The Wolf Within (13 page)

“Then I suggest you lock the door behind you, Kyra. It’s not like she can get far from here.” He frowned at her, sounding impatient, like a man explaining something to a dense child.

Kyra made a hissing sort of noise that raised the hairs on the back of my neck.

“You can’t make me leave,” she spat.

Interesting. Obviously the doctor—if that was what he was—and my two escorts weren’t exactly sharing the love. But I wasn’t stupid enough to assume that meant he was on my side. After all, he was working for Tate. What I needed to do was figure out how not to become the ground meat in the sandwich.

“Really?” The man’s stare grew colder. Kyra snarled but she didn’t move. The doctor shrugged. “You know you just interfere with my work, Kyra. Go find someone else to play with.”

That earned him another hiss but footsteps retreated behind me then a sliding hum suggested the door had closed. The doctor came out from behind the counter, went to a drawer and drew out a package, tossing it to me. “Here.”

I examined the package. Some sort of hospital gown wrapped in plastic. Clothes. Anything was better than standing around naked. I ripped open the package and shook out the papery fabric trying to figure out how to put it on.

As I tied ties and tried to get the gown to cover my butt, I watched the doctor. Just because he’d kicked Rio and Kyra out didn’t mean he’d turn out to be an improvement over them. I’d already spotted a tray of nasty looking medical instruments near the examination table.

He ignored me for a minute or so, while he pulled things out of cupboards and lined up stuff on trays covered with those green cloths you see on the hospital shows. Including a bunch of vials like the ones they use when they draw blood. Except that there were about fifteen of them, far more than I’d ever had taken from me by any real doctor. All of this made no sense. Why did a psychopathic killer vampire need henchmen for, let alone a medical staff?

“What’s all that for?” I was proud my voice didn’t shake when I spoke.

“You wouldn’t understand.” He walked over to the examination table. “Come here.”

I stayed where I was.

He looked at me and sighed. “I suggest you do what I say. After all, I can always call Kyra and Rio back. They enjoy making people cooperate, even if their methods get a little
excessive
.”

His tone told me I wasn’t likely to enjoy their ministrations. Obeying him seemed like the lesser of two evils at this point. I walked over to the table but didn’t climb up on it.

Up close the doctor had mild blue eyes and a face that might have seemed kind if he hadn’t been holding one of the biggest syringes I’d ever seen.

I eyed the needle reluctantly. “What’s your name?”

“You can call me Doctor Smith.”

Smith? Yeah, right. Hello, fake name.
But maybe it is his real name
, a little voice inside my head whispered. He didn’t need to lie if they didn’t intend me to get out of this place alive.

I shook my head, squashing down the doubts. There was enough going on without me screwing with my own mind.

Dr. Smith pulled a stethoscope out of his pocket, hooked it around his neck and moved closer. He smelled like antiseptic and some old-fashioned cologne—like the one Bug’s friend Stanley wore. A weird combination of pine trees and sharp spices. “How do you feel?” he asked.

“Like I’ve been kidnapped, drugged, stripped and beaten up,” I said.

He didn’t smile. Okay, no sense of humor. But I had to try and make some sort of connection with the guy. My skin didn’t tingle around him, so he wasn’t a were. He didn’t move like a vamp and I’d never seen a vamp his age—most people chose to turn young.

So maybe he was human. And if he was, then maybe I could get him to help me.

He put the syringe down on the table. “Can you be more specific?”

“You’re the doctor.”

His hand swung out and backhanded me, hard. It hurt. A lot. Like the side of my face had just been pushed into hot oil or something. Tears ran down my face as my cheek burned with a deep aching throb and I struggled to breathe. The shock of realizing that, human or not, the doctor was firmly on the side of the bad guys sent my stomach into freefall. How was I going to get out of this?

“Answer the question, young lady. Or I will let Kyra and Rio back in.” He strapped a blood pressure cuff round my arm and started pumping it up as if he hadn’t done anything out of the ordinary.

“My face hurts.” It was all I could think of.

He raised an eyebrow and I stepped back instinctively, hitting the edge of the table.

“Stay still,” he said. “And sit.”

I sat and tried to obey. It was hard. I’d started shivering again. I didn’t know whether it was shock or fright or the after effects of whatever they’d used to knock me out.

The doctor didn’t seem to notice, just kept pumping the cuff until it reached that almost painful point, and then he did the weird stethoscope thing doctors do to take blood pressure. “What else?”

“I feel sick. My shoulders hurt. I’m cold.”

He nodded absently then removed the cuff. Then he started interrogating me about my medical history. One question after another about my diet, my health, my parents’ health. On and on until my head started to hurt even worse than it did already.

“Why do you need to know all this?”

“Research.”

“What sort of research?”

He frowned at me. “You don’t need to know. Lie down.”

Despite my better instincts, I did. I should’ve listened to my gut. Quick as a snake he had one of my hands clamped in the restraints, snapping the heavy leather cuff closed.

I tugged at it. “What are you doing?”

He’d moved around the table. “I said, lie still.” He grabbed my other arm, twisting it so white fire lanced up my elbow and bicep. I stopped struggling and bit my lip, trying not to cry out as he released the pressure then secured that arm as well.

Another strap went across my waist, pinning me to the table.

Dan
, I thought desperately.
Jase. Anyone.

“Good.” He walked to my feet, grabbed an ankle and pulled my leg down before tying it in place. He repeated the action, leaving me helpless.

“You’re not pregnant?”

I shook my head, not trusting my voice.

“You’re sure?”

Another nod.

He pushed the gown up out of the way and I closed my eyes. Whatever was about to happen, I didn’t want to see it. Something cold was sprayed on my abdomen then I felt the prick of a needle, a big needle. It slid through my skin like iced acid.

“Please,” I said. “Don’t.” I didn’t know what I was asking for. “Please,” I repeated and my voice cracked. The pain of the needle ceased and the sudden relief made me dizzy. Maybe the worst was over.

Or maybe not. I heard the doctor move and opened my eyes to see where he’d gone, wanting to know where the next hurt was coming from. He had moved a few feet away, put the empty syringe neatly into a disposal unit on a nearby bench. A tidy maniac. Just what I needed. Turning back to me, he wheeled a metal trolley back over to the table and pulled up a stool.

“I’m going to take some blood now,” he said. Another needle stung my arm, adding to the pain in my abdomen and face. I turned my face away.

“Squeamish are you?”

“No.” I’d just had enough. Sweat trickled down my forehead, mingling with the tears and only the thought of choking on vomit was keeping me from throwing up. I grew dizzier and dizzier as he clicked vial after vial into place until eventually everything went black again.

***

I woke to feel a hand on my breast, teasing the nipple. I murmured a protest and the grip turned hard and painful and someone laughed.

“Like that do you, Pretty?”

My eyes flew open. Kyra was leaning over me, watching me curiously. She’d cleaned the bloodstains off her face but her breath, hot in my face, smelled like Tate’s, like rotting meat. I gagged and she smiled as I tried to move, tightening her fingers until I felt nails pressing into my flesh. I was still tied to the table in the lab. I turned my head but I couldn’t see the doctor. Just Kyra.

“Doc said you fainted, Pretty. Said you needed sleep. But I can think of better things to do than sleep, can’t you?” Her other hand came to rest on my abdomen then drifted lower. I screamed when she touched me. It hurt my throat.

“Boss said to leave her alone, Elvira.”

Rio. I never thought I’d be thankful to see him but at this point, I’d take whatever rescue I could get.

Kyra hissed at him but withdrew her hand and I almost started to cry again in sheer relief.

Rio came into my field of vision, standing at the foot of the table. “Are you going to behave if I untie you?” he asked, staring at me. “Or will I leave you with Elvira here?”

I licked my lips, swallowed to ease the burn in my throat. “I’ll behave.”

“Don’t think he’s any better than I am,” Kyra said softly. “Rio likes to play too.”

I shuddered. “Tate doesn’t want me hurt.”

Both of them laughed.

“Is that what you think?” Rio said. He’d undone both restraints around my ankles and I slid my legs closed but didn’t make any other movement. I wasn’t free yet and even if I had been, I doubted my legs would hold me up.

I felt terrible, worse than before if that was possible. My stomach throbbed where Smith had done whatever he’d done with the needle, my face ached and even though I was lying down, the table seemed to sway beneath me. It was an effort to follow the conversation. “That’s what he said,” I managed.

Rio laughed—not a nice sound. “He told us not to play with you. Doesn’t mean
he
won’t.”

Fear snaked through me again but I was getting used to feeling scared and tried to push it away. Two more rapid movements and my hands were free. Rio unbuckled the strap around my waist. I sat up cautiously, pushing the gown down to cover my thighs and he let me.

My head spun as I straightened and I took deep breaths.

“Don’t faint, Pretty. You never know what might happen when you’re asleep.” Kyra said nastily. She moved away, wandering around the lab, rattling things out of sight while I tried to obey her instructions.

I could feel Rio watching me from the end of the bed but I didn’t look at him. Instead I tried to see anything in the lab that might give me a clue as to where I was or even the time of day.

The tray the doc had been using was still beside the bed, another discarded pair of gloves crumpled on it beside a tourniquet band and two syringes.

Two syringes?

I frowned. One of them was small, normal sized, unlike the other, which still held a little blood. My right arm, where he’d taken the blood ached and I knew I’d be bruised but had he given me something else? Shit. I looked down at my arm but I couldn’t see any other marks.

“Doc said you have to drink this,” Kyra said.

I jumped, I hadn’t heard her come back. She was holding a paper cup filled with yellowish liquid. “What is it?” I asked suspiciously.

“Relax, Pretty. It’s just Gatorade.”

I took the cup and sipped. It tasted like Gatorade and suddenly I was ridiculously thirsty. I gulped half the cup down.

“You’ll make yourself sick,” Rio said. “And I don’t want to clean up any messes.” He came around to stand in front of me, tipping my chin up with one finger. “Got that?”

I nodded and sipped more slowly. If there was anything else in the cup, there was nothing I could do about it and the sugar might clear some of the fog from my head.

Rio kept watching me, then took the cup, crumpling it in one hand and tossing it to Kyra. Then he leaned forward, so his face was only inches from mine.

“You stink, Pretty,” he said. “You stink of fear.” He breathed in deeply and his hands closed over my knees. I froze as I looked down. He wore a watch—one of those big complicated things with multiple dials men like. One of the dials said ‘Wed’. Wednesday? Shit. We’d gone to Bug’s on Monday night. If I’d been gone over a day already and Dan hadn’t found me. . . . I tried to see what the time was but Rio distracted me.

“Fear. I
like
that smell, Pretty.”

He leaned closer still and nuzzled my face. I shivered, wanting to pull away but scared of what he would do. I felt something warm and wet touch my cheek. His tongue. I almost gagged. He licked his way down my cheek and neck until his tongue was tracing the pulse at my neck, currently going at about four thousand beats a minute. When I felt him rest his whole mouth there, I couldn’t help it. I reached down, grabbed one of the knives strapped to his leg, yanked it free and slashed it at him.

He jerked back, yelping in surprise. Then he grabbed my arm, squeezing my wrist until I felt the bones grind. I opened my hand so the knife fell.

“Bitch,” he bellowed.

I had a second to register the anger on his face and the pain in my wrist before his hand connected with my face, hitting me on the same side as the doctor had and making stars of light ignite behind my eyes as I flew off the table and crashed to the floor.

I lay there, braced for the next blow. It didn’t come. Instead Kyra snarled. “Can it, Rio.”

“Bitch sliced me.”

“Pretty has teeth.” I couldn’t see her but she sounded amused. I opened an eye a fraction. Rio’s shoes were only a foot or so away from my head and I tried to stay still. Play dead. Maybe he’d leave me alone.

“Not for long if I have anything to do with it.” Fury snaked through his tone. I prayed the threat of whatever Tate would do to them if they really hurt me would stop him from doing anything else. Apparently it did because Rio’s feet retreated then something went flying with a crash of metal as he took his temper out on something else.

Kyra crouched beside my head, tapped my face none too gently. “Open your eyes, Pretty.”

I did as she said, biting back the groan of pain as the light hit my eyes.

“Don’t play with Rio, Pretty. It’s dumb.”

I could only agree with her as she lifted me over her shoulder and carried me out of the room.

Chapter Ten

When we got back to the room I’d woken up in, Doctor Smith was there. He still wore the black lab coat. Kyra deposited me on the bed with a thud that jarred every aching muscle in my body. I groaned and wondered whether I was about to barf the Gatorade up all over myself.