Unchained (Men in Chains Book 3) (7 page)

Oh, God.

But I will give you a choice. If you don’t think you can see the rest, I’ll take you away right now.
She heard the compassion in his voice and knew he’d be as good as his word.

She grew very still, processing. What she’d seen so far made her want to throw up. Yet somehow, she couldn’t speak the words ordering him to get her the hell out of here.

Do I want to leave? Yes. But, God help me, I’ll stay.
She swallowed really hard, brushing away her tears. Though she hated speaking the words that followed, she had to say them.
Show me everything you intended to earlier. Don’t hold anything back because you’re right; I need to see this for so many reasons. I live in my clean, simple, protected university world, but this is reality. I have to do this.

*   *   *

It was at this moment, feeling Shayna tremble and knowing through the blood-chains that she was suffering, that Marius knew his relationship with this woman would never be simple. What he had just put her through, no woman should ever have to watch, the violation of her own gender.

And now she’d agreed to see the rest.

She showed tremendous courage when she should have been out of her mind, hysterical, even enraged that he would dare to disrupt her life and her worldview in this way. She should have demanded that he take her home.

Instead she’d faced up to the situation and chosen the harder path.

He barely knew her, but what he sensed through the chains, what he’d examined online about her life, and now her decision to see the rest of Daniel’s operation spoke of her character and her abilities. He approved of her and his damn heart swelled.

I promise you that I’ll make this quick for your sake.

He shut his emotions down, knowing that he was about to put Shayna through an unimaginable hell. In his own mind, he set up the course he’d take, traveling at the fringes of Daniel’s immense operation in order to avoid detection. At the same time, he’d layer the level of atrocity and sexual violations she’d have to witness, beginning with the mildest first. There were a couple of venues, involving animals, he’d avoid altogether.

But she’d be witness to the rest.

Let’s go.

She didn’t say anything but her arm tightened around his neck. In turn, he held her more firmly at her waist. All the while, she continued to stream his power.

He flew deeper still and showed her a vast holding pen in an enormous cavern. The whole place was kept filthy in order to continue demoralizing the women, all of whom were naked and chained at the neck, and at the wrists and ankles. Hundreds milled around feeding troughs, or open latrines. Fights broke out. Groups of guards armed with Tasers raped or beat the women at will.

Daniel makes them live like animals to break them. He starves them and gives the guards license to do whatever they want. The women are sorted here as well. Those who show spirit, who aren’t broken, are usually sent to auctions and go to the highest bidders. Those vampires who buy at auction tend to be the worst sadists, the ones who want women who will hold on to their humanity as long as they can while being brutalized in calculated stages.

The women who become dominant, who will hurt other women to survive, are put in sex shows and orgies. Some work in the cavern system for as long as two years. But Shayna, very few live beyond the two-year point. This is a death sentence. Sometimes it happens quickly. At least two percent won’t leave this holding area.

She was very quiet, and he sensed she was shut down in order to handle what he was showing her.

Next, he took her to the adjoining bathing rooms where guards oversaw the cleanup of women ready to be moved through the system. Even here, the women were slapped or beaten, forced to become docile or risk being hurt again.

He flew up this time at a shallow angle to an open sex club with a ring of private booths and a large pit in which male vampires brutalized more women. A few slaves served drinks, but sex acts were rampant everywhere, as was the use of drugs. Vampires liked opiates.

It’s the screaming.
Shayna’s voice sounded small and wounded within his head.

Unfortunately, the screams are part of the thrill.

She was trembling now and couldn’t seem to stop. But she didn’t say anything more. He pressed on, even though there was worse to come.

He took her through several private suites, slowing his pace only long enough for her to see and to understand. The individual woman, or sometimes several women, were being bitten, cut, and hung in chains, or laid out on tables, bound, and held spread-eagled, sometimes on their backs, sometimes on their stomachs. More than one died as he moved her from room to room. The floors were mostly made of cement with drains, the easiest ways to keep a slavery situation free of debris once a session was over.

Shayna’s body stiffened next to his. He knew what was coming. Again, couldn’t be helped.

Marius, I’m gonna throw up.

As before, he drifted into solid rock.
Just let it go.

She heaved repeatedly.
Does it get worse than this?

No, not worse, just more. I’ll breeze you through the rest only to give you a feel for the volume of this setup.

Okay, because I really can’t take much more.

I know. We’re almost done.

She wept now and as she slid her arm around his neck, she kept wiping at her face.
I can’t stop crying.

I know. It’s okay.
He realized tears of his own had started leaking from his eyes. He’d lived with this a long time, but experiencing everything fresh through Shayna’s eyes just plain hurt. The blood-chain let him experience all that she felt.

For the next several minutes he moved swiftly, passing through club after club, each with a slightly different theme, but always with women, and a few male humans, being raped and often tortured.

Finally, he wanted her to see where Daniel had held him captive, trying one last time to strip away Marius’s determination to hold on to his view of what their world should be.

Shayna, this last place I’ll be taking you is where Daniel recently tortured me. I need you to see, to understand what he did, so that you can also understand where I’m coming from.

Okay.
Again, her voice had shrunk down.

But when he arrived, passing through a long stretch of solid rock, he was horrified to discover that a number of the bodies hadn’t been removed. These were the corpses of the women that Daniel had killed in front of Marius in an attempt to force his hand.

I don’t understand. What is this?

Shayna, I’m sorry. I thought this space would have been cleared by now. Let’s get out of here.

No. Wait. You brought me here for a reason, so let’s finish this. Why were so many women killed here and what did it have to do with you?

Marius stayed in altered flight. He’d intended to set down, but not now. He felt the horror return, and for a moment was back in chains forced to watch each death.

Marius, tell me. I need to know.

He gestured in a forward motion.
I was strung up against that far wall. Daniel used a whip on me and a dagger at times for deep puncture wounds. He used the pain to try to force me to join him. Each time I refused, he tortured and killed another woman.

Oh, God.
She took more deep breaths.
Is this why you feel so guilty?

One of many reasons, I’m afraid.

Marius, something is wrong. I’m feeling something strange. I think you need to get us out of here now.

He didn’t know what she meant by that. But the next moment he heard a voice behind him.
Hello, son. Have you returned to me at last?

As soon as Marius heard his father’s voice, he reacted on instinct, refusing to turn to face him. Instead he gripped Shayna harder still and a split second later shot straight up through the cavern system, into the air, hurling them both in the direction of The Erotic Passage.

He opened a telepathic channel to Rumy.
Daniel found us. We’re coming to you.

Aw, shit. I can’t let you in by either the front or the back door because Daniel left some of his men here in case you came back. Looks like he’s determined to take you down this time.

Then I need fighting support.
He glanced back and saw that Daniel was keeping pace and had a large detail with him.
I’m thinking we go with one of our earlier plans involving your security team. Daniel has about twenty men with him.

How far out are you?

Two minutes.

Jesus H. Christ. What? Are you like flying at super-Ancestral level?

Hell if I know. I’m just damn determined to save Shayna.

All right. All right. Let me think.

Marius knew there was no place in the vampire world he’d be safe with Shayna, not right now, not with Daniel so close.

Marius had a safe house in New Zealand that Daniel didn’t know about, but if he’d headed there with Shayna, Daniel could have followed them, just as he was doing now.

His only hope was in facing off with Daniel and his force, making use of Rumy’s security personnel. Rumy could summon at least a hundred men, but it might take a few minutes.

The only problem was speed. Rumy would have to orchestrate and pull his team together while Daniel was right on Marius’s ass.

Timing would be critical.

However, Marius was confident he could hold them off long enough for Rumy’s men to arrive.

As he flew the last stretch to Italy, Marius now questioned his wisdom in taking Shayna to the Dark Cave system in the first place. Except that in his desperation, he was hoping against hope that if she actually saw the atrocities committed against her people, then she might be willing to engage with him and help him find the extinction weapon.

It had been a last-ditch effort that might just prove fatal to Shayna. Then he’d have one more death on his hands.

But what else was fucking new?

Rumy came back on the telepathic line.
Okay, we’re moving to plan B. I’ll contact you as soon as I have a location locked in, about thirty seconds.

Got it.
Plan B involved Rumy setting up a battlefield deep inside the Como system, well away from the various clubs and restaurants associated with The Erotic Passage.

Because Marius was flying at top speed, he could feel that pain piercing Shayna’s head once more; even the power she streamed from the blood-chains wasn’t helping.

Marius, can you slow down? You haven’t gone this fast before.

I can’t, because Daniel’s after us. Just hold on. I’ll be putting us down in less than a minute.

Hurry. Oh, God, the pain. It’s worse than before.
She started to scream.

Shayna, I’m so sorry.

He felt nothing but relief when she passed out.

CHAPTER 4

When Rumy came back on the line, he said,
I’ve got it set it up and my men are on the way.
He then sent Marius a visual.

Marius homed in on the image until he locked onto the exact cavern.
Got it.

I’m sending my toughest two dozen. But they’ll come in waves because they were on maneuvers in the north. Just keep Daniel talking. That bastard loves the sound of his own voice.

Thank you, Rumy.

Just stay alive. We need you, Marius.
He felt Rumy shut the communication down.

Marius was only seconds out now. Once at Lake Como, he headed into the hills and dipped through solid rock. He could feel the cavern’s pull on him as he held the image fixed in his mind.

When he reached the location, he shifted from altered flight to regular levitation then sought out a stretch of even ground close to the cavern wall. At the same time, he started building the layered shield that Gabriel had taught him to construct. With any luck, Daniel wouldn’t find him right away.

With great care, he laid Shayna next to the rock wall, then rose up, turning to face into the massive cavern space. The area was completely unimproved. The ground was boulder-strewn, with scattered pools of old water, as well as a number of stalactites and stalagmites, the dripstone making it hard to do battle. Rumy had chosen the place well.

He hated that this was the best he could do, but he didn’t have an auxiliary fighting force like Rumy did. Building an army in his world was illegal.

Just as Daniel and his men started to arrive, he pulled two long battle chains from deep, narrow pockets in his leathers, then started them spinning. He still held his disguise, but Daniel took one long look around the cavern and began spacing his men out.

Then he turned to Marius because he could see right through his layered shield. Daniel waved an arm and Marius’s disguise faltered and fell away. Shit. Just when he thought he knew the breadth of Daniel’s power.

“Don’t be a fool, son. I don’t want to kill Shayna or you, but I’m so sick of you boys rebelling. It’s been four hundred years and you’d think by now life would have shaped you up and brought you to serve at my feet.”

“Then you shouldn’t have hurt us like you did. We would have had no reason to rebel otherwise.” Stating the goddamn obvious.

Daniel looked as he always did, like an elegant dictator. He wore an expensive, tailored suit of dark-blue silk and a goatee trimmed close, with his short, dark hair slicked back. He had unforgettable eyes, teal, and flecked with gold. Marius shared the gold flecks but his eyes were a less impressive hazel, a distinction Marius preferred.

Daniel represented everything evil in their world and Marius hated him with a passion. Like all the Briggs boys, Daniel had tortured Marius, slicing the length of his spine and flaying him open again and again in order to preserve the scar for posterity. Only repeated cuts could leave a scar on a vampire. Daniel called it a character-building exercise. That’s how he justified his pleasure in brutalizing his children. How often had he heard Daniel say that the beatings, cuttings, and slicings-up would make men of his sissy-boys.