Base Instincts (11 page)

“No,” she said softly. “Before I leave.”

“Leave?” Gods, he was sleep-muddled. Nothing was making sense.

Leaning forward, she cupped his cheek in one palm. “I told you it’s time to move.”

“Wait . . . what?” He levered into a sit, and frowned at what appeared to be a thick shackle around his ankle. And the shackle was connected to a heavy chain that he assumed was secured to something solid.

Instantly, Fayle leaped up, landing catlike on the floor before backing toward the door. A dark, terrible suspicion welled up as he tugged on the chain. As suspected, it was looped around the bright blue pillar near the bathroom.

“What the hell is going on, Fayle?” he growled. “Tell me. Right. Fucking. Now.”

“I told you.” The tremor in her voice gave him hope that she wasn’t dead set on whatever course she’d laid out. “I’m leaving.”

“And you thought you needed to chain me up to tell me that?”

She worried her lower lip for a moment before asking, “Will you go with me?”

“Fayle, let’s talk about this. Release me, and we’ll work this out.”

She thrust her hair out of her face with a frustrated shove. “Thirst is destroyed. And Underworld General will be fine without you. I’ll release you if you come with me. Say yes. We can go anywhere you want.”

“You’re blackmailing me?” Anger rolled in, fresh and hot. “I have to do what you want or you’ll leave me here to die?” He yanked on the chain. “Fine. I’ll go with you.” He was lying, but right now, he was willing to say anything to get free.

“I’m sorry, Raze,” she whispered. “But I don’t believe you.”

Damn her! “Why are you doing this?” he shouted. “After all we’ve been through together?”

She smiled sadly. “I’m a demon, Raze.”

“So am I! And I’m not chaining people to any fucking posts!”

“You know as well as I do that some of us are more demon than others.” There was an emotional hitch in her voice that he might have imagined, except that her eyes had filled with liquid. Good. At least she felt bad about what she was doing to him. “I love you, but I have to go.”

“This is love?” He yanked on the chains again. “Don’t do this. Please.”

“I have to. Someone’s after me.” She held up his phone. “But don’t worry, I’ve already left a message for your lover boy to come rescue you.”

“Lover boy?”

She rolled her eyes. “Slake. Ask
him
why I have to leave. And don’t tell me you forgot him already. You were moaning his name while I was sucking you off.”

“Release me,” he roared as he leaped off the bed. “Damn you, Fayle, you can’t do this!”

Very gently, she placed the phone and a set of keys on a shelf near the door—well out of his reach. “I’ll feel your need,” she said. “If he doesn’t come for you, I’ll call the hospital before you die.”

“How comforting,” he snapped.

“I’m sorry.”

With a roar, he lunged, but the chains held, and pain tore through his leg as he was yanked, hard, off his feet to land with a thud on the concrete floor. Fayle fled, and as he shoved angrily to his feet, he heard her hurry through the apartment. A moment later, the front door slammed shut.

He was alone. And if Slake didn’t show up in the next twelve to sixteen hours, he was in a whole lot of trouble.

Anyone who knew Slake well would laugh at him right now. And after they were done laughing, they’d kill him for being such an idiot.

Standing outside the newest of Dire & Dyre’s law office buildings, this one in Tokyo, he stared at the ornate glass doors and wondered if he should really do this. If he should let his budding feelings for Raze affect his assignment.

No, he knew the answer to that: he shouldn’t. But for the first time in his life, guilt was eating at him. And the thing was, the guilt he could deal with. He could learn to ignore it and carry on with his work. But what he couldn’t deal with was the bone-deep feeling that Raze was something special, and if Slake didn’t explore a relationship with him, he’d regret it for the rest of his life.

Which might be very short if he went to Dyre with his idea.

He eyed the doors again, watching as a demon disguised as a middle-aged black woman ran out of the building as if she were being chased by monsters. Blood streamed from her nose, tears ran down her cheeks, and terror wafted off her in bitter, acrid waves that burned Slake’s nostrils.

If Slake remembered right, she was one of the thirty-plus lawyers employed by Dire & Dyre Tokyo.

The boss must be having a really bad day.

Inhaling deeply, he strode into the building, and the moment the doors closed, all of the city noise from outside went silent. Instead, a horrific, tinny version of “It’s a Small World” pumped into the lobby in a nonstop loop. Slake knew it was nonstop, because in all the years he’d been working here, he’d never, not once, heard any other music.

Dyre was fucking diabolical.

Slake approached the receptionist, a hyena shapeshifter with overprocessed blonde hair and a perpetual case of the Mondays. “Hey, Richelle—”

“Mr. Dyre is busy.”

“I’m sure if you let me into his wing, his assistant can—”

“No can do.” She tapped on her computer screen. “Says right here that he’s indisposed for the rest of the day.”

He smiled, but only because baring his teeth would be rude. “Just give me an elevator key card.” He gestured to the north hallway, where, at the very end, was the elevator that took people directly to the very top of the building where Dyre’s office took up the entire floor.

“Do you like your eyes?” she asked pleasantly. “Because I like mine, and Mr. Dyre said he’d remove them with his own teeth if I let anyone up there. So go fuck yourself, Mr. Slake.”

“Wuss,” he muttered, as he reached into his pocket for his phone. Damn it, he must have left it at home this morning. He’d been too busy tracking down more rope for Fayle to remember. Ah well, Plan B. He smiled at the receptionist again. “I need to borrow your phone.”

“Mr. Dyre doesn’t want to be bothered by phone calls, either.”

“Is that what your little computer screen says?”

She batted her eyes at him. “No. I just don’t like you.”

Gods, he hated hyenas. Of all the shifters, they were the worst. Arrogant, cruel, and they loved to push buttons. Just, apparently, not phone-dialing buttons.

“Look,” he said, lowering his voice as he leaned across the desk, getting in her personal space and filling it. “This is really important. It has to do with a job that Dyre is very invested in. So you either connect me with him right now, or I promise, your eyes are going to be the least of your concern.”

He was lying, but he was good at it, and doubt filled the eyes in question, turning them murky green. A moment later, she wordlessly dialed Dyre’s office and handed Slake the receiver.

Dyre answered on the fifth ring. “What?”

“Hey, boss, it’s Slake.”

“Why are you calling me from the lobby?”

Slake smiled at the receptionist, who glowered at him and concentrated on banging on her computer keyboard. “Because I don’t have an appointment,” he said. “Look, I have an idea. How about you give my assignment to someone else? Give me something more challenging.”

“No.”

Asshole. “Just listen. I’ve found her. I know where she is, so all someone needs to do is get her.”

“Then why haven’t you done it yet?”

Good question. But if he could talk Dyre into reassigning the mission, he could tell Raze what was going on, give him a fair shot at doing what he and Fayle had done so well for decades: hide.

“It’s complicated—”

“I don’t care,” Dyre snapped. “And now your insolence has cost you. I’m cutting your time in half.” Dyre’s sinister laugh crackled in air that had gone so cold Slake could see his breath. “Three days, Slake. I want her in my office by the end of the third day, or I promise that I’ll make every second of the rest of your life a living hell, and then the day you die, I’ll spend every waking moment finding ways to make your soul scream. Do you understand?”

Yep. Slake understood very well. Understood that he was screwed. And as he handed the receiver back to the receptionist, her jaunty smirk said she knew it too.

Raze had only been in this kind of pain a handful of times before. It was something he’d hoped to never experience again, and he shouldn’t have had to. His arrangement with Fayle since then should have been permanent. They were partners. Friends.

She’d betrayed him.

The knowledge added an emotional layer to the gut-wrenching physical agony ripping through him. His heart ached even as his insides cramped and his cock felt like someone was driving nails into it. Sexual need was an angry, writhing thing inside him, a beast trying to break out of his skin.

If it did, no female was safe.

He had enough presence of mind remaining to know that even if Slake showed up right now, he couldn’t free him. In fact, he’d need to be restrained even more, or he’d hurt any female brought to him.

But what if Slake didn’t come for him? What if no one did? Fayle could have lied about calling Underworld General to send help. Or something could have happened to her before she could make that call.

Misery speared him as if he’d been impaled through the groin, and he fell to his knees, trembling, panting, trying not to vomit. His cock throbbed, and for a blind moment, he almost palmed the bastard. But no, he jerked his hand away, remembering the time he’d been ambushed by half a dozen Nightlash demons. They’d dragged him to their lair and tossed him into a pit, where he’d languished for hours, his need for sex becoming more critical by the minute.

Just before he went delirious with agony, he’d tried to ease himself, and for a few heartbeats, the sensation of being stroked had relieved some of the pain. And then, as if his body had known he was trying to trick it, the pain roared back tenfold, until he’d sworn his testicles were being crushed and the skin was being peeled from his shaft.

Thankfully, he’d passed out.

But waking again had dumped him right back into the nightmare. Fayle had tracked him, and she’d brought a dozen hired thugs with her. They’d slaughtered the Nightlashes, and Fayle had leaped into the pit to save his life.

Raze didn’t remember much of what happened after that, but it had taken Fayle two days to fully recover.

Slake, man, where are you?

Granted, it was stupid to hope that a guy he’d only known for a couple of days would swoop in to rescue him, but at this point, hope was all Raze had. He’d tried everything else. He’d rammed himself into the metal post, but the thing hadn’t budged, let alone bent. He tried to break the chain by pulling on it and smashing it with several heavy, hard objects, like the bed post and the nightstand. He’d tried yelling for help. Jumping up and down on the floor. He’d even considered sawing off his foot, but the sharpest object he could find was the dull edge of a metal bracket in the bed frame, and there was no way the bracket would stand up to bone.

He was going to die here, wasn’t he?

The muffled ring of his phone penetrated his morbid thoughts and the marrow-deep agony. It and the keys he assumed would unlock the shackle around his ankle had fallen under the dresser after he’d tried to use a blanket to knock them closer to him. Now there was no way he could get to them. Maybe whoever was calling would worry when he didn’t answer the phone. Maybe they’d come over.