Forstaken (3 page)

Byron
swallowed. He’d have to come clean and risk the hatred and disgust he was sure
he’d see in her face. Time was ticking away, and the only answer here was the
truth.

“Listen. There’s
something I have to tell you.”

Nadia remained
silent and waiting. She trusted him, but it was an internal struggle. He knew
this, and he hated himself for what he was about to say.

“There’s something
about me you don’t know…something that won’t make much sense, but—”

A loud sound
startled them as they both turned toward the entrance to the locker room. The
door had swung open and smashed against the interior wall and was now vibrating
in place with the force of its opening.

There, with
the daylight casting an ominous halo around their unwelcome visitor, was the
cowboy.

****

“Awe, lookie
here. Is this one of those magic moments I’ve read about?”

The
over-played southern drawl was both annoying and ornery at the same time.

“What are you
doing here?” Byron’s anger and protective nature kicked into high gear, and his
transition threatened with another sharp pang below the waistline.

“I’m here to
settle things. It’s not personal really. I’m here on a job, and I need to get
paid.”

“This is a
private locker room. You can’t be here.” Nadia turned to face the cowboy, her
face held a look of defiance, and her body reverberated with a passion that
surprised him. She was trying to protect him. Maybe she felt the same ominous
presence he’d felt with the arrival of the cowboy.

Their intruder
laughed heartily.

“Awe, now
ain’t that sweet. She’s protecting the prince? I can’t wait to tell my boss
about this one.”

Nadia tore her
eyes away from their unwelcome intruder and shot a glance down at Byron.

“Prince?”

Byron’s throat
spasmed, and his legs burned. He looked down at the towel and noticed it was
turning a bright shade of crimson.

“What did
you…?”

His eyes
filled with tears, and the room began to spin. Nadia’s mouth was moving. She
was saying something to him, but he couldn’t make out the words.

The room
swirled. His stomach ached. His body quivered violently, and he was paralyzed
from the waist down.

The last thing
he saw before his head hit the floor was the snakeskin boots of the cowboy as
he retreated toward the open doorway carrying the now limp body of Nadia in his
arms.

Chapter Four

Nadia surveyed the black, velvet
tapestry covering the brick and mortar walls. The room in which she’d been
deposited was curious, and she was utterly terrified. She sat on the chilled
floor with arms wrapped around her bent legs. The self-hug did little to calm
her frayed nerves.

She wasn’t
sure what happened, but she remembered talking to Byron in the locker room and
trying to figure out what was going on with him when a tall, skinny guy had
come in and said some weird things. Then Byron had fallen unconscious and ill
to the floor, but before she could tend to him, the skinny guy had stuck her
with a sharp object, and she’d woken up here.

She watched
with heavy, brown eyes as a sizable spider scuttled across the floor just
inches from her feet. She stifled a scream.

She thought of
Byron, her family, her friends, but there was no comfort to be found. She’d
read the books, seen the movies. Girls didn’t get drugged and brought to
subterranean locales for anything good or happy. Girls brought to places like
this never saw the light of day again. She knew this, and she’d be lying if she
said she wasn’t afraid. But she’d grown up in the European foster care system,
and this wasn’t the worst place she’d ever spent time.

With that
thought, she heard two sets of feet descending the nearby stairs. She hugged
her legs tighter against her bare midriff. As chills dotted her arms, she
wished she had on more than her bikini top and cut-off jean shorts.

Two men
entered the room. One was the skinny guy who had abducted her. He was wearing
the same boots, jeans, white t-shirt, and obnoxious grin that both annoyed and
terrified her. The other man was something straight out of a B-movie.

He loomed
above her in pressed black trousers, a starched shirt, spit-shined shoes and a
black cape. A cape? She blinked up at him.

She didn’t
know whether to laugh or cry, but she decided neither response would be in her
best interest.

“Nadia
Baranova. At last…we meet.” The cloaked kidnapper greeted her with a bow at the
waist accompanied by a flourish of his cape.

She lifted her
head and studied his face carefully. A twinge of recognition shimmied through
her brain, but then it was gone.

“Do I know
you?” Her voice came out surprisingly strong despite the niggling fear that
made her breathing shallow.

He smiled
widely and proceeded to glide to the far side of the room where he inserted a
key into a locked cabinet and turned it.

“All in due
time, my lovely. All in due time.”

Nadia wasn’t
sure she wanted to see what was in the cabinet, but she watched and waited. And
all the while she wondered. Where was Byron, and was he even still alive?

****

Byron awoke to
the sounds of young women giggling and a metallic taste in his mouth. He sat up
and tried to shake the fog from his mind.

Where am I? What happened?

His thoughts were muddled, and
his body thick and sluggish. He looked down at the towel wadded up beside him
and then caught sight of Nadia’s cell phone a few feet away on the floor.

He recognized
her phone by the pink rhinestone design he’d teased her about only a few days
ago. She’d claimed it made it stylish, and he’d accused her of still being a
kid at heart. She’d laughed, and then she’d kissed him senseless.

Someone had
taken her.

The thought
zinged through his mind as he attempted to get to his feet. But his legs
weren’t exactly cooperating. He looked down, fully expecting to see obtrusions
from his partial flux of earlier, but his legs had fully recovered to their
human form. He swallowed again, and the metallic taste burned his swollen
throat.

The laughter
grew closer as a group of women made their way around the side of the building
and toward the door. That must be the cheerleading squad having completed the
car wash. He had to get his body working and get the hell out of here.

Struggling to
regain his balance, he pushed himself along the floor, using his arms to propel
him slowly forward and over to where Nadia’s phone lay. He picked it up and
slid it safely into his pocket. Now he just had to get his legs to work and get
moving.

The door to
the locker room opened and high-pitched female voices echoed throughout the
room. He froze in place. How would he explain lying in the middle of the
ladies’ locker room? It seemed a silly notion given the current situation he
was in and the fact that Nadia was missing, but he almost blushed at the excuse
he would have to make.

Luckily, the
women proceeded on down the hallway and didn’t turn to enter the room where he
waited breathlessly. He listened, and a few seconds later, he heard water pipes
squeal followed by the sound of running water. They’d headed to the showers,
and he needed to get as far away from the steam and moisture as possible.

His feet were
now tingling with the beginning of feeling. It was the same sensation you got
when your feet were asleep due to lack of circulation. Even though he was
currently in human form, he didn’t normally experience this type of human circulatory
sensation, but he’d studied it. He glared down at his own legs and suddenly
realized two important things.

He’d been
drugged with something lethal to a merman and that doofus cowboy had taken his
girl.

Chapter Five

By the time
Byron exited the locker room, undetected, the sun had already begun to set. How
many hours had it been since Nadia had been taken? At least five or six?

He wasn’t sure,
but he made his way back to the parking lot to find only puddles of soapy water
remaining. No sign of Nadia there and only a few cars remained in the lot, most
likely belonging to the cheerleaders still on-site.

The keys to
his car were in his pocket, and he slid behind the wheel starting the engine
and shoving it into gear but then unsure of where to go next.

Someone knew who he was, and they
knew how to kill him. Neither bit of information would be available to the
average mortal. This meant whoever had taken Nadia was either a non-mortal or
was working for someone else in the supernatural realm.

He took a
couple of deep breaths and tried to focus. The feeling in his legs had returned
almost fully by the time he’d made the walk to his car. Only a few tiny
particles of the drug remained in his system now, and he was damned lucky. He
wasn’t sure if Nadia’s captors had simply misjudged the amount of poison, or if
they were only trying to incapacitate him temporarily. He assumed the former
because it was really impossible to measure the amount. They’d been willing to
risk his life.

But why would
anyone want Nadia? Unless they were really trying to get to him, or get to his
mother, perhaps? His mother was Vellamo, the goddess of water. Since his father
had died, she’d been both courted and hunted by every sea creature in
existence. Their current battle was with the feared Tursas, and it was a battle
he must fight when he returned home.
 

But Nadia had
nothing to do with his other life. He was sure she had no clue who or what he
really was. After all, there’s no way she’d love him if she knew he was only
half man. Being the sole heir to his mother’s kingdom under the sea wasn’t
something he knew how to explain.

****

The man in the
black cape extracted a large wad of cash from the lockbox and proceeded to
painstakingly count each piece. The room was silent, but Nadia could hear her
own heart behind her eardrums.

The cowboy had
moved closer to her and was peering at her with a look of hunger. She swore at
any moment he would pull out a knife and fork and begin chowing down on her. He
gave her the uber-creeps.

Finally, the
money manager completed his task and turned to hand the money to the cowboy. He
paused when he observed the cowboy’s current proximity to her.

“Shadee, just
what do you think you’re doing?”

The cowboy
didn’t take his eyes off Nadia when he said, “I know we agreed on a certain
price for me to track her down and deliver her to you, but you can keep your
money.”

Black cape man
squinted his eyes. “Oh, really?”

Cowboy gave a
quick nod.

“Yesiree. I’ll
waive your fee for my private investigatory services under one condition.”

Black cape man
waited, wordlessly.

“Let me have
just one little taste of her.”

Nadia flinched
at the words. She’d been totally right about him. This guy was a creep, and he
wanted to eat her. What fresh hell was this place?

Black cape man
took two quick steps forward and proceeded to backhand the cowboy named Shadee
across the face. The movement was so sudden there was no way he had seen it
coming.

Shadee flew
back against the wall with a thud. Sharp, pointed teeth emerged from his mouth followed
by a hiss-like sound.

“Fuck you,
Dagger.” He snarled but made no retaliatory move against his attacker.

Nadia wasn’t sure exactly what
she was witnessing here, but she knew it wasn’t good.

“Take your
money, or don’t take your money, but no one – and I mean no one – touches her.”

Shadee bent to
retrieve his cowboy hat that had fallen to the floor during his unexpected
flight. He carefully placed it on his head and then took one step forward and
offered his outstretched hand, palm up, toward the man he’d called Dagger.