On the Edge of Love (Mama's Brood Book 1) (36 page)

A few minutes later they were parked in the clearing outside his front door.

“It looks scary as hell out there,” Lynx said, looking out all the windows to get a panoramic view of Zeus’s forest.

Zeus and Price stepped out of the Suburban and looked around.

Lynx was an idiot. His forest was serene.

With Price’s assistance, Zeus made his way to the door, his limp less pronounced because he could hardly feel any pain. Zeus didn’t have his keys, so Price picked the lock and entered the cabin behind him.

* * * *

“Thanks,” he said to Price as he closed the front door. Sabrina had been saying he needed to show gratitude. “I appreciate it.” He didn’t, but he could at least tell Sabrina he’d said it.

The other man looked at Zeus as if he’d sprouted three more heads. “Well, fuck me,” Price muttered.

Zeus snorted. “Won’t ever be that appreciative.”

Back in Price’s truck, Zeus noticed a tension among the Brood members who’d remained inside. All four held weapons in their hands.

“This forest is haunted,” Lynx said as he scanned the area outside his window.

The ever-tedious Coen took a deep breath, secured his gun, and asked, “So where we headed?”

“To Sabrina,” Price said, starting up the Suburban. “Zeus placed tracking devices in some of the weapons he gave her. She only has one left on her. Zeus’s device will lead us to wherever she is.”

Chapter Eighteen

Sabrina sat in the ornately upholstered wing-backed chair as she observed Kragen and his assistant speak with the older Middle Eastern man.

“Well, I must say, Maxim, she is quite beautiful. In an untamed sort of way. I can understand your need to see her safe and protected, but I can’t quite determine why you would bring her to my home. Unless…”

The older man eyed Sabrina with a disturbing heat in his gaze. Kragen had built an elaborate delusion about her, about them, that had yet to advance beyond unthreatening displays of affection. This other man, however, looked at her as if she were a purely sexual instrument. He was not someone she could seek help from. He was another Consortium member, which meant he’d likely given up his soul so long ago that there was something hideous housed in its place.

“Your name, girl.”

“Sabrina.”

“Ah. The infamous Sabrina. Your father had much to say about her at one time. That was many years ago, I know, but I believe he would have no greater esteem for this woman with the passage of time.”

He walked toward Sabrina and stood beside her chair. She cringed when his thumb slid down the unbruised side of her face.

“Soft,” he muttered. He turned to Kragen, who was currently two shades of crimson. “I can almost understand your obsession with this one.”

“A night here would be a favor returned to you tenfold, Basir,” Kragen said. Though his voice was respectful, Sabrina heard the steel within. “Erani informed me your family left town yesterday, so I’m sure my companion and I will bring little disruption to your household.”

“But you misunderstand. As I couldn’t join the others at the Consortium’s gathering, I have created my own celebration here.”

“When have diverging desires ever stopped our members from getting their needs met?”

“Please forgive my bluntness, but I don’t particularly like or trust you, and I have no desire to have you roaming about my home.”

Kragen grinned. “Lucky for us both, neither like nor trust are qualities that bind our group. And as for roaming, I have no desire to leave whatever room you assign me to until we depart in the morning. I’m sure I’ll be busy with far more important things,” he said, gazing at Sabrina before turning his gaze back to the other man. “So I’ll ask again, before walking out of your home never to return, ensuring nothing linked to me and mine is ever extended to you and yours, will you allow us the generosity of your home for the night?”

Sabrina watched as the silent animosity between the two men swelled, but then the older man capitulated, nodding to Kragen. “Very soon there will be a vote coming up on who will succeed Answorth on the procurement and care of the women. I want you to not only back my bid for this position but to lobby for me to win.”

Kragen leveled the other man with a calculating gaze before nodding. “One of the specialty suites will be at my disposal?”

“None of my guests have yet to be assigned rooms. Which one would you prefer?”

Both men turned to look at Sabrina. She couldn’t run. Not yet. Not with at least three of Basir’s guards dressed as servants and three of the men accompanying Kragen just beyond the door. The white minion, Kragen’s assistant, more sleekly dressed than Kragen himself, had a hardness beyond his wiry body and lifeless eyes. His constant regard promised he wouldn’t hesitate to intervene physically before she could take two wrong steps.

“Might I suggest the Black Room?” Basir said.

Sabrina frowned at him. “The Black… You racist son of a—”

“The Black Room is fitted for those whose spirits need to be broken by the subjugation of the flesh,” Kragen explained to her before turning back to Basir. “And it’s altogether inappropriate for the woman who will be my wife. Let me make this clear. Sabrina is not to be harmed in any way. If she is, there is only one consequence. Death to the offender.”

“Ah, young love. It will soon pass.” Basir turned to Reed. “And you, little viper, what room would you prefer?”

“I won’t need a room,” the white minion said without looking up from his tablet.

“We’ll take the Gold Room. Sabrina has always had a love for gold.”

She hated gold. It was Sam who had liked the flashy metal.

“Decadence is the order of the evening for you,” Basir said. He motioned for the thin servant hovering near the room’s entrance. “Salim, have everything made ready for our guests. Until then perhaps you will join me for tea.”

She hated tea, but Kragen nodded.

Across the room, Kragen’s minion glared at Sabrina. She rubbed her temple with her middle finger, smirking when his face flushed. He could fuck himself six ways to Sunday and she wouldn’t give a shit. Thinking about it, she doubted this man could do anything to her. Kragen wouldn’t allow it.

She prayed Zeus was free and alive, that someone had found him like he and the rest of the Brood had once found her, that someone had saved him. She needed him to live even if she didn’t. She had no illusions. If Kragen succeeded in getting her on his plane in the morning, taking her away with no money, no ID, no means of communication, she’d probably never be found again. Not until she was dead like the others.

Sabrina listened as Maxim and Basir spoke of nothing of interest. She wished she were surrounded by Zeus’s silence. He wouldn’t feel compelled to waste energy on false politeness or veiled threats the way these men did.

It was almost nine thirty in the evening, a little over an hour since they’d spirited her away from Kragen’s cliff house. She didn’t know why, but she knew their departure had been a reaction to some unforeseen event. As they approached Basir’s home, she’d seen that the land was expansive and the home itself was huge. Those factors could work in her favor or against her. On one hand there was a lot of space to run and hide. On the other, she didn’t know the layout. During the drive she’d heard Kragen and Reed discuss the cameras in the rooms they took the women to. Kragen had ordered Reed to sweep and electronically clean the room they would use, possibly override Basir’s surveillance system.

Kragen stood and extended his hand toward her. “Our room awaits,” he informed her.

Charming. He could be absolutely charming. Which was probably the reason so many women had died by his hand. Sabrina stood and allowed Kragen to lead her through the house behind Basir and his servant. Reed followed in their wake.

They stopped at a set of polished cherrywood doors that opened to an elevator.

“Enjoy your stay,” Basir said, motioning them inside and walking away.

The room they were escorted to wasn’t ornate or gaudy as she had suspected it would be. Yes, there was gold—gold patterns in the drapery and on the bedding, gold lamps and mirror frames, golden threads in the rich cream throw rug. It was the cream that balanced the room, giving it sleek sophistication.

How is it people who deal in so much ugliness live in such splendor, she wondered.

“How do you like it?” Kragen asked.

“It’s beautiful,” she answered truthfully, then quickly followed it with a manipulation. “You honestly do know my likes and dislikes. I see how we could have fallen in love with each other.”

“I’m sure you’ll remember it all. You’ll love me again soon.”

She smiled. “Maybe even more than I did before. Do you know why I love gold so much?”

Kragen asked Reed to leave the room. Reed nodded once, barely looking up as he ran his hand over the surface of the tablet. She wondered what held his interest so intensely.

Sabrina smiled at Kragen with appreciation when Reed left the room. Her smile faltered when Kragen reached for her hand and brought her fingers to his lips. “Your mother had a gold chain with a pendant. Your grandmother gave it to her when she was pregnant with you. Your mother told you the pendant was the only thing of value she’d ever been given before she was blessed with you. You said the pendant and its history were the greatest gifts your mother had ever given you.”

His words, his knowledge lay into Sabrina like a whip that’s pain didn’t stop with the severing of flesh. It lashed through the vulnerability in her very soul. If she hadn’t been sure before, she was sure now. This was the man who had destroyed her sister’s will to live.

When they were younger, Sam had made up all kinds of fantasies about the gold pendant, but the truth was it had been a gift passed from mother to oldest daughter for four generations. Not even when her mother’s addiction was at its worst had she tried to sell it. It represented the strength in their lineage. Even when the individual beneficiary was at her weakest, she always possessed an inherited strength.

As a child, Sabrina had hated that pendant. She knew her mother had loved Sam’s father, yet she couldn’t stand Sabrina’s sperm donor. It hadn’t seemed fair that Sam should get the pendant and the father their mother couldn’t get over losing. It hadn’t been fair Sam could go to that father before their mother had died, while Sabrina was moved from foster home to foster home, living in houses with men who wanted her to call them daddy yet looked her up and down as if she were a grown woman.

“I’m sorry, Sabrina,” Kragen said, wrapping her in his arms. She stiffened. “I’m sorry to bring up bittersweet memories.”

It took Sabrina a moment to realize tears wet her face. The memories she had about the history of the pendant weren’t bittersweet; they were just bitter. She stepped out of Kragen’s arms and wiped her face.

“I shouldn’t be such a baby. I just… It surprised me that you knew. I wouldn’t have shared that story with someone I didn’t care about.” And it was true. Sam wouldn’t have shared that part of her life with someone she didn’t care about or trust. The bastard had lulled her sister into a false sense of safety; then he’d hurt her.

Kragen pulled Sabrina back into his arms. She didn’t resist his embrace, but she did resist the desire to rip his throat out.

He pressed a kiss to the side of her head. “There are so many stories I can tell you of our time together. I had you for almost a month, and in the short time, you owned every part of me. I had no choice but to find you again. It was the only way we could be whole again.”

“After I returned home, I learned I was pregnant,” she said. “There was an accident, and I lost a part of my memory and the baby.”

She’d been out of town and had been devastated when she’d returned to New Orleans to learn Sam’s baby girl had been stillborn. She’d wanted to be an aunt even if Sam had been too depressed to want to be a mother. Sabrina had believed in her heart that once Sam gave birth, there would be nothing more she’d want than to be a mother to her child.

“I could barely function after, could barely survive the loss,” she told Kragen, verbalizing her perception of her sister’s experience. “It felt like all my life, all I ever really knew was loss.”

Her words were an amalgamation of her truth and Sam’s truth. Her sister had been pregnant. Her sister
had
had an “accident,” which in reality was her first suicide attempt. The second, years later, also classified as an accident, had been successful. Kragen had taken Sam from Sabrina when her sister had been the only thing she’d had left of her family. She knew loss.

When she pulled away from Kragen and looked up, she felt a feral sense of satisfaction at the pain etched over his face. In his own twisted way he’d cared for Sam. It only seemed fair he should suffer over their encounter. Her sister surely had.

“Our baby would have been a beautiful little boy,” she lied, knowing how much men wanted sons. “A merging of the best parts of each of us.”

Her hands went to her abdomen. What if she herself was pregnant with Zeus’s child? The times they’d had unprotected sex far outnumbered the times they’d used protection.

“I’ll make it up to you. We’ll make another baby.”

Shit. So not the response she wanted to hear.

Kragen grabbed her by the back of the neck and pulled her against him. His mouth descended as his free hand pressed her hips toward his groin. The already rigid length of flesh pressing into her abdomen made her want to throw up. She closed her eyes and groaned as he pressed kisses along her cheek, jaw, and down the side of her throat. As his mouth took hers, she tried to pretend he was Zeus, but his scent was wrong, his taste was sour, his body was too small.

She jerked out of his embrace.

“I can’t, Max. It’s too soon. I need time. I need to get to know you again. Your mind, your heart. I can’t make love to you for the first time in a stranger’s house,” she added desperately. “When we come together, I’d like it to be in the safety of our home. In our bed. No matter how beautiful this one is,” she ended jokingly.

She climbed onto the bed. It was too soft. She preferred sleeping splayed over the warmth of Zeus’s hard body.