Deceptive Lord (Lords of Bondage) (34 page)

The hybrid female approached and pointed at Eden.
“What is that?”

“Do not concern yourself, Marta.
It is only a slave.”

She sniffed the air as if she had caught a noxious stench.
“Do we really need another slave, Bel?
It is just another mouth to feed.”

Irritation was evident in Belenos’s tone as he interacted with Marta.
“A male cannot have too many slaves.”

Marta narrowed her eyes at him.
“Where are you taking her?”

He met her gaze brazenly.
“To my bedchambers.”

Marta shot a look of disdain toward Eden.
“Do you have to take her to our chambers, Bel?
Could you not take her elsewhere?”

“
Cease
your
whining, woman.
I prefer my own chambers.
You can come as well, if you’d like to join us.”

“No, Bel.”

Belenos yanked Eden closer to his body and groped her through her tunic.
“Yeah, I thought so.
”

Eden was pulled into a luxurious chamber that held a large bed and several dressers.
She assumed this was Belenos’s bedchamber.

“That was my mate, Marta.
You will cause her no trouble while you are here.
Now, remove your clothing
so that I can look at you before I fuck you.”

She looked at Belenos.
She had seen the laser gun inside his trench coat.
If she could get that gun, she could make her escape.
It would be hard to get to it without him noticing.
If she tried to get the gun and failed, he would kill her.
S
ince she was
pretend
ing
that she was entranced
, she had no choice but to remove her clothing.
When she was naked, she heard Belenos make a harsh breathing sound.

“It is only right that I have you, since I was the one who took you in the first place.
Come here, little pelt.”

She walked up to him and put her hands around his waist.
She wanted
access to the inside of his trench coat.
She heard him grunt and he began to squeeze her breast.

“I’ve got something for you, little pelt.
You’ll like it much better than Drest’s.
Why don’t you see what I’ve
got.
”

She moved one hand toward his crotch area, leaving the other free to search for the gun.
To distract him, she began to place random kisses on his face.

His voice was laced with frustration.
“Touch it already.”

She
grabbed him by the balls while she searched frantically for the gun.

He grunted in pain.
“That’s not quite what I had in mind, bitch.”
He
pushed her hand onto his hardened length.
“I know Drest had to train you better than that.”

She grasped him with one hand while she grabbed the laser gun with her other hand.
She would only have one chance to use it.
She had to remember how to take the gun off the safety mode without looking at it.
She had handled the laser gun once before; she closed her eyes and concentrated.
She knew it had two modes, stun and kill.
Either of those modes would work for her.
She slipped the gun from his trench coat, leapt backward, and aimed for his crotch area.
As she pulled the trigger,
s
he saw his eyes widen in shock
ed horror
for a split second
before he turned to ash.
The electrical sound
echoed in the room and her hands trembled violently.
She looked down and saw a pile of ash inches before her feet on the floor.
Her entire body started to shake while she pondered what to do next.
The sound would bring people eventually.
She forced her body to move, wiping up the ashes with a shirt from his closet.
She looked frantically for a place to hide the ashes.
There was some sort of decorat
ive
urn on a table; she grabbed it and dumped the ashes inside.
She threw on her tunic and grabbed the laser gun.
As she walked toward the door, it opened and Marta walked inside.

“I heard a noise.
Where is Belenos?” Marta asked.

Eden hid the gun behind her back.
“He had to go relieve himself.
He said he would be back shortly.”

“He left a slave unattended in our chambers?
He should know better than that.
Let me see your hands, slave.
I want to see both hands.”

She changed the mode to stun, pulled out the gun, and pulled the trigger.
Marta fell to the floor.
Eden crouched on top of Marta’s prone body.
She held her by the hair with one hand, and with her other hand, she held the gun to her head.
She waited for Marta to revive.
“I’ve set the gun to kill mode.
Transport me to the Kavanaugh lodge or I’ll shoot you.”

“What did you do to Bel?”

Eden pushed the gun into Marta’s skull with force, enough to convince her of the need for promptness.

“You have to let me up.
I can’t transport lying down.”

She allowed Marta to reach an upright position while she kept the gun plastered to her head.
In seconds, they had transported.
She had lost her grip on Marta during the transport, and a second later, the hybrid had vanished.
She looked around, but she could see very little due to the darkness.
She was not at the lodge; she was in the woods.
She had no idea how far from the lodge she was.
She didn’t even know if she was in Ravenwood.
She heard animal sounds in the distance,
including
low pitched
growls
and higher pitched keening and wailing sounds.
She knew there were wild animals in the area that could easily kill her.
She set off in a
northerly
direction, hoping she would eventually find signs of habitation.
She panicked when she heard a loud screeching sound nearby.
Her heart pounding and her arms shaking, she reflexively pulled the gun’s trigger.
The ground shook violently underneath her feet as the air cracked and groaned.
Branches slammed into her arm and caught in her hair.
She took a step forward and tripped over a log.
She broke her fall with her hands.
Another loud crash from above sounded a warning, but she could do little to protect herself from the falling debris.
She felt some leaves and
branches hit the back of her legs, pinning her to the ground.
Her fingernails dug into the dirt as she clawed at the
earth
, trying to pull herself
off the log.
A few minutes later, she pulled herself upright.
She could tell that the skin of her hands and knees were scraped and bleeding.
She made her way more slowly, trying not to trip over anything else.
It was too dark to see.
She still heard animal sounds, but she was afraid to use the gun.
She could end up getting killed by falling trees if she shot the gun again.
She couldn’t stay where she was, as Marta could come back for her.
Unless Marta was really dumb, she would probably deduct that she had killed her mate.
The hybrid
would probably send people after her
and they would want to kill her.
She didn’t have much time.

CHAPTER TWENTY-
SEVEN

Kambria
knew they were in trouble the instant the trespassers barged inside
.
She sent an instant telepathic message to Connal, hoping he was still receptive to her communication.
She assessed the situation, knowing they were in danger.
She thought the best solution would be to evacuate to safety by transporting, but Eden was standing too far away from her.
Just as she decided on an escape plan, Bran placed a collar around her neck.
She was effectively silenced and weakened.
She couldn’t transport.
Her tension rose to alarming levels when the two hybrids began to share their sickening plans.
She knew it was
pointless, but she tried anyway to assault one of the captors.
She wished she could have killed him, but the collar made her weak.
Bran had
beat
her with his fist and had transported them to a research lab.
She didn’t know what had happened to Eden, but she knew that Belenos had intended to take her and rape her.
She felt sick that she had failed to protect her.

Kambria
wondered what they planned to do to her at the research lab.
She didn’t have to wait long to learn her fate.
Bran was proud to tell her that he and Belenos were conducting research experiments.
He didn’t go into details about the nature of the experiments, but he did describe some of the ways in which he planned to utilize her.
He wanted
to study what would happen when a female hybrid bites a human.
That stunned her, as female hybrids didn’t do the biting.
Male hybrids initiated the markings.
She didn’t even know if it was possible for a female to initiate a mating.
When she expressed this idea, Bran wasted no time in correcting her.

“I have proof that it has been done before.
You have fangs, so it makes sense that they can be used for the same purpose as male fangs.
They are not just decorative ornaments, darling.
I will teach you how to use your fangs.”
Bran led her into a room in the compound.

She was shocked to see rows of beds, all containing foreign males.
They were in chains, of course, as they were unwilling research participants and not volunteers.
She looked at them in horror.
They were naked and they were not well cared for, as evidenced by their bruised and broken bodies.
They were dirty and underfed.
Most of them didn’t look at her
; they stared unseeingly at the ceiling.
“I cannot believe you have done this.
You are torturing these poor souls.”

“They are nothing more than lab rats.
We only took humans.
These males are all of Roman and Flourdan blood.
I want you to pick
one,
one that you think will take a marking.
Bite one of these rats.”

“I cannot do such a thing.
Even if I could mark someone, why would I mark a human?”

“You may not care for it, but I didn’t ask your preferences, now did I?”
He walked to a cot and pointed at an emaciated male.
“Bite this one or I will kill him.”
He took a laser gun out of his pocket and aimed it at the male’s head.

“Bran, think of what you are doing!
You cannot hold me prisoner.
I am a hybrid of good family.”

Bran pulled the trigger and the human turned to ash on the mattress.
“I can do whatever I want.
You are naught but a whore.
A hybrid whore, which is a rare thing indeed.
Your family disowned you so you have no
name to cling to.
No one will even waste time looking for you.”

“Drest will search for me.”

“He will search for a time, and then he will lose interest.
He hasn’t even bothered to join any of the search parties for Brennus.
He’ll spend all his energies searching for that slave of his.
By the time he gives up on that search, he will have forgotten all about you.
This grows tedious.
Bite the next male, or I’ll shoot him dead.”

Kambria couldn’t stop herself from trembling.
She knew he meant it; he would keep killing these males.
She stopped at one of the cots and sank to her knees.
The male lying there appeared to be healthier and he
watched her through weary eyes.
She leaned over his throat and took a tentative lick.
He didn’t taste too bad.
She was surprised when she felt her fangs elongate.
She punctured his throat and she felt him struggle beneath his chains.
He probably feared she was a vampire.
She lifted her head and looked into his eyes.
“It is alright.
I’m not going to hurt you.”
He looked frightened and much too young for her.
She touched him, trying to soothe him.
A mark of the Kavanaugh lined appeared on his throat and she felt a surge of lust from the mating bond.
She gazed down the length of his body and she noted his arousal.
She got off her knees and pulled up her tunic, ready to mount the stranger to squelch the burning
fires within her.
She straddled him and centered her core against his hard manhood.
The male looked at her with a less frightened look
and he began to buck beneath her.
She couldn’t tell if he was trying to dislodge her or penetrate her.
She lifted upwards, ready to take him in hand when she was suddenly accosted.
She howled in dismay as Bran flung her to the floor.
“What are you doing?
I did what you wanted.
I marked him.
The union has to be consummated.”