Unchained (Men in Chains Book 3) (24 page)

Shayna found her eyes filling with tears. “It was that old saying,
All of a piece.
Michelson was—is—a completely self-absorbed man. I know that now. He might even have sociopath tendencies.” She stopped as though her vocal cords had just shriveled and wouldn’t let her go any farther.

“You can do this,” Eve said, more firmly this time. “And I think you’ll find it very healing and probably the release you need to get these visions unblocked. Okay?”

Shayna licked her lips, her mouth suddenly dry. “I fell hard for Michelson. He was a man I admired a lot for his work in the field of anthropology. I knew going in that I was a starstruck student, an absolute clich
é
, but he was handsome and inspiring and unattached. I wouldn’t have dated him if he’d been married, or anything like that.

“The sex was glorious at first, but I honestly think it’s because I was so deluded, so infatuated with him. I couldn’t get enough of him. So in those early days, I didn’t notice how critical he was of me, I think because it began so gradually; how I looked, what I wore, my makeup, my hair, comments about how I studied, that he thought I was messy and disorganized. He’d make suggestions on improving everything but never seemed to be satisfied when I made the changes. I kept waiting for some kind of affirmation that he finally approved of me.

“Then, about three months into the relationship, he brought out a few of his neckties. The first time he bound me to the four posts of his bed was really intoxicating. I mean it turned me on and though he might be critical of me, the sex was great, or so I thought. The first few times were really exciting.”

Eve nodded. “It can be a profound experience. Bondage is as much about trust as it is about the thrill. So when did it go wrong?”

Shayna ignored the increasing tension in Marius and took a deep breath. “The first time things started going bad, he left me spread-eagled on the bed, tied up at both wrists and ankles, saying he’d had an inspiration for an article he was writing, but he wanted to write it down immediately and that he’d be right back. I was stupidly exhilarated that I could be a muse for such an important man. And he came back ten minutes later.

“Part of me thought it a little odd, but again I believed in him and he’d already trained me to think much less of myself than I deserved and to keep him on a pedestal. He’d get angry at even the slightest interruption in whatever project he was working on. I’d learned early on not to disturb the waters when he was engaged with his work.”

“It got worse each time, didn’t it?” Eve asked. “The length of time he’d be gone, that sort of thing?”

“Yes. I tried talking to him about it, but he invoked how important I was as his muse, which of course led to a lot of guilt and fear on my part.”

She could feel that Marius’s level of tension had now jumped several notches, but she had to see this through.

Eve spoke to Marius. “Dial it down, warrior. Please.” To Shayna, she dipped her chin. “Go ahead. Tell me about the last time.”

Just thinking about it brought tears flowing down Shayna’s cheeks, something she hadn’t intended or thought would happen. “I had no pleasure that time, and hadn’t had for the last few sessions as far as that goes. I faked it the whole time because of course he’d get mad if I didn’t appear to be enjoying sex with him. But I was barely aroused. The truth was, I was afraid of being left tied up again. And by then, he had only one goal, to have his release, which he would insist gave him some kind of inspiration for his work that he had to attend to while I was lying tied up in his bed.

“But this time, when he left me, he was gone for hours. But he didn’t go to his desk and work. Not this time. No, he got in his car and left because I heard the car on the gravel drive pull away. I screamed my rage not once but several times as the hours passed. Later, I fell asleep, having worn myself out.

“When he came back, he told me how thrilling it was to know that I was waiting for him. I remember forcing a smile and telling him how glad I was that he’d had a good time because by then I was scared to death.”

“You thought he’d hurt you?” Eve asked.

“Yes and no. Truthfully, I was afraid that if I gave vent to the rage and humiliation I felt in that moment, I’d kill him. I’d go into the kitchen, wait till he was asleep, and take a knife to him. I’m not proud of having had those thoughts or feelings, but it was one more reason I knew this would be the last time I was with him.

“I ached from head to foot from having been in the same position for so long. I had bruises on my wrists and ankles from trying to get out of the knots, because he sure knew how to tie them.”

“No one heard you screaming?”

“He has a big piece of property outside the city limits. So the answer is no.”

“Shayna,” Eve said very quietly. “Let me make this clear to you. He isn’t just without a conscience, he’s a psychopath and I’m sure if you compared notes with some of his previous girlfriends you’d find he’d been practicing this routine for a long time. My guess is each time he lures another young woman in, he pushes the limits to see how far he can go. He’ll keep escalating as well until he’s done something a lot worse than leaving a woman tied up on his bed while he goes out with some friends.”

Shayna finally leaned back against the couch cushions. “I’ve had those thoughts as well, but dismissed them. I’ve even thought about going to the police.”

Only then, after she’d said it all, did she become fully aware of the state of Marius’s emotions.

He rose up from the couch and shouted in a kind of guttural animal way that made her stiffen her arms, pinning them to her sides, preparing for what, she didn’t know. But the vampire was in a rage.

Eve rose up as well and went to Marius. She got in his face. “Knock it off. You’re not helping. You’re scaring her. Look at Shayna, Marius. Look at her.”

He shifted his gaze to Shayna and in quick stages, he got his temper under control. “I’m sorry, but I want to kill him for doing that to you. I want to kill him. Do you understand?” His hands were balled into fists.

Shayna jumped up and ran to him. He opened his arms as he’d done before and she fell into them. The floodgates opened and she wept on his chest and he just held her, petting her back. She actually hadn’t known until that moment how much Michelson had traumatized her, how much fear she’d had of what he might do to her, what he could have done, how much of a victim she’d become. “I didn’t understand. I didn’t. I thought I was fine. I just thought I needed to realize he was bad for me. I didn’t understand. Who would ever do that to another human being?”

*   *   *

The rage Marius felt went bone-deep. His whole body felt on fire with suppressed anger, feelings from his childhood and now for Shayna’s past. He knew exactly what it felt like to be tied down and abandoned. Daniel had once left him shackled, bruised, and cut up on the table for two days, one of the times he’d almost died.

The feeling of impotence left him enraged beyond words. The only difference was that Michelson had somehow drawn the line at not inflicting physical pain beyond the hurt the bindings would cause. He never hit her; therefore, he could justify what he’d done to her.

He met Eve’s gaze and saw the speculative look in her eye. She had her arms folded over her chest as though she, too, had to hold herself together by sheer force of will. She’d bought a lot of slaves in the past for the purpose of healing and freeing them.

“I’m so sick of this shit,” Eve said, shaking her head back and forth. “I love what I do, but everyone involved participates by choice and no one is hurt or left to suffer like that. I hate what this man did to you.” She unfolded her arms throwing them in the air at the same time.

“Me, too,” Marius said quietly.

Shayna still wept. “Me, three.” She hiccuped, then drew back to look up at him. “I didn’t expect to start crying like this.”

He wiped her cheeks with his fingers. “And I’m sorry I lost it. I wasn’t even the one injured, but I hate that he put you through that. If he walked into this room, I’d pound him into a pulp.”

She drew a deep breath. “Right after me. You know, it was one long seduction at first; then he slowly turned into a control freak and wore down my self-esteem just a little bit every day until I actually let myself be treated that way. The first time he abandoned me for the sake of his ‘inspiration,’ setting his needs well above my own, I should have kicked him in the nuts.” She pulled out of his arms and lifted her top shirt to wipe her face.

He could sense she was working hard at calming herself as she turned in Eve’s direction. “So what do I do next? I mean, do you think just admitting how blind I was to what I’d actually experienced will help me with the visions?”

Eve paced, a frown between her brows, her ponytail swinging. “I’m trying to figure that out but I do have an idea. Sometimes it helps to relive traumatic events by way of proxy, but change the outcome.” She stopped in her tracks and held Marius’s gaze. “Shayna should see my next show. With a couple of tweaks it will be perfect, since the submissive is a woman.”

Marius shook his head. “Eve. No.” He didn’t want Shayna exposed to a full-on show like the kind Eve ran in her Ruby Cave club.

But Shayna placed her hand on his arm. “Actually, I think Eve has it right. My gut tells me that I would benefit from it because I’m guessing the woman either breaks free or the man releases her the moment she’s ready to be free.”

Eve nodded. “He releases her.”

“Yes, that’s it.” She nodded and met Marius’s gaze.

Marius could hardly bear the thought of Shayna, with her relatively innocent background, having to watch one of Eve’s performances. He thought maybe she didn’t understand. “Shayna, these shows are explicit and I do mean explicit. X-rated. Lots of nudity. Nothing is left to the imagination.”

“I can feel how concerned you are. But don’t you see, this is a big part of your world. The extensive sex-club complex that you, Rumy, and Eve have each described to me as well as Daniel’s sex-trafficking operations are two sides of a cultural coin. Not to say that new laws and policing actions aren’t needed to protect the unwilling and the innocent. But at some point down this path we’re on, it might help me to find a key to taking Daniel down. Don’t you see? This is all of a piece. It all works together somehow.”

“I want to protect you.”

“But that’s not your job, Marius, at least not in this circumstance. I definitely value your physical protection in a battle situation, but this is my field—understanding your culture and coming to terms with what my ex did to me. In this case, I don’t need you to run interference for me.”

He was completely taken aback by her determination. “I’m just feeling so damn guilty because I dumped you into this situation.”

She smiled and rubbed his shoulder. “You’re right. You do have a responsibility in that. But later, I was the one who agreed to stay, and from that point these are absolutely my choices. So you can stop with the guilt now. Got it?”

Something inside him eased and he nodded. “Got it.”

She turned to Eve. “When’s the show?”

“In about half an hour and given that Daniel is hunting the pair of you, I’ll need to make some special security arrangements. Still, it’ll be a risk.” She looked them over. “You’ll want to change as well. My clientele is fairly high-end and if things go south, you’ll want to blend in. In fact, I’m going to take off right now and arrange things but I’ll call when everything’s set up. Okay?”

Marius nodded, Shayna as well. Eve smiled as she shifted to altered flight and disappeared through the wall of the house.

Marius took hold of Shayna’s shoulders and squeezed gently. “And you’re sure you want to do this?”

Her gaze flitted around in that processing way of hers. “Absolutely.”

“Okay, then, let’s get changed.”

He put on a pair of tailored slacks, a fresh black T-shirt, and a short, black leather jacket that concealed at least four daggers and two battle chains. Afterward, he paced the foyer, waiting for Shayna.

He was nervous as hell, for more than one reason. He’d admitted to having seen several of Eve’s shows, but what he hadn’t confessed was how much they’d turned him on. And it wasn’t just the sexual component. Maybe because he’d been chained up as a child, some sick part of him also got off on the idea of bondage. He’d been damn aroused when Shayna had mounted him while he’d been in restraints and recovering from blood-madness.

Truth? He’d loved it.

And he’d loved it even more when he’d broken free.

Twenty minutes later, Eve called, letting him know that Rumy’s security expert had built up a disguising shield behind which they’d be invisible while they watched the show. Only an Ancestral of Daniel’s power would be able to see through that kind of disguise, so Marius had to trust that his father wasn’t actually the one hunting for him at The Erotic Passage. Eve also encouraged him to stay for the entire performance of the first couple, which would last about twenty minutes total.

“Let Shayna see the end. That will be the important part for her.”

“Okay.”

When he hung up, he was jittery and Shayna still hadn’t emerged from the bedroom.

When he heard heels clicking on the tile floor, he stopped and turned toward the doorway to the bathroom.

She appeared and he swore his heart stopped.

“Holy shit” left his lips. “You look fantastic.” Her long, straight hair was pulled back on one side with a small silver clip.

“Marius, I’m sorry it took so long, but the dresses were all absurd. I chose this one because it had the most fabric.”

But he wasn’t complaining and he knew one thing for sure: He’d be throwing a whole lot of wood tonight. He moved toward her like he was floating, then he realized he’d actually levitated, a perfect metaphor for exactly how he felt, like everything would rise tonight.

She wore a simple black silk dress, cut low to reveal all that cleavage of hers. And the dress was short with a sheer red insert cut halfway to her hip bone. The inset would give the dress just enough give if he wanted to lift up the fabric and cop a feel.