mark walked over to the wardrobe, “Look at
this.”