Savage Chains: Shattered (#3) (Men in Chains) (7 page)

BOOK: Savage Chains: Shattered (#3) (Men in Chains)
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He stood up, his eyelids fluttering.

His hands seemed to float away from his body as he pivoted slowly in her direction.

When he opened his round brown eyes to stare at her, he bore a familiar predatory expression.

He rubbed a hand through his thick wavy hair and smiled. “You ready for a fight?”

Angelica’s heart pounded heavily against her rib cage. The man was a sadistic killer and she was caught in his snare with no way to escape.

She had only one hope. She had to somehow contact Reyes, but she had no idea if he was next door or on another continent. She realized as well that Sweet Dove had removed the single-bonding chains. She was no longer connected to Reyes.

She felt the double-chain at her wrist, hidden inside the long black glove. It seemed to be burning as well, maybe because the chains were separated and were never meant to be. Blood-chains always came with a proximity issue.

Engles reached a trembling hand toward her and one by one plucked the cat whiskers from her face. The removal of each stung a little, the barest hint of things to come if Engles had his way with her. Somehow she had to escape, but how?

Suddenly he picked her up, levitated, then began moving swiftly from room to room. When she reached the chamber with the shallow pool and the platform, she knew exactly where she was. This was the place Reyes had tied her down with scarves, where Scorpion had watched her having sex with Reyes, and later where Reyes had attacked Engles when he’d tried to insinuate himself into their sex performance.

Engles took her to the table.

“I wanted you here.” His voice was low and hoarse, full of need.

She had only one whisper of a chance to escape.

When he dumped her onto the table, she whisked the double-chain from her glove, then slipped it over her head.

The sudden power that struck her made her scream in agony. Engles jumped away from her, his eyes wide with horror.

She put her hand to her throat and once more the preternatural sensation shot through her, burning every part of her body as though tearing her apart and rebuilding her at the same time.

“Where the hell did you get that? Stupid woman! It’ll kill you.”

“See if I care, you bastard.”

* * *

Pain suddenly shot through Reyes like nothing he’d ever experienced before, not even at Sweet Dove’s hands. He shouted, and the burning sensation at his waist beneath his shirt intensified.

Something was wrong because his captor hadn’t even gotten started with her usual means of torture.

The next moment a wave of anguish flowed through him, something outside himself and it had the flavor of Angelica.

Angelica?
He reached for her through the thick rock walls of the torture room.

I’m here.
I just put on the Ancestral chain. Engles says it will kill me, but I don’t care. I’d rather die this way.

Despite the fact that he was in physical agony, Reyes fell to a place of vampire stillness. Angelica was going to die within the next few minutes. She’d done the worst thing she could have done: she’d donned one of the double-chains apart from him. But where was the companion chain? Then he knew. He was in pain because the second chain resided inside his shirt at his waist, and Angelica had put it there. But how could he reach it shackled as he was?

His own agony formed a wall around him. Sweet Dove jumped up on the table and shouted at him, but he could barely hear her. She seemed to be asking what was wrong.

“You have to let me go,” he shouted.

“Never. And this time you won’t be able to get away. You’ll die here in this chamber before I ever release you.”

So it was all a ruse, her e-mails suggesting a relationship with him.

She left the table and opened the cabinet on the wall to his left. Her tools. She wasn’t going to wait. She intended to resume their prior relationship right now.

This couldn’t be the end. He had work to do, an organization to bring down, and mostly he had Angelica to save.

Suddenly his mind grew sharp and focused. Only one thought mattered right now: to save Angelica no matter the cost. His own life didn’t matter. Only she did, because he loved her.

His thoughts thinned out, his focus turning inward.

He loved her.

He loved Angelica.

Some of the pain lessened at this thought, and his heart grew full. Tears burned his eyes. He’d never believed he could love, not after all he’d been through. But right now, knowing that she’d had the foresight to bring the double-chains along took him the distance.

He loved her.

He saw it all now, how from the beginning she’d given him hope that his life could truly be different. Each step of the way, as she laid her dignity in the dirt and accepted the role of his slave, as she performed sexually in public when it was the last thing she would have ever done, as she stood up to Sweet Dove in order to keep his former captor away from him, all these things had given him hope.

And he loved her with every broken fiber of his being.

But was it too late?

Was there anything he could do?

Sweet Dove had him shackled and held in place with her preternatural power.

The only thing he knew for certain in this completely hopeless situation was that he had to tell Angelica how he felt.

Angelica?

I’m here.
She sounded very faint.

Are you in pain?
Dumb question.

Immeasurably.

Reyes’s chest hurt, inside and out.
I can hardly hear you.

It won’t be long now.

Angelica, I was a fool. I love you. I need you to know that.

You love me?

With all my heart, I just didn’t think it was possible for me.

I love you, too.
Even within his head, her voice caught.

You love me?

I’m crazy about you, Reyes.

He didn’t understand.
But you never said anything. I felt sure you wanted to go home, to resume your life, to be with your mom.

That’s partly true, especially about my mom. But the rest was about my fears. Until this moment, I was afraid of staying in your world, but right now all I want is you, at any price. Reyes, I don’t know why I thought I could leave you. I know now that I belong here. But Reyes, aren’t you able to put on the chain?

Sweet Dove has me shackled. I can’t reach it.

Reyes, please try. You have more power than you know.

She wouldn’t last long now.

He grew very still once more and finally said,
Sweet Dove has intensified the preternatural charge in the shackles, but I’m going to try to access my Ancestral power.

She didn’t answer for a long moment. When she spoke, her telepathic voice was little more than a whisper.
Reyes, I love you. If you can do something, hurry, because Engles just put on the cat’s claw.

As rage poured through Reyes he broke communication with Angelica. He had to do something, had to figure something out right now, or his woman would be hurt by that bastard even while she was dying.

Sweet Dove.

Reyes shifted his attention to her. This nightmare was her doing, always hers. And as an Ancestral she would always have the upper hand.

Even with his arms extended in the rusty chains, he focused on the blood-chain that sat in a heap at his waistband, burning his skin. He took deep breaths and closed his eyes. The last time he’d been on this table, with Angelica on top, dominating him yet loving him at the same time, he’d found his Ancestral power and had accessed it sufficiently to break free.

Tonight there would be no holding back.

With the chain next to his skin he began reaching within himself once more, diving deep, and in a split second found the Ancestral layer that belonged to him as his birthright.

This time he plunged into this power, embracing it all, and for a long moment blacked out.

When he came to, power surged through him as he’d never experienced it before. He called to the chain at his waist and felt it respond. He remained focused on it, and the chain moved faster beneath his shirt. Suddenly, without the use of his hands, the chain flew over his head and settled around his neck.

Ancestral power flashed through him in a heavy wave like nothing he’d known before.

He drew his hands into fists and focused on all four shackles at once.

Sweet Dove shouted, “No!”

With a burst of Ancestral power, he shattered the shackles that had held him prisoner. He broke free of Sweet Dove’s preternatural charge. She’d never be able to entrap him again. Nothing could ever hold him again.

He didn’t stay, however, to have his reckoning with her. Instead he shifted abruptly to altered flight, focused on Angelica, and flew faster than he ever had in his entire life, following the beacon that she’d become.

He found her in Engles’s home, on the platform above the long shallow pool.

The bastard was naked, as was she, her knees split, his body ready to pierce hers, the cat’s claw suspended above her left shoulder.

Engles, staring into Angelica’s eyes and unaware of Reyes’s presence, spoke in a commanding voice. “You’ll die right now, Angelica, with my cock buried inside you and blood pouring from your body.”

A red film covered Reyes’s vision as he flew to grab Engles beneath his arms. He pinned him tight against his chest and with altered flight flew him straight up to the carved rock ceiling of the room, shifted back to levitation at the last moment, and slammed Engles’s head into the rock.

He repeated this movement over and over, blood and brains flying everywhere until there was little left and nothing to be healed and restored.

At the same time, security alarms sounded through the space.

Reyes dropped Engles to the pool at the far end, flew back to Angelica, and lifted her up in his arms.

He shifted once more to altered flight and headed to his home.
I’ll get a healer. You’ll be all right. You have to be.

She gasped several times, and just as he reached his bedroom, she spoke,
Power is flowing through me now instead of hurting me. The chains just needed to be together. The pain has stopped. I’m okay, truly. I’m fine. Reyes, you have to listen to me. We must get Sweet Dove’s laptop. Now.

Reyes shouldn’t have been surprised, but he was. Angelica had almost been raped, tortured, and killed, but the moment she was free of peril, she addressed the critical issue of the mission, just as she always had.

He didn’t try to argue. He knew she was right. And because of the deepening Ancestral bond between them he also sensed that she was healing swiftly, just as she said she was.

He changed course.

If he’d doubted that he’d risen to Ancestral status, he didn’t anymore, because the moment he thought about the location of Sweet Dove’s office, he knew exactly where it was.

Within seconds he penetrated the preternatural shield around the space and touched down in front of the desk.

But Sweet Dove had guessed his maneuver and held the laptop in her hands. “By the look of all the blood on you and the fact that Angelica lives, Engles wasn’t so fortunate.”

“He’s dead.”

“Well, that’s too bad, but you and I can still continue.”

Reyes stared at her in profound disbelief. He sensed from her what he’d always felt, that somewhere in the early years of her life her psyche had become so corrupt that she truly believed Reyes wanted to be with her, that he wanted to be her slave.

On the other hand, she held the laptop, so some part of her must have known the truth.

Reyes knew that she could destroy the laptop right now, with a single preternatural charge from her hands. If she did, the mission would fail.

He ignored the computer and tried a different tack. “I’m bonded with Angelica now, a double-chain bond. And she’s staying with me in our world.” He turned toward Angelica and saw the glow in her brown eyes.

Angelica nodded. “I am.” She smiled and leaned up and kissed him. Then turning to Sweet Dove, she said, “You can’t have Reyes, not ever. He’s powerful and you can feel his power, which means you’ll never be able to capture him or hold him. You’re finished, Sweet Dove.”

The woman still ignored Angelica, but as if in a fog, she set the laptop on the desk.

Reyes forced himself to stay focused on Sweet Dove.

He felt something powerful emanating from his former captor, a heavy vibration that he knew well, that became a painful tingling on his skin.

Hold steady,
he telepathed to Angelica.
Looks like the bitch is going to throw a fit.

Reyes held Angelica close to his side and created an impenetrable disguise around them both, then levitated away from the desk near the waterfall.

She can’t see us, can she?

No, she can’t.

Sweet Dove became a whirlwind and tore around the room with tremendous speed. “Where are you?” she shouted.

She screamed obscenities. Froth poured from her mouth. Her eyes were wild and her hair, freed from the usual clip, flowed in angry waves around her body.

“Reyes!” His name came like a hiss from her lips. Her fangs descended, and she began tearing at her arms with the sharp points, pulling out chunks of flesh in her rage.

Reyes was stunned. She was a monster.

Angelica’s voice moved through his mind, offering a sensible suggestion.
While she goes all whirling dervish on us, why don’t we grab the laptop?

Good idea.

With great care, he tried to maneuver around Sweet Dove, but when she almost hit them, he shifted to altered flight, left the room, then reentered behind the desk.

Angelica whisked the laptop into her arms.
Reyes, look at the ceiling. The fissure is widening. I think the roof of the cave is about to collapse. I think she’s doing this without knowing it.

Reyes glanced at the long chandelier made of swords. It swayed overhead.

Let’s get out of here.

Returning to altered flight, he hovered not far from the room, close enough to watch as within seconds the ceiling collapsed, burying Sweet Dove.

BOOK: Savage Chains: Shattered (#3) (Men in Chains)
9.42Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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