Soul Enslaved (Sons of Wrath Book 3) (12 page)

Not that she’d been any stranger to horrors like that, thanks to her fucked up brother, but at least she’d never been on the business end of a chainsaw.

With frantic breaths, she tugged on her chains, but all four limbs had been secured to the steel slab she lay across.

Please, gods, please!

The chainsaw cut off. Heavy footsteps moved across the floor.

Think. Think
.

She closed her eyes to feign sleep, certain it’d left her alone while she’d been out.

Ava sensed the beast’s nearness before its hot breath blew against her cheek, sending her jaw muscles into a tense cramp. Every other muscle in her body trembled, much as she tried to control it.

A slap hit her cheek, and she opened her eyes to a bloody severed hand, which the beast trailed down her face.

Her gaze shot to the beast’s. It had no discernible neck, but was solid muscle, with long sinews sticking up, like cords stretched beneath its skin. It had a gorilla face with fucked up teeth and a metal plate across one eye—the surrounding tissue appeared as if it’d been chewed away.

She let out a scream and writhed against her binds. It covered her mouth—its mutilated hand looked like the thing had tried to eat them away himself—and its eyes gave her a horrific warning.

The beast raised the hand it’d cut off and glided it along its rough cheek, eyes on her the whole time, as if gauging her reaction. It then shoved a finger into its mouth and tore it away from the mutilated hand, chewing as casually as if the fucker had just gnawed a chunk from a chicken bone.

Bits of flesh sloppily hung from its mouth and dribbled onto her chest, and as Ava yanked against her binds, its eyes followed the length of her arms up to her own hands.

No, no, no.

He ducked his head from her view, and seconds later, a cold, slimy sensation brushed against her fingertips.

“No!”

It slipped a hand down inside her leather top and grabbed hold of her breast while it tongued her fingers.

“Stop! Oh, gods, stop!” Her voice echoed in the empty room.

“Hey, hey, hey!” The voice came out of nowhere, and the beast straightened, giving a tweak to her nipple before removing its hand.

A human male, much smaller than the beast, stood over her and, using a hardcover book, knocked the beast in the shoulder. “I told you, she’s off limits.”

Memories spun out of control inside her head. Ava had seen the guy before. In the alley. Where the building had burned down.

Ava stared as the beast growled then dropped its gaze as if it’d disappointed his master. “Where … where am I?”

“The hospital.”

She scanned her surroundings. Tiles from the drop ceiling had been removed, revealing the pipes and steel above where she lay. Lowering her gaze exposed two rats feasting on a discarded foot beside a chair, where a maimed body sat propped at the opposite side of the room, like gruesome visitor. “This is no hospital. Where have you taken me?”

“You’ll have to forgive the surroundings. The surgical room isn’t quite up to par yet, so I’m afraid we’ve had to store you here in the meantime.”

“How long have I been here?”

“Two months. We’ve kept you pretty heavily sedated in that time.” He winked. “You’re going to need your rest.”

Jesus, she’d been out two
months
with that thing nearby? Her stomach turned at the thought of his hands on her without her knowing. “Rest for what?”

His smile morphed into a dark and wicked expression, eyes wide as if fascinated. Like some kind of mad scientist. “Mating.”

***

Gavin shot up in bed, gasping for breath. Cool summer air drifting in through the opened window hit the sweat plastered to his skin. A quick sweep of the room showed a black shadow crawling across the mostly empty walls before it slipped out of the window—the way it might if a car had passed outside, except the shape had looked human.

He bulleted out of the bed toward it, yet caught nothing but a breeze that chilled his spine. The yard below the window stood empty.

Holy hell
. A dream. A dream had rattled him.

He squinted his eyes, trying to recall the last few seconds. The most important part …

Gavin stood in the middle of the dance floor at Sanctuary. Bodies bumped and swayed around him, but his eyes remained focused ahead. Long auburn locks fell in loose ringlets around the shoulders of the woman whose body rippled in a way that called to him—as if the dance spoke to him. Lush curves tangoed inside her black dress, and her hair whipped in abandon.

Gavin strode through the crowd. Tingles flared across his skin, and his breaths grew labored, raspy, as he approached. His mouth watering, red flickered in his periphery.

Sabelle.

He wanted her.

The crowd closed in. Hands caressed her, and still she danced, her back to him.

He reached for a curl of her hair.

She turned.

Gavin leapt backward, recoiling his hand, his heart damn near bursting through his chest.

Jessica.

The woman he’d had sex with in his office. The one who’d had him imprisoned. Smiling. Stepping toward him with hands stretched outward, like she might pull him into the depths of hell with her.

An ominous aura of black surrounded her, like a shadow. Her eyes glowed an odd shade of blue, and her mouth moved—though, at first, Gavin couldn’t make out the faint words.

He gave a slight turn of his head, brow furrowed in concentration, until her whisper came into sharp clarity, as if her lips were right there, at his ear.

She spoke in ancient demonic, a dying language. “Eldest son of Wrath, as your Savidon is upon you, the beast that burrows in your bones will rise to the surface when the moon is high this eve. Strong. Fierce. Brutal. With every sexual fantasy, this beast will emerge and override your power to control it. Females will cower and fear you. Fear your ever-growing need to sate him. And you will have until the end of your Savidon to find your mate, claim your tazschla. Or your soul will be mine.” A trill of laughter filled his ears. “Mine.”

Staring at the ceiling as he lay back in bed did nothing to smother the words echoing inside his head. He clutched either side of his skull and took deep breaths, but still each utterance she’d spoken attached to his brain, sticking to his thoughts.

Turning to the side brought him to face the window once more. The translucent curtains danced on the wind in a slow, erotic flutter and had his mind falling back into the scene his memories clung to, from earlier in the night.

Sabelle. Dancing on the table. Her powers of seduction had called to him like a siren of absolute doom.

‘The fuck?

He didn’t have to lift the sheet to know a raging cock tent stood below.

That dance at the bar, though—Gavin had never seen a woman move like that before. Some women had a forced sensuality in the way they danced. Awkward and sometimes jerky in their movements, as their bodies bent and shimmied to keep up with the rhythm and tempo of the song—even the succubi, as much as seduction came natural for most.

Something in the way Sabelle moved, though—the mesmerizing way she’d swayed her hips, the way her hands roamed her body, those toned thighs that dipped her rounded ass and tightened as she made a slow rise to a stand. Circe effect.

The perfection of her moves’d called out to every male like a deadly warning against a woman who promised her own pleasure, regardless of any man—which only made her more desirable. They’d screamed of
sore-limbed-sweat-drenched-pulling-hair-biting-dry-throat
fucking.

One could only find that kind of sex when passion weaseled its way between two people, and Gavin hadn’t felt that in a
long
time. He’d forgotten the thrill of sheet-biting, dirty sex, until Sabelle’s wild and unbridled display, which’d left him wanting to tackle her to the floor and rip her clothes off.

Yeah, he’d been with lots of women, had some pretty wild escapades with them. He’d even been seduced by the occasional succubus. Never in his life had he felt such a pull between something so right and so wrong. Embedded somewhere in that wicked little dance, lay the slightest hint of innocence and purity—as though sex with her would somehow make him a better man.

No
. That’s exactly what that dance was meant to do. Entrap them. Just because she had the good morals not to pull the trigger, didn’t mean she
couldn’t
. Sabelle wielded a power—one she mightn’t have even been all too aware of herself. Every soul in that bar—men, women, supe, or human—could’ve easily fallen prey to her. Hundreds of the bastards would’ve willingly plummeted straight into the arms of Stygius at her command.

Including Gavin.

Could’ve been why Cash chose her to do his dirty work. Because what kind of asshole would send a woman into a lycan’s lair alone?

A tingle raced up his legs, into his thigh, and ended in his dick. Pain spread through his limbs like an A-bomb had gone off in his muscles.

Fuck!

Gavin arched on the bed, gripping tight to the sheets and clamped his eyes shut.

What the hell—

Like an answer, the moon swelled outside of his window, as if in reminder, and Jessica’s words drifted through his head once again.

The beast that burrows in your bones will rise to the surface when the moon is high this eve.

It’d begun.

Like his skin had split across his body and melted away from his bones, pain rushed him, and Gavin clenched his teeth, swallowing back the urge to howl in agony. A pulse of lust washed through him at the same time, coating the ache with a sudden urge to fuck something.
Right now
.

His eyes opened, and the scent hit him.

Sabelle
.

No.

Gavin’d made enough mistakes with women to add a succubus to the list, too.

His mind refused to obey reason, though.

Visuals of her body surfaced in his thoughts. The curves, wider than those of the many of the women he’d been with, that narrowed to a small waist and large, fleshy, rounded breasts. Her ass and thighs carried the kind of muscle tone only a woman constantly on her feet could sport. Constantly moving. Moving. Swaying. Calling to him.

Reaching below the sheets, Gavin made his best attempt to strangle the thoughts right out of himself.

Sabelle was a strong woman. Fierce. Powerful. The kind that wouldn’t yield to him.

Goddamn, the thought of that had him stroking himself right to an explosive hard on.

Another brush of her scent struck him, and he licked his lips, sitting up in bed as he continued to grind away at his erection.

More. He needed more.

Lust scorched his muscles and had him sliding out of bed and stumbling toward the door. Grabbing the doorframe for support, he cupped himself before staggering toward Sabelle’s bedroom door.

Need to be sated. Need more
.

A soft sound rose from inside her room.

He shook his head as a haze clouded his vision, and a crack of the door brought the sound into sharp clarity.

Moaning.

He could hardly make out her upper body with her legs bent beneath the sheets, but she appeared to be writhing. Her scent permeated the room. A sweet infusion of her arousal and the summer lilacs blowing in from the opened window.

“Gavin,” she whispered, and he stiffened. “Mmm, so good.” Her murmured words held breathiness. “Do you intend to stand and watch, or climb in bed beside me?”

He nearly collapsed, gripping tighter to the bulge in his palm—it’d become so hard, he could barely think straight.

Was she dreaming, or was that an actual invitation?

Do it
. The lust-hungry beast inside coaxed him to go to her. Bury himself inside of her. Pull her hair and ride her until the gods themselves would hear her scream his name.

No.
Sabelle trusted him, and Savidon or not, he wouldn’t give in to the easy desires of his beast. Even if she hadn’t been dreaming.

Bringing a hand up to grip his skull grazed his fingertips across two prongs at either side of his head.

What in Obsidius …

Gavin raced into the adjacent bathroom, closed the door, and flipped on a light. In the mirror, two golden horns broke up the thick mop of black hair atop his head. His skin, a burnt red, almost glowed against the dark hue of his lips. A map of veins popped from his skin, pulsing in the same tempo as his racing heart, and his body had somehow thickened beneath the shirt, so much so the fabric strained at his arms.

A beast. Not just his demonic form, but a beast. Yeah, a demon’s Savidon could make him a little insane with lust, maybe even incite his demonic form, if the male felt an instant bond with the female. The horns, the insta-muscles and the dark, wicked things he had playing inside his head, though, were definitely
not
normal.

With every sexual fantasy, this beast will emerge and override your power to control it. Females will cower and fear you. Fear your ever-growing need to sate him.

Fuck, no
. He screwed his eyes shut. Jessica really had cursed him. But how? Last he knew, she’d been living the high life in Obsidius, just like he had.

Gaszla
. She must’ve been. It was the only explanation. Only a dark witch could penetrate a man’s head and curse him.

And you will have until the end of your Savidon to find your mate, claim your tazschla. Or your soul will be mine.

Two weeks. A typical Savidon lasted two weeks. Since Gavin had no intentions of mating with a female, only to be sent back to the underworld prison for death, he’d need to come up with a loophole. Some way to keep his soul from belonging to the one female in the world who made his skin crawl.

He’d also have to find a way to keep his beast from acting on the overwhelming need to claim Sabelle.