Cursed by Chemistry (12 page)

She grasped the cell door to steady herself then jerked it to near-closed behind her. She turned, and with shaking hands, she nudged the door closer and closer to flush. Maybe no one would notice it wasn’t shut completely.

Pushing Adrian out of his comfort level would be a lot easier if she knew
where
his comfort level was. You’d think Mr. Everything in Moderation Man would look a little out of place in this anything for ejaculation environment.

Nope, he looked right at home.

If he didn’t give in, if he didn’t rescue her, she’d get the hell out on her own.

But how?

Think.
She pressed her back to the gritty wall and deep into the shadows.
Use your brain. Think.

But her brain seemed too busy flinging insults for getting into this situation. Her heart, hammering for rescue, wasn’t helping much either. Hell, even the demon-brat who got her here wasn’t finding
this
amusing.

The remaining herd clattered over the cobblestone floor with skips and spins. Amazing how delighted they seemed. Like imprisonment was next best to Disneyland.

That’s where she was. Trapped. In an X-rated version of Pinocchio.

O’s warning echoed through the hall from somewhere ahead of her cell. “Here come your hawks.”

Now would be a great time to disappear.

Shauna shifted from one foot to the other. Hands up, she readied to thrust the door open. When the last person passed her, she’d make a run for it.

The cellblock fell quiet. Only the distant gurgle of the pond fountain met her anxious breaths. She edged forward.

She halted when a shadow eclipsed her cell.

Adrian’s broad shoulders were steady set and unyielding as he passed her door.

The cold press of the metal bars knocked against either side of Shauna’s temples as she reached for him. Her door hinged open a bit with a low groan. She pulled it back just as quick. She tried again. “
Psst. Hey
.”

Adrian strolled out of reach to a cell several doors down and across the hall, as if he had the world’s best headphones and all the time in the world. As if the stupid cell had his name engraved on it.
Nanny-nerd of the month. All violators will be towed
.

Adrian pivoted to face her as he reached for his door. The look of resentment never broke as he pulled the gate shut with an ominous click.

Stubborn. Shauna stepped back, and her arms fell to her sides. What did he have to go and do that for? With his cell locked, he couldn’t reach her even if he wanted to.

Her heart tensed. Maybe he didn’t want to reach her. From the scowl that pulled at the corners of his mouth and the shadow that darkened his eyes, he’d rather leave her for dead.

She scanned the dingy corners of her cell, fighting the hurt that threatened to consume her. So this was it. He’d never give in.

There had to be a way out, a loophole, something. She couldn’t trust any of these people to form an alliance against Adrian. The ploy ended here. These people played for flesh.

She eyed the strange, dangling pendulum of Velcro and chains poised in the center of the room. Its metal links clinked together when the adjoining cell slammed shut. She wanted a chance to appeal to Adrian. He still didn’t understand her dire need for his help. But she didn’t want to show him this way. Not like this.

She expected to see a flock of plundering hawks swoop past her cage. It wasn’t the case. They wandered by with measured steps. But they didn’t choose anyone. They paced back and forth behind the portly ringmaster. They wandered a bit but they always returned to him, waiting for a final nod for deployment.

“Swing, baby bird,” called the female hawk to the cell nearest Shauna’s. Soft, yet somewhat orchestrated moans filtered into the hall. The hawk sneered. “Spread your legs and fly.”

Shauna turned to the apparatus in the center of her cage. Some sort of sex swing?

She tucked back her chin. This wasn’t Cirque Du Soleil. That key better be worth more than freedom and frolicking in a garden if they wanted Shauna anywhere near that thing. No telling where it’s been.

The Orchestrator paused. Shook his head as if not convinced, and motioned the female hawk towards the moaning cell.

“Aww, but I wanted that one,” cried a man from across the hall.

The female hawk turned from adjusting the strap-on dildo on her hips, giving the complainer her full, ten-inch profile.

The man put both hands up in an I-surrender pose. “Never mind.”

The ringmaster—or whatever he called himself—ignored the hawk’s delicate snort and the muffled snicker from the adjoining cells. Instead, he bubbled with animation as he neared Adrian’s cell. The Oracle paused from his hippity-hop routine just a few feet from Adrian’s cell. Was there anything more repulsive than a leprechaun jig of that size?

“So do you like the new curtains?” O’s words ran together with pent-up excitement. He ignored Adrian’s look of irritation, as usual, and his eyes widened with feigned surprise. “No? Didn’t notice? Well, I guess that wouldn’t be the first thing on your mind. We have made a few bigger changes,” he allowed.

Adrian’s teeth scraped against each other and sent shockwaves of pain up his jaw.

O offered a hand gesture to the row of hawks prowling the hall behind him. “Not quite the same potency as the legend of Adrian Sands, but we do our best to maintain a similar flavor.”

Adrian’s upper lip twitched on the verge of disgust before he clenched his mouth shut. Flavor? Hard to mask the rancid stench of blood and sewage that had seeped into the concrete floor over the years. To make it extra cozy, add the overproduction of vanilla bean incense and the cheap perfume and body odor that tainted every reachable surface.

Adrian’s gag reflux twitched.

O’s thick, sandy brows drew together in sympathy. He ticked along the row of bars with his index finger as he paced Adrian’s cell. “Of course, not even my strongest hawk holds a candle to you.”

Adrian’s fist clenched at the chance to latch onto O’s neck and slam him back and forth against the bars like a paddleball. He may have spent his youth poaching pretties here, but he never hurt people. Domination, pain, rape, the very thought dropped a cold stone in his gut.

His peripheral vision anchored to the cell Shauna had stepped into. His mind geared-up for the slightest of movement from her cowering silhouette. Too dark in there to see much. Wise choice.

The Oracle angled his body to the cell adjacent to Adrian. “Just look at them.”

At the first hint of attention, the willowy man in the cell tossed back his mop of candy-cane highlights and flattened his chest against the cage. His voice strained with desperation. “Please. Let me out?” He snaked up and down the metal, blanching his colorless skin.

Might want to think twice before licking those bars, buddy.

The hawks paid no attention. They continued their dead-from-the-waist-up march up and down the hall. Their bare feet slapped the floor in steady rhythm.

“What’s taking so long?” muttered a woman from somewhere down the row.

Judging from the crowd, the rape and pillage was running a bit behind schedule.

The candy-cane man’s attention veered to a passing hawk. In a blink, his bony arms hooked between the narrow bars, his hands contorted into claws. He lunged for the steroid-swollen gym rat. Missed. “Come back,” he insisted. His pale featured contorted in outrage, then eased again. “I’ll do anything…”

O slowed his words as if musing to himself. “Look at how they react to the very thought of getting what you offered here.” He turned. “They’ve missed you.”

“They’ve missed the drugs,” Adrian muttered.

“Not really.” The Oracle pinched his thumb and forefinger together, as if holding the most precious grain of wisdom he’d ever found. His voice lowered to a serpent’s hush. “You see, as far as they know, the drug never left. It just became a little
difficult
to obtain.”

“You mean impossible.”

“Yeah, pretty much.” The O brightened. “Hey, business is business. They know the risk. None of these people are being held
or forced
against their will.”

Adrian took a menacing step forward. “Or under false pretenses?”

“Sketchy pretenses at best.”

His vision narrowed.

The O stepped back and held up his palms. “You can’t go blaming me. You started this, honey. This was
your
game.”

No denying that.

Finding pleasure in another person didn’t come easy. Not unless it came five-three with honey-streaked curls. Legs limber and toned from jumping fences, and a dusting of freckles earned from days spent thieving through Jensen’s summer garden.

A little hard to come by in an underground sex club.

So Adrian used his apothecarian gift to bend reality. A lot.

Only he saw the illusion through the air-light, undetectable powder. The women had no idea. It never lasted longer than a quickie, and it didn’t work more than once on the same person. Perfect excuse to leave his relationships at the club the way they belonged. Short and meaningless.

But as with any of his novice concoctions, it came with a side effect. And this one fell right into the Oracle’s food bowl. The residual powder that had dusted his one-night-stands left them with a rather gratifying taste. Or so he was told. The end result? A bunch of middle-aged, mental-Aphrodites offering themselves as the club buffet.

Night after night, no one could get enough. Passion turned to greed, then anger, violence. For the women, attention was attention.

Months later, when the effect finally wore off, the women went from seasoned steak to stale cardboard. By then, violence was the only thing left. O had been gnawing on the leftovers ever since.

The Oracle shrugged. “What did you expect? I can’t
undo
what you’ve created here. When you left, this place became…watered down.” He scrunched his nose.

“Not my problem.” Adrian’s peripheral vision yanked back to Shauna’s cell as one of the smaller, male hawks paced by.

The hawk hesitated. He turned his full attention to Shauna’s door.

Did he notice that she’d left it slightly ajar? Probably trying to hedge her bets?

No. The man didn’t close it. He waited. He’d chosen Shauna as his first victim and was waiting for the order to strike.

Adrian worked to ignore the blast of anger powering through his veins. His gaze raced over the hawk’s profile. He calipered the man’s stance and the width of his shoulders. He sniffed. The sharp tang of gunpowder told him the guy packed heat on a regular basis. Not used to relying on muscle.

He could take him.

Blind him, that’s possible. Distract him, maybe. But the urge to bust through the bars and smash a hole in the bastard’s skull sounded best.

Forget the Oracle’s demands or teaching that stubborn Barbie her lesson. Game’s up. This ends now.

The Oracle moved to block his view. The edges of his smug grin plied into his fatty cheeks. “Not your problem? You sure? Because in case you hadn’t noticed, your little toy is scared out of her itty-bitty mind over there.”

“She’s not for this world, O.”

The Oracle snorted. “Well then, we wouldn’t want her to end up like the last one, would we?” O angled his head. “Probably never crossed your mind, did she? We kept her here.” He grinned. “Fed her more and more of your precious chocolate to keep her willful, but in the end,” he lifted a hand, “she didn’t much appreciate our accommodations. Is that what you want for your little doll? It’s not, is it?”

He erected his posture. “Because this one’s special. If I didn’t know better, I’d say this is the flavor you’ve been lusting after your entire life. Isn’t that right?”

If Adrian told Shauna to run…No, she’d never make it up the stairs and out the building. The patrons at the bar would take her rape as an everyday scene. They wouldn’t bat an eyelash.

Until their eyelashes singed off.

Shauna might be able to protect herself, but she shouldn’t have to. Damn if he shouldn’t have let her come down here in the first place. He should have been there to protect her the right way.

The first time.

If that guy touches her…

Adrian took deep breaths to clear the fog of rage clouding his mind. It must have registered on his face, because the Oracle’s voice grew louder and more urgent, as if trying to rise above the drumbeat in Adrian’s skull. “Give it to me, boy. I want the infusion, or that frat house memory of yours will be nothing! I’ll send my entire flock over there for a gang bang you’ll never scrape out of your mind.”

The word grated through Adrian’s clenched teeth. “All right.”

Seeming satisfied, the oracle stepped back. He waved over a female hawk. “You’ll start with a girl. That will be easier for you, right?” He jabbed a finger across the room. “Followed by him, then him.” He turned to face Adrian, his shoulders back. “Then me.”

“No.”

“No?” A look of profound hurt wrinkled his brow. “Where’d all those good manners of yours go, Mr. Sands…Sands…Adrian Sands?”

Adrian jerked his chin to the one facing Shauna’s cell. “Him first.”

“Oh.” The oracle paused. “O-okay.” He tittered with delight and waved the large hawk over with an urgent flap of his wrist. “And to think, after all these years. You rascal! I can’t wait to see this tall drink of water turn into a pink lemonade.”

O’s pudgy fingers jabbed at the key pad attached to the cell door. “Or maybe it’s to make your doll feel better about the whole thing.” He waved the option away. “Oh, who cares?” He laughed. “You can do me next.”

“It’s a drug. Not a miracle,” Adrian muttered.

“But you’re
the miracle worker
.” The Oracle’s face fell serious. “You better pray this works.”

The moment the lock clinked shut on Adrian’s door, O bounded back, rear end first, to his vantage point. His bulb-shaped body jiggled as he trotted from one foot to another.

Shauna rose up on her toes. She pressed her cheek to the cold, stone wall, desperate to spy any hint of movement from her slivered view of Adrian’s cage. A quick snap of O’s fingers had turned away the beast about to enter her cell—but at what cost?