Nightwind (32 page)

“If I call you again,”
came the fierce reply,
“you will pay dearly for your defiance.”

He looked behind him, to the place where he knew Lauren was sleeping, then he got up and melted into

the ripening light.

Lauren missedOnyx the most in the move she had made from her little house to the sprawling mansion

that was her husband’s home. The cat had not been seen since she came back from her honeymoon and

she hoped nothing had happened to the little fellow.

“He found another home,” Syntian had assured her.

But Lauren had agonized over her pet’s disappearance, wishing they had searched harder for him when

they’d called him the day before the wedding. Lauren had meant to put him in the vet’s although Syntian

had argued against it.

“He’s a creature of nature, Lauren. He wouldn’t want to be locked up in a cage.” He’d kissed her. “He

can fend for himself. Just leave some food with Agnes and Anna. They’ll feed him.”

Padding down the stairs to fix breakfast for herself since Syntian never seemed to eat anything but

canned tuna and salmon salads and globs of raw hamburger that made her stomach lurch.

“How can you eat that stuff?” she’d asked him.

“I like it.”

His eating habits worried her, but he seemed healthy enough. At least he wasn’t filling up on red meat

and demanding elaborate dishes she couldn’t cook.

The only other odd thing about her husband, were his walks. He took long walks early in the morning for

exercise and she had yet to wake to find him still in bed with her since they had come back from the

cruise.

The coffee was almost finished brewing when the phone rang. She poured herself a cup and reached

over to lift the receiver from the wall unit.

“Hello?”

“Good morning,” Angeline told her. “Isn’t it an absolutely heavenly day?”

Lauren glanced out the kitchen window. “It’s going to be.” She tucked the phone between her cheek

and shoulder and popped some bread in the toaster. “Is something wrong up at the store?” It was

Wednesday and Lauren’s day off.

“No,” Angeline answered, laughing. “Just called to see how the lovebirds were doing.”

That particular phrase of Angeline’s never failed to annoy Lauren, as it did this morning, but she ground

her teeth to keep from telling the woman not to use it any more.

“We’re doing fine. How are things in Gulf Breeze?”

Angeline stretched on her king-sized bed and turned over on her naked belly. “Never better. Is he out

and about on one of his jungle treks already or can I speak with him a moment?”

Instant jealousy flared in Lauren’s gut, but she stamped it down. “He isn’t in the house so I guess he’s

roaming the forest as usual.”

Angeline laughed. “When he comes home, will you have him call me? There’s a business matter I need

to discuss with him.”

The jealousy turned to anger. To her knowledge, Mrs. Hellstrom had made no demands, business or

otherwise, on Syntian since he and Lauren married. As a matter of fact, Syntian had avoided the woman

as much as possible.

“I’ll tell him you called,” Lauren answered, jumping a little as the bread popped up out of the toaster.

“You do that, dear,” Angeline agreed. “Bye, bye.”

Lauren hung up the phone, a portion of her day ruined by the intruding call. She wondered what Mrs.

Hellstrom wanted. She doubted it had anything to do with the intimate relationship she and Syntian had

once shared, but a nagging worry wouldn’t let her overlook the possibility.

“It’s over between us,” Syntian had sworn to her on their wedding night. “I promise you it is, Lauren.”

And she was sure he had kept his word.

Delbert rapped onhis mistress’ door then entered with a tray of fresh fruits, coffee, and papaya juice.

He put the tray on her bedside table and helped her adjust the pillows behind her head, studiously

avoiding looking at her lush nudity.

“How is he?” Angeline asked as she sipped the hot coffee.

“Furious,” Delbert informed her. “I had to restrain him.”

Angeline clucked her tongue. “That’s too bad.”

“He’s dangerous, Miss Angeline,” Delbert warned her. “Like a rabid dog.”

The older woman laughed softly. “He can be controlled.”

Delbert shook his head. “When he finds out what you’re going to do...” He let the words hang in the air

like a bad odor.

“There’s not a damned thing he can do about it,” Angeline reminded him. “He belongs to me and he will

continue to belong to me. He can’t change that fact.”

The black man bowed gracefully. “No, ma’am, I don’t expect so, but he’s going to fight you just the

same.”

Angeline took a delicate bite of mango, chewed thoughtfully for a moment and then shrugged. “I look

forward to it,” she told him.

He refused tolook at her when she came down into the basement where he had been confined. He

sensed her presence long before the door had opened and the tiny sliver of light from the landing beyond

had seeped into the dark, damp room. As she descended the stairs, his nostrils extended; her smell

disgusted him. He ground his teeth, growling low in his throat, his hands clenched together, his short nails

were stabbing into his flesh. He would not look up, not give her the satisfaction of seeing how furious,

and how helpless, he was.

Angeline kept well back from the thick iron bars that separated her from Syntian. A low bench had been

placed against the far wall and she sat down upon it, crossed her legs, placing her hands primly in her lap,

and waited for him to acknowledge her presence. Her gaze was riveted on his bent head, her ears finely

attuned to his labored breathing which told her he was beyond fury, beyond human emotion completely.

He was prowling somewhere in the primal range of bestiality from which she had drawn him long ago,

lurking there, ready to pounce if she made even the tiniest of error in dealing with him.

Syntian heard the door open again and heavy footsteps came down the stairs. His keen sense of smell

told him it was Delbert and the servant was bringing food and water to him.

“Be careful, Del,” Angeline warned the black man.

Delbert approached the cell, placing the bowl of food and the dish of water on the floor, well away from

the bars. He took a long wooden broom handle from against the stairs and pushed the dish of water to

the cell, within reach of the prisoner inside. Some of the water sloshed over the dish’s low plastic side

and bled a black stain on the concrete floor.

Out of the corner of his eye, Syntian watched Delbert poke the food bowl toward the cell. The broom

slid off the tin base and the servant had to take a step closer in order to push the bowl any further.

Delbert jabbed at the bowl and missed again, necessitating another small step toward the cell.

Angeline screamed as the roaring, spitting demon inside the cage sprang toward the bars and swiped a

vicious hand out to grasp the wooden handle. Delbert shrieked with terror as he was jerked up against

the bars and his neck was grabbed in powerful grip that lifted the black man clear of the floor.

“Syntian, no!”
Angeline shouted, not daring to go to her servant’s rescue. Even as the loud snap

sounded in the basement room, even as Delbert’s body went limp and lifeless, she could do no more than

watch as the black man’s head was twisted savagely from his shoulders and hurled across the room at

her feet. She shrieked with revulsion as he slung the corpse across the room. She slammed herself against

the wall, staring wide-eyed at the brutish specter who had crawled up the bars, hands clutching the iron

uprights, feet jammed onto the crosspiece, and was shaking them so violently the iron rattled in the

concrete.

His mindless howl of fury, bloodthirsty and uncontrolled, echoed from concrete wall to concrete wall.

He pulled against the bars in a frenzy to free himself, to get to the female across the room, to rend her

limb from limb, to feast on her flesh, to lap up her blood. His lips were drawn back over sharp, gnashing

teeth and his eyes glowed a feral scarlet light in the near-darkness. He howled again, throwing back his

head and keening like an enraged ape as he clung to the bars and shook them. His cry was a roar of such

fierceness it could only have come from that part of him that had been born in the Pit.

Angeline gaped at him. Her heart was slamming against her rib cage, her blood pounding so furiously

through her veins, she thought her head would explode. She was trembling from head to feet, her face as

pallid as the moon. She brought one hand up to cover her quivering lips as she saw his head lower, his

lips stretch into a parody of a grin and his gleaming red eyes settle on her. The look he gave her was so

fiendish, so evil, so inhuman, a low moan of fear crept out of her constricting throat.

“Angeline,” he snarled and the sound was low and vibrating like a hellish purr. He shook the cage with

less force, but the power was still in his clutching hands and the bars rattled in the concrete.

She edged along the wall, not trusting the protection of the iron bars or the runes that had been spoken

over them to keep him at bay. She stumbled against the corner of the bench and yelped as the wooden

edge gouged into her calf.

His predatory chuckle, a growl of satisfaction, rumbled through the room. His head was lowered, his

hair wild about his lean face and he was looking at her from beneath the heavy slash of his thick brows,

his steady stare following her as she slid along the wall.

“Angeline.”

To her ears, the word was an ominous threat, giving notice. The menace of those three syllables rang a

death knell on her nerves and she stilled, watched him vigilantly as he swung on the bars, crawling

sideways across them until he was in front of her. He gurgled deep in his throat then dropped away from

the bars. The moment his feet made contact with the floor, she knew a wild instant of pure,

gut-wrenching terror.

“I’ll s-send you b-back to the Abyss,” she stuttered as she pressed herself against the coldness of the

concrete wall.

Glistening white teeth, knife-edged and lethal, were revealed behind a diabolic grin. “No, you won’t.”

He sidled along the bars, trailing his hands over the iron uprights. “You can’t.”

Angeline drew in a quick breath. “Yes, I c-can and I w-will!” She could not look away from those

piercing, demonic eyes that seemed to hold her in their grip.

He shook his head, his thick hair spraying around his shoulders. “You can’t.”

She gathered her courage and took another step toward the stairs, shrieking with fright as he lashed out,

jabbing his hand through the bars, his fingers grasping furiously as he strained to grab her. His cheek was

pressed against the bars in his effort to reach her and his inability to do so only served to infuriate him all

the more.

“Bitch!” he howled, craning his neck back and bellowing his helplessness to the low ceiling.

“You’ll never get out of there,” Angeline yelled. “I will keep you in that cage for the rest of your life!”

Laughter, as hellish as the infernal regions of the Pit, rang over the room and he gripped the bars again,

shaking them so violently, so feverishly, Angeline feared they would not hold.

“I will outlive you, you worthless cunt!” he shouted at her. He rattled the bars. “I am hell-born and my

days are without number!”

“But you won’t outlive Lauren!”

The howl of outrage and frustration that met her words was unlike any sound she could have ever

described. It was evil intoned: a malevolent, virulent cry of hurt and suffering and mental anguish. It

rebounded around the walls like a blast of Satan’s breath. It slithered over Angeline and made her clamp

her hands over her ears to shut out the sound.

“Uncage me, bitch!” he screeched at her. He banged his head against the bars so ferociously, the flesh

broke and blood ran down his face in thick rivulets. “Uncage me!”

She gawked at him as he repeatedly slammed his forehead into the iron bar. Blood was spraying the

floor, dripping down his cheeks, soaking his shirt and matting his hair.

“Stop it,” she whispered, watching him jerk away from the bars and fling himself about the confinement

of the cell, going from side to side to side to side, jerking at the bars. “Syntian, stop it!”

He dropped to all fours and pounded his clenched fists against the concrete. His hair flew around his

face as he viciously shook his head from side to side, negating her command. His fists were becoming as

bloody as his face.

“I said stop it!”

He twisted sideways, fell to his back and screamed, his torment rising to the heavens as he denied his

imprisonment. He slapped at the floor with his bleeding hands, leaving wet palm prints on the concrete.

That part of her that loved Syntian Cree, that would always love Syntian Cree, made her take a few

steps toward the cage. Tears of guilt ran down her cheeks as she stopped, beyond his reach and tried

talking to him.

“You knew I wouldn’t allow you to keep her, Syntian,” she reasoned with him. “You knew that.”

He turned over on his side and drew his knees up as though he were a lost and lonely child. A shudder

ran through his body and he moaned: a low, keening sound of pure torment.

“I let you stay with her longer than I should have,” Angeline said. “Long enough for you to give her a

child.”

The thinking, cognizant, still-intelligent portion of his brain, that portion that had not reverted to the