“Come, come. Up you go.”
Tatyana didn’t know how she found the strength or breath, but when he leaned down to grab her, she whipped against him like a Fury, finding the flesh of his arm and biting down for all she was worth. He was the one to scream. At first. Then he used his free hand to grab her by her hair and yank her head back as if he would rip it from her neck. The instant she let go and cried out, he swung out a powerful foot and kicked her square in the center of her back. Pain exploded down her spine and across her chest. He flung her forward into the wood floor, and her face hit with a brutal smash. He kicked her again in the stomach, and again in the face. Tatyana had no clue how to cope with this brutal attack. All she could do was cry out under each blow. Soon, she was blank with agonizing pain and dizziness, just like a limp doll, too stunned to move.
Asher grabbed hold of her and flung her up onto the bed.
“No reason why we can’t get comfortable,” he said, chuckling to himself as if he’d made a fabulous joke. He arranged her limp limbs to his liking and hovered over her. “Now, I like a feisty girl as much as the next guy,” he said, showing her the blood running down his bitten arm, “but if they see this, then they will know it was me in here. The whole point is to keep them guessing, now isn’t it?”
Tatyana watched through swelling eyes as he fished into his back pocket and stuck a square packet between his teeth. She realized it was a condom just as he grabbed for the skirt of her dress.
Tatyana screamed.
“Oh yeah, baby. Music to my ears! Never was into sloppy seconds, but this time, I gotta make the exception.”
She tried to hit him, sobbing hysterically as she flailed and kicked out, but he just seemed to enjoy it as he wedged himself between her legs and unbuckled his belt.
“Aww, don’t be like that. Look, honey.” He held up the foil packet. “I’m practicing safe sex, which, I gotta say, some people around here obviously haven’t been doing. But hey, maybe he doesn’t mind getting his bastard on you, right? Unless you’re on the pill? Are you on the pill? Cause I would just love to ride bareback. Been a long time. Yes? No? Not going to tell? Okay, how about we save the bareback until I flip you over? Hmm?” Asher laughed when her eyes went wide with increased horror and she tried to fight him off again, screaming as hard and as loud as she could, deafening her assailant. “Uh oh, I think someone’s a virgin! Oh God, you just made me hard as a rock, honey. Wanna see?”
“Show me, you miserable little fuck!”
Hunter reached for Asher and, grabbing him by his clothing, tore him off the bed and flung him with all of his might into the wall across the room. Asher hit the wall and slid down hard to the floor. Giving him no time to recover, Hunter grabbed him again and punched him over and over across the face, pausing only to shake out his hand when he struck it wrong. To his shock, Asher used that instant to cast a powerful single-word spell, sending Hunter exploding back across the room, slamming the back of his body into a dresser near the foot of the bed.
The rage in the room was overwhelming. Tatyana’s battered body reacted violently and she rolled to vomit over the side of the bed. Her head screeched with agony as more people ran into the room, adding to the cacophony of shock and horror. She saw Asher standing up in front of the window, throwing out his arms in a theatrical shrug.
“I guess this means I’m caught. Oh, damn.”
Then he turned and flung himself straight through the glass of the window. Tatyana heard a woman scream, and a man shouted. Shadows rushed toward the window.
She lost consciousness.
Ryce, Nox, and Annali looked out of the window in horror at Asher’s body lying in the snow at broken angles, blood coloring the white of it red.
“Sweet Mother, Ryce! Do something!” Annali screamed.
“Leave him,” Hunter rasped as he picked himself up from the floor. “Let the bastard rot!”
“Hunter!” Annali gasped, aghast as she spun around.
That was when she saw Tatyana in the bed for the first time. Her hand flew to her mouth in dismay as the world of her nightmares seemed to come to life right before her eyes. Hunter staggered over to the bed to Tatyana, covering her beaten body with his own, gathering her to himself as unmitigated fury burned tears into his eyes. He cradled her gently, trying to comfort and inspect all at once, his throat clogging with emotion as he encountered her blood everywhere he turned. It was an image he had prayed never to come across again in his lifetime. He had seen it once, eleven years ago, when he and Ryce had rescued Annali from Evan’s pit of hell. Now, to see it here, in Willow House ... the idea was inconceivable.
“Annie,” he croaked out as he rocked his burden in his embrace. “Annie, help me.”
“Nox, see to Asher,” Ryce instructed quietly. “If he survived, put him in stasis. I want answers for this. I don’t know who did this, but you can damn well be sure it wasn’t Asher McBride. Annali, help Hunter.”
“What are you ... ?”
“I’m going to find Kaia and Dimitre.”
Annali nodded and hurried to the bedside where she was needed.
“Ryce, be careful. This could be exactly what they want,” she warned him, panic causing her heart to race madly.
“If someone got to Asher, then they could have gotten Kaia and Dimitre. This girl is not going to wake up”—Ryce pointed to Tatyana and his voice broke—“to hear me say her brother is dead.”
“No!” Annali gasped. “No! I would know! She would have known!”
“Annie!” Ryce barked. “You keep on task! You help her! I won’t bring Dimitre home to a dead sister either!”
Annali swallowed back her sobs and nodded, tears spilling down her face. Ryce turned and leapt out of the same window Asher had, except he cast a flight spell that sent him soaring across the property. Nox followed suit, lowering himself gently to the ground in Asher’s wake.
Annali turned to the stark tableau waiting for her. It wasn’t until she really saw Hunter’s eyes that she realized he had come to care for the little redhead far more deeply and swiftly than anyone had expected. She touched his shoulder gently, drawing his attention to her.
“Let’s take her out of this room. It’s freezing in here. She will need you, so let’s bring her to your suite.”
“Okay, what the hell? I finally get service and no one at the house is answering?” Kaia shook her head, the straight fall of her black hair rustling against the collar of her coat. “Something isn’t right”
“I’ve been saying that since this whole damn trip started,” Dimitre hissed. “No cells. No landlines. Being forced to stop overnight. I don’t like it. It’s too damn coincidental.”
“Or ... you’re just the most paranoid person there is and now you’ve got me thinking the same way.” Kaia sighed and rubbed at her forehead.
“What kind of Healer gets a headache, anyway?” he teased her, prompting her to backhand him in the chest just like his sisters always did. He laughed and kept his eyes on the road ahead.
“Any Healer who spends a week with you,” she retorted. “I swear I can’t wait to meet your sister. I have to meet any woman who put up with you for years and survived.”
“Annali puts up with me just fine.”
“Well, that’s because she is blinded by love. When the sex and lust wear off, you’d better start to behave, buddy.”
“The sex and lust are never wearing off,” he chuckled. “Annali and I—oh shit!”
Dimitre slammed on the brakes when he saw something land in the middle of the road in front of the car. It was a huge mistake on such icy roads. The car started to skid and then, just as suddenly, it stopped. Kaia and Dimitre jerked in their seats from whiplash and they both grunted as their seatbelts tightened with bruising force. Dimitre was the first to recover, quickly checking on his passenger before looking out of the window.
“Ryce!”
“By the Lady!” Kaia hissed. “Let me out of here ’cause now I’m going to hit him!” She ya
nked her seatbelt free and scrambled out of the car as Ryce lowered his hands from the seize spell he had used to stop their skid. Dimitre was right behind her.
“Are you out of your mind?”
“You just took an eon off my life, Ryce Champion!” Kaia shouted.
“Kaia, Dimitre, something has happened and you are needed at the house immediately.”
Kaia knew Ryce best, so she knew that when he spoke in that tone it meant something very, very bad had gone down. Dimitre was instantly subdued as well, not as familiar with the tone, but taking it just as seriously because both the woman he loved and his baby sister were in that house.
“It’s twenty minutes by car,” Dimitre said, looking back at his vehicle.
“We may not have twenty minutes. I need you both. Now.”
Dimitre whipped back around to face the High Priest, his heart beginning to thunder with dread. He could understand him needing Kaia, because she could heal, but there was only one of two reasons why Ryce would need him right away.
Annali or Tatyana.
“Take us. Now,” he demanded.
“Hold on. This could feel a little strange,” Ryce warned.
Then he cast a teleportation spell, sending the three of them on their way.
Braen was furious.
“Odessa!” he bellowed savagely as he stormed through Belladonna House. “Odessa, get your Goth ass down here right now, damn you!”
“I’m right here,” she said dryly from a nearby alcove. She was leaning against the wall with her arms folded beneath her small breasts, dressed in a sheer black negligee that was split up the entire length of the gown to just below her crotch. She wore black patent leather knee boots with it, and a matching black garter and stocking set. Her hair was slicked back, possibly because she was fresh out of the shower. “Someone is in a foul temper,” she observed. “Something wrong, lover?”
“Wrong? No, actually, everything is just fine now.”
Braen grabbed her by the arm, marched her into the nearest room with furniture in it, and threw her ahead of himself. She laughed as she caught her balance and turned to face him, hands on her slim hips and darkly painted lips pouting.
“Aww, honey, what happened?”
They were in the dining room, which was fine with Braen. It provided a nice table. He grabbed Odessa by the arm again and flung her into the table. She sprawled against it and he caught her and turned her, forcing her to bend at the waist until she was facedown against the polished surface and he was kicking her feet apart. He grabbed the sheer silk thing she wore and tore it furiously from her pale body. Odessa snickered, until he struck her hard across her bared backside. Then she gasped.
She wasn’t wearing panties, which he found frustrating because he would have liked to have torn those away, too. He jerked at his own clothing, freeing the raging erection he’d had been suffering with for the past half hour. He reached for a condom and tore it open, prepping himself in record time. Without preparing Odessa anymore than he already had with his rough handling, he jammed himself up inside of her. She squealed, partly from the pain of his raw entry and partly from excitement.
Braen reached out and grabbed her by the back of her neck and started to pump into her with brutal force.
“Now, you scream for me! You hear me? Scream!”
Realizing what he wanted, Odessa instantly began to struggle against him. Fighting him hard and screeching for him to stop. The play made her wet, quickly, easing his thrusts into her enough to provide him with an opportunity for more speed. Braen took advantage savagely, gritting his teeth together as he kept repeating himself.
“Scream. No one can hear you. No one will rescue you! Oh, Christ ... !”
It didn’t bother Odessa when he came almost instantly. She knew he’d make it up to her later.
Charter Fifteen
Tatyana awoke with a savage indrawn gasp, jerking into an upright position. She regretted it instantly as fire exploded across her ribs and face. Large, warm hands reached out to take hold of her and she screamed. Jerking around, she looked up into cerulean blue eyes. Recognizing Hunter, she immediately threw her arms around his neck, suffering from the contact with her bruised and battered body, but unable to do anything else but hug him to her.
“Shh, baby, shh. You’re safe. I’ve got you.”
“Oh God!” she sobbed. “I thought ... he said you couldn’t hear me!”
“I will always hear you!” he promised her fiercely. “No magic can interfere with a blood bond, angel. He didn’t know you were mine. Thank the blessed Maiden.”
“He was so evil! How did he get in this house? I thought we were safe in the house from him!”
“Oh, honey...”
“I know you fear you’re just like him, but you aren’t! You could never be!” She sobbed harder, barely able to catch her breath as her ribs kicked back horrid pain with every indrawn breath.
Hunter looked over the bed to Annali, fear in his eyes at Tatyana’s incoherence.
“She might have a concussion,” Annali said quietly as she reached to extend one of her fragrant cups of tea to him.
“I need a bath,” Tatyana whispered. “Please. Please.”
Annali bit her lip, remembering the sentiment all too well.
“Take her in. It can’t hurt her and it will calm her down.”
“He’s all over me,” Tatyana sobbed. “He wanted to soil me to get revenge on you. And I didn’t see him ... I didn’t know until he was on me!”
“Shh” Hunter tried to soothe her as he swallowed back impotent rage. He no longer had a target to direct it toward, and for her sake he needed to keep calm. “Let’s go get you your bath, angel.”
“So much fury,” she murmured as he picked her up from the bed and carried her inside the bathroom. “Don’t let go!” She cried out the protest when he went to set her down in order to fill the tub. Annali stayed him with a touch on his back, reaching to do it for him, filling the tub with the hottest water she could bear, knowing only that would satisfy.
As if timed perfectly, Tatyana and Annali both gasped and raised their heads.
“Dimitre,” they both exclaimed.
Annali all but burst into tears to know he was safe and to feel him in the house, coming closer to her.
“No, no, no. No, Hunter. No.” Tatyana shook her head and buried her face against his chest. “No. He can’t. I can’t”
“I’ll tell him, Tatyana,” Annali said softly. “Don’t worry, sugar. I’ll keep him away until you’re ready.”
“He’s stubborn.”
“Darlin’, I’ve lived with the man for two months. You think I don’t know this?”
Hunter almost dropped to his knees when he saw Tatyana smile. Annali hurried out of the room, trying to figure out how she could stop Dimitre from doing an end run around her even though he would sense Tatyana’s pain.
“Let’s get you in the water. Kaia’s here now and she can heal you up.”
“Don’t leave me.”
“I’m not leaving you,” he promised.
“Come with me,” she clarified.
Hunter hesitated as he understood her request. He didn’t think it was a wise idea at all, considering factors like the trauma she had suffered and a big brother in the house. He was amazed she was letting a man anywhere near her.
“You aren’t Braen,” she whispered against his ear.
Now where had that come from? he wondered.
“If Dimitre comes up here, he isn’t going to like it very much if he finds you in a bath with me.”
“I need you,” she said softly, her jade eyes fluttering open. “In the tub or out, you still have to help me bathe. Annali will keep him away. She has magic.”
Hunter turned a smile against her hair. She said that as if Annali were the only one with magic. Perhaps as far as Dimitre was concerned, she was right.
“Okay, honey. If you really want me to.” Her affirmative was to pluck open the top two buttons of hi
s shirt. He gently caught her hand in his, stilling it. “Your job is to relax and wait for me to do this myself. Got it?”
“Yes.”
Since the tub was sunk into the floor, it made sense to go in together. He set her down and held her steady with one hand while he stripped himself with the other. He watched her warily, especially when he went for his belt, looking for any adverse reactions from her. In truth, she just seemed impatient. She was in pain, feeling who knew what kinds of emotions, and waiting for him to obey her demands. He kicked away his clothes, bent to lift her up again, and carried her into the hot water.
“Holy hell! She made this hot!” he complained.
“Mmm. Feels good.”
Once he had them in the water, the jets tumbling lightly in a way he hoped soothed her without hurting her, he expected she would want some distance. Instead, she settled in his lap and kept her arms around his neck. She laid her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes. Hunter knew she had likely busted some ribs. It couldn’t be a comfortable position for her, yet she acted like it was heaven on earth.
“Thank you,” she murmured.
“Anything you need, angel. Just ask me.”
“I mean thank you for saving me from Braen.”
Hunter’s brow furrowed as he tried to figure out why she was choosing now to thank him for that. It was too odd.
“You’re welcome,” he said with a mental shrug. Asher had severely scrambled her head, he figured.
She relaxed against him fully, calming down enough that he couldn’t feel the thundering fear rushing through her blood any longer. She sighed and started to pet him along his throat, shoulder, and chest.
“You’re so pretty,” she said with a little smile.
Hunter had to smile back at that, kissing her temple gently.
“So are you,” he said. “Are you okay? Want to turn?”
“Okay,” she agreed, letting him turn her gingerly until she was sitting in the water between his legs, her back to his chest as she reclined along the length of his body. “Kaia’s coming,” she sighed.