Unchained (Men in Chains Book 3) (27 page)

She felt so connected to Marius, truly one with him, that she never wanted to leave.

He was her man.

He always would be.

That thought, so out of left field, hit home, striking deep and burning a hole through her heart.

Marius was her man.

She rubbed his back, savoring the dips and falls of his muscular shoulders. She hugged him repeatedly.

He lay very quiet on top of her, his weight a layer of pleasure all on its own. He was still buried inside her and in a half state of arousal that felt really good, beyond good. Amazing.

The cords were still attached to her wrists. She lifted one to look at it. She wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d snapped the wood off. Instead, the cord had shredded near the knot around the post.

That moment, of breaking free, had released something tremendous inside her, a rush of euphoria equally as profound as the series of orgasms she’d just experienced.

She truly felt liberated from the emotional pain and trauma she’d endured at Michelson’s hands.

She could move forward now, and it crossed her mind that she needed to have a long conversation with the Seattle Police Department. She wanted the trauma that she’d experienced at Michelson’s hands on record just in case any other women came forward. She might even have to charge him for what he did. Better to stop him now than to have his criminal mind decide to step up his game and actually murder the next woman he got involved with.

Marius stirred and lifted himself up to look at her. He kissed her. “Thinking about things?”

“Yes.” She told him she now intended to visit the Seattle PD and to report what had happened to her. “I just think it ought to be out there.”

“I think that’s wise.” He shifted, easing out of her. “I’ll get you something.”

“Thank you.”

He left the bed, heading for the bathroom, and a minute later brought a washcloth back to tuck between her legs. He kissed her on the lips then returned to the bathroom.

As she lay in bed, the vision of all those village children going down both sides of the potluck table suddenly whipped through her head.

What if Marius got her pregnant?

But she was so full of feel-good hormones that she released a deep sigh and wallowed in the delicious feeling of bringing a child of his into the world.

She knew the sensation would pass, but for just a moment, as she heard the distant shower wind up, she let herself enjoy the fantasy. If she stayed with Marius, she’d get to have sex with him a lot, and probably make babies, and live out her life with him. She’d meet his brothers, Adrien and Lucian, both of whom had already bonded with human women. Her children would have aunts and uncles.

She turned on her side and stared at the waterfall. The rock behind glittered and a soft light below created a kaleidoscope of images.

She laughed at herself for thinking about vampires and making babies.

Fortunately the hormones began to fade and reality began to return in quick whips of time.

She had a life to get back to in Seattle, a doctorate to complete, students to teach, a dissertation to write, and fieldwork in Malaysia. She was on a good strong path, one fit for her. Her time with Marius was just a dream, something to be valued and treasured always, but not
her
life.

She wasn’t a vampire and she needed to keep reminding herself of that truth. She also had the last part of the extinction weapon to locate. And maybe this time, her visions would be pure.

She lifted her arm and slowly began unknotting the cords at her wrists, then her ankles. The shower shut off and she slipped from bed, gathering up her dress at the same time.

She felt Marius’s tension now and knew that his thoughts had turned in a similar direction to her own.

She met him in the doorway. He had a towel wrapped around his hips, water beaded between his heavy pecs and dripping from his hair.

He said only one word. “Daniel.”

“I know. I’m thinking the same thing.”

He shook his head. “I just don’t want you to think this wasn’t … extraordinary, because it was.”

She put a hand on his cheek. “You don’t have to explain. I think we’re both in the same place. We have a job to do and I have a life to return to.”

“And even if we get the weapon, we’ve only staved off Daniel’s ambitions. The use of the weapon would have secured his domination of this world as well as his intention to take over yours. But the absence of the weapon wouldn’t have ended his driving madness. One way or the other, I will still have a boatload of work to do.”

She nodded. “I’m with you, Marius, one hundred percent. I know we have something special between us, but it makes no sense to even think about having a future together. And right now, I need my shower.”

She moved past him, set her clothes on top of a nearby hamper, and walked into yet another massive shower. The thought went through her mind that maybe it had been built for orgies, but then someone like Marius, as big as he was, would take up at least half the space.

She smiled as she flipped on three of the seven showerheads. Once the water was flowing, she thought
what the hell
and turned on the rest.

*   *   *

Shayna couldn’t know it, but Marius hadn’t budged an inch from where she’d left him in the bathroom doorway. First, he’d watched her move in the direction of the shower, enjoying her narrow waist and full hips, the sensual movement of her bottom. Afterward, he’d remained leaning against the door frame, sensing her enjoyment of the shower and all that water beating on her body from every direction.

He was in deep shit with this woman.

He understood that now.

Maybe if he hadn’t made love to her just now, all bound up by the silk cords, he wouldn’t be feeling this way. But he’d never known this kind of intimacy with a woman before and his soul longed for more. His heart actually ached at the thought she would leave and never return, that she could be content on any level with her life as an anthropologist apart from him.

Her voice pierced his mind suddenly.
Hey, what’s going on? You feel really sad right now.

Just ignore it.
He paused before adding quietly,
Please.

No problem.

The last thing he wanted to do was to talk about any of this. He just wanted to get on with things and see if they couldn’t locate and seize the extinction weapon. Then he could take her back to Seattle and leave her there. He could return to his job as an anti-Daniel activist without having to worry about her safety or how he could keep from falling in love with her more than he already had.

He finally left the doorway, disgusted that he’d let his emotions get away from him. He let Shayna know that he was heading back to her bedroom to get dressed and that when she was done with her shower, he’d come back to get her.

Sounds good.
She sounded cheerful enough, but he sensed her own disquiet, an inner conflict over their recent lovemaking against the reality of their situation.

Once he’d donned battle leathers with the intention of having Shayna access her tracking ability again, he used his phone and contacted Rumy.

“Not a good time,” Rumy said. The tension in his voice had Marius reaching for one of his daggers. Something was going on.

“Is that my son?” Daniel’s voice penetrated the airwaves. Looked like dear old Dad had recovered from his second stab wound. “If you don’t get your ass over here to talk to me, I’m taking your pal, Rumy, back to the Dark Cave system and stringing him up like I did you.”

Marius grew very still. This was no time to react to anything Daniel had to say, including his threats. Besides, he and Rumy had talked strategy for years, working through several scenarios that might involve Daniel’s intrusion into The Erotic Passage.

Daniel was definitely in the middle of making his play.

He took a deep breath. He would hate more than anything to have Rumy’s torture or death on his hands, but Rumy hadn’t been around this long, rubbing shoulders daily with the entire vampire underworld, without having a few plans in place.

Rumy finally said, “Don’t sweat it, Marius. I’m about to serve my guest some tea and cookies.”

Shit, Rumy was going to blow up part of The Erotic Passage.

Marius hung up and slipped his phone back into his deepest side pocket. He packed his battle leathers full of chains and daggers. Thinking Shayna would probably want a little more time with the shower, he headed back to the waterfall room.

*   *   *

Shayna took her time drying off, her thoughts having returned to making love with Marius.

She felt changed, born anew, and the terrible oppressiveness she’d carried with her because of Michelson had disappeared. She hadn’t realized the extent to which his purposeful tearing away at her self-esteem over the course of their relationship had left her burdened.

Now the burden had vanished like a heavy stack of firewood set ablaze and reduced to the weight of ashes.

She would always feel grateful that her bizarre journey into this unknown world had released her from something she hadn’t even known existed.

When she started blowing her hair dry, making use of the high setting, she became aware of how sensitive even her hearing had become. She tried to imagine what this was like for vampires, living with a heightened auditory capacity. She knew that the extinction weapon used an extreme decibel level to kill vampires. If the sound of the blow dryer bothered her, what would a high-pitched sound do to a full-blooded vampire? She could only imagine the pain.

With her hair sufficiently dry, she returned to her dress and pulled her iPhone from the small side pocket. Still wrapped up in her towel, she scrolled through the various pictures she’d taken of the stonework, enlarging the parts that looked like an ancient language, and just let her eyes wander over the lines and shapes. She felt certain she was looking at the key to understanding something important about the vampire world, possibly even about Daniel.

The anthropologist in her wanted to spend the rest of her life exploring the intricacies of a culture lived at night and in the depths of secret, hidden caverns. She’d want to delve into the earliest traditions, charting the evolution of the society through the ages. If she had more time, a study of this kind could even offer an understanding of Daniel and possibly even the best means of corralling the beast.

She set her phone on the counter and made use of a tool she often employed when studying a culture. She took a deep breath and got very relaxed. She let all she knew about the culture surround her, imagining the spiritual and social aspects of what she’d seen now float around her head. She let her memories of the physical night-to-night activities move through her. She envisioned the sensuality of Marius’s world and of the vampire life generally, perhaps a result of cavern-based living.

She added in the sex-slavery component that had become a partially accepted element in a disproportionately large segment of the vampire-world population. She saw the driving scientific elements that she recognized all around her, serious feats of engineering that allowed for hot water, and fresh-flowing air, even for electricity and grow-lights and extensive underground gardens, and for the development of a weapon with genocidal application.

To all of this, she added the reverence she felt whenever Marius spoke of the children of his world and the rarity of procreation. The sheer absence of young minds in need of guidance would alter how an entire culture spent its hours, established its essential morals, developed its basic theory of education.

A former vision returned, the one she’d felt had been meant just for her. And she could see everything so clearly, just as she’d hoped she would. She took a moment to revel in the change, that nothing inhibited her visions now.

She saw herself once more in the room stacked full of clay tablets, rising all the way to the carefully carved ceiling, and hidden deep within a cave. She could feel the location, that the cave was somewhere in Egypt, which actually made a lot of sense. A large portion of ancient civilization came from that region of the world. Vampires, it would seem, had always borrowed from their surrounding human communities. Why wouldn’t they have developed their own brand of cuneiform?

But what wouldn’t she give to enter that room, a thought that caused her heart to beat hard in her chest.

While she saw this vision, a sense of urgency began to work in her veins, troubling her thoughts. She felt the pressure of another vision and because she was already in a receptive state, she let it come.

What unfolded before her eyes, however, brought tears flowing down her cheeks.

She saw death.

CHAPTER 12

By the time Marius returned to the waterfall room and found Shayna caught in the grips of another vision, a faint vibration shook the villa. He knew Rumy had blown up the front part of his offices.

If he hadn’t believed that things were quickly coming to a head, he believed it now.

He stood in front of Shayna and settled his hands gently on her shoulders to support her, but he felt such pain coming from her that he prepared for the worst.

After a moment, she opened her eyes.

“Marius, I just had a horrible vision about something that happened a couple of hours ago.” She looked around. “But what shook the cavern? An earthquake? We have them sometimes in Seattle.”

“No, not an earthquake.” He explained about his phone call to Rumy, about the strategies they’d discussed if Daniel became more aggressive and what he believed had just happened.

Shayna put a hand to her forehead. He could feel her distress, so he shifted to slide an arm around her shoulders. “Tell me about the vision. What did you see?”

“It was awful. Daniel already has the weapon in his possession. I wanted to discuss this with you earlier, that I had a feeling both the trip to Sweden and the one to Costa Rica were just lures, to try to get to you—or to us, maybe, I’m not sure.”

Marius felt as though he’d just been hit in the gut, hard. Daniel had the weapon and what came from Shayna felt like she’d witnessed the holocaust. “What did you see?”