His talent had been a miniscule interest in carpentry and art. Julian insisted he could take it farther than just building furniture and houses the way he had to that point been doing during his summer internship. From a few measly sketches of buildings around the city that Mateo had done, Julian insisted that his brother could be an architect or interior designer.
“You could lay the groundwork for skyscrapers that people work and live in all around
the city, or maybe the world. There’s nothing you won’t be able to do once you put your mind
and your skills to it, Matty. Trust me…”
God, he missed his brother so much! Even now, seven years after his death, he could still hear Julian’s voice in his head sometimes when he was attacking a particularly troublesome design at work or just when he was relaxing at home. That deep, slightly accented baritone had been his rock, his foundation.
And it had been silenced by the woman sitting at his side.
Mateo growled deep in the back of his throat, a red haze clouding his vision as he pulled against his shackles with renewed ferocity.
She stared at him, seemed shocked by the hate and violence roiling inside him, firmly cupped his face with both hands, bent her head, and licked his face as if to calm him.
It did the opposite.
He felt the stroke all the way down to his toes, cold heat suffusing his core. He jerked his head away from her—
anger is better than lust, anger is required to get through this—
and
would have spat at her if his mouth weren’t taped.
“I know how furious and frustrated this situation makes you, Mateo.” She ran a long fingernail down his chest and his pectorals involuntarily flexed beneath her touch. “You will make the best of it, however, and you will enjoy it as your brother did before you.”
He would make the best of it, all right. As soon as he was free and could wrap his hands around that exotic pretty neck of hers for daring to speak Julian’s name, for intimating that his brother had in any way taken pleasure from what she’d done to him.
He glared at her just as she raised a hand and waved it back and forth in front of his face.
Mateo shook his head, shouting, “No, damn it! No!” inside right before he heard her say,
“Sleep now.”
He fought her as hard as he could, lingering somewhere between the past and the present, in the room with his brother right before his death and in the room with LaMia trying to put him under.
Mateo saw that last expression of ecstasy on Julian’s face before his brother shouted his release. He saw his brother’s smile through the green fog.
15
Gracie C. McKeever
Had he been wrong all these years about the way Julian had died? Not a victim, not in agony, but…content, as if he had found what he had been looking for his entire life?
LaMia pressed her hand to his forehead now, seemed desperate to stop his train of thought.
“Sleep.”
Eager to test his theories later, he finally let the darkness take him again.
16
Predator’s Salvation
LaMia admired the way Mateo’s impossibly long, sumptuous eyelashes brushed his high, chiseled cheekbones as he slept. Her pussy muscles clenched with thoughts of all the things she planned to do with him, to him, the ways she would bring him to climax and make him bring her to her pinnacle in return.
How could she tell him that she had not taken him for what he was—which was an unexpected gift and kismet—but for with whom he consorted?
He belonged to her now, the spoils of her little war with Genesis and Alex Ryan. She would enjoy him as she pleased, and right now, it pleased her to just look at him, for he was very appealing to her eyes, especially for a human.
In this intimate, isolated setting, he was much larger than she had first thought. His long legs almost reached the foot of her king-sized mattress which put him at about the 6”4 she had first guessed, but that seemed lengthier despite his being spread-eagled on her bed.
His weight had felt solid in her grasp—probably about two-hundred pounds—when she’d flown with him from the parking lot, a neat hard package of lean muscles that felt pleasant beneath her hands.
She licked her lips as she lay down beside him, caressing the firm muscles of his abdomen, slowly sliding her hand up to his left shoulder as she half-covered his body with hers.
She leaned close to nuzzle his neck and immersed herself in his clean musky scent, a pleasing combination of human male and the sandalwood cologne he wore.
LaMia sighed against his skin, pressed her lips to the pulse-point in his throat and nibbled his skin. She teased herself with his salty-sweet flavor, scenting the earthy, metallic aroma of his blood as it pumped through his veins.
Ah,
Lilith
, she had to have him. She chided herself for not waking him from her slumber spell and indulging in the carnal pleasures his young, very virile body had to offer.
She was purposely taunting herself with the possibilities, taunting herself with imagining what he would feel like inside her, his rock-hard penis hot and throbbing against her inner walls.
17
Gracie C. McKeever
From experience, she knew the longer she waited to partake, the more she would enjoy it, but for some mysterious reason, she was impatient to be with this one.
It is the spirit-boost in his blood that is calling to you, his special
kundalini
that so few in
your race have ever experienced.
LaMia gasped and sat up suddenly when she received a flash from Mateo’s brain.
Impossible! He should not be dreaming under the influence of her spell, but she saw the proof of the unusual activity as she watched the rapid movement of his eyes beneath his lids.
It was not the first time the human had shown resistance to her influence. Like Alex, the
cambion
before him, Mateo had not been immobilized within the circle of her force field. He had defied her and fought her shield.
She had previously caught glimpses of Mateo’s spirit on their flight to her lair, but when he clashed with her force field,
Lilith
, her panties had gotten soaked at his vim and vigor!
LaMia lay back down beside him now, took a deep breath, placed a palm on his forehead.
She closed her eyes and waited to be submerged in the dark side of his id.
He is a young boy, about nine or ten human years, and dwarfed by the various wires and
machines attached to his skinny body to monitor his heart rate and brain activity.
There is a doctor in the room discussing Mateo’s condition with Julian as if the boy is not
there. The boy can hear every word, however, but he cannot respond.
He wants to, God how he wants to talk to his brother and let Julian know he is okay,
despite being afraid, despite not wanting to tell the police that he saw his dad shoot his mom and
then himself. He does not want to talk about this. Cannot. Too afraid.
He just stares at the ceiling, does not know for how long he has been in this position, in
this bed. He just knows he cannot move, cannot speak. He might as well be dead, and probably
would be if the doctors were not pumping his body with all kinds of fluids and other substances
to keep him nourished and alive.
The doctor’s expression is grave and merciless, leaving not much room for hope as he
explains the vagaries of Mateo’s catatonic state to his brother.
“It’s very rare in children, but it does happen. And considering what he experienced,
what he witnessed...well, we’re not really surprised.”
“But he’s not brain dead right? So that means he’s going to come out of it.” Julian
glances over at the bed, eyes filling with tears. His parents are gone and the only other person in
the world that he cares about does not respond to his own name, does not respond to his
brother’s touch. “I know he’s in there. I just have to reach him,” Julian murmurs.
The doctors have performed all manner of tests—lab, imaging, and other studies—to rule
out metabolic abnormalities or treatable masses. All the tests have come back negative, however,
confirming their initial diagnosis: Acute Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
“Putting a big fancy name on what this is isn’t going to help my brother come out of this
stupor, is it?” Julian asks.
The doctor reaches for his shoulder and squeezes. “We’re doing everything we can.”
18
Predator’s Salvation
Everything they can do is not enough, and for days and weeks, Julian watches as they
force anti-psychotic drugs into his little brother to no obvious avail.
The little boy shows no signs of coming out of his stupor no matter how much Julian sits
and talks with him daily.
His body has become a prison where he is trapped, only vaguely aware of things, every
once in a while hearing his name, but unable to answer.
Until one day, out of desperation, Julian catches Mateo around the shoulders and shakes
him. He screams, “Talk to me, Matty! I know you’re in there! I know you can see me and hear
me and you’re going to talk to me, damn it! I’m waiting for you, Matty. I need you. C’mon...”
Doctors and nurses rush into the room to pull Julian off of the little boy, and during the
scuffle at the threshold of his hospital room, Mateo blinks and focuses his eyes on the group and
shouts, “Don’t hurt my brother! Leave Julian alone!” before slipping back into that other
dimension.
It is the start of Mateo’s long road to recuperation. He comes around again later the
same day, and this time it is for good.
LaMia felt the sudden heat of his stare before his breathing sped beside her. She opened her eyes and turned her head to face him.
He was angry. That much was clear from the frosty glare he gave her with those gorgeous chocolate-brown, almond-shaped eyes.
She supposed it was about time to take the tape off again, especially since she did actually prefer hearing his deep, sensuous baritone as opposed to pilfering his thoughts. Not that she would not resort to the latter if and when she pleased or thought it would suit her purposes.
LaMia sat up beside him and waved her hand and made the tape disappear.
“I’m hungry.”
“You are quite the demanding one, are you not?”
“I want a shower and some clean clothes, too.”
LaMia laughed, shaking her head as she rose from the bed and stared down at him.
Rather than anger her, Mateo’s audacity and impudence amused her. Each represented a rare challenge, and since she loved a challenge and had not experienced a suitable one from any of her quarry in a very long time, she decided that she would be keeping this human male around longer than even she had originally intended.
She scoffed at the fleeting thought that he had ceased to become just a means to an end once she had touched his mind and seen the past through his eyes.
Fah,
no!
She bedazzled her prey, not the other way around. She enslaved the more worthy ones—
these numbers were few and far between—and took whatever sexual enjoyment she could from them before allowing them to leave her service. Her release was granted grudgingly, and only after LaMia was sure she had obtained as much use and energy out of her pet as there was to obtain. The ones who were released were usually much the worse for wear, while the others 19
Gracie C. McKeever
usually did not survive much past a first or second coupling.
Whether they survived after her release or not was really of no consequence to LaMia, as she was a firm believer in survival of the fittest, whether they be human, Inanna or Sebitu.
She knew most in the Alliance and humans alike would consider her mien too demanding and merciless. Knew they would consider her attitude incompatible with human conservation since it advocated going through as many males as she pleased, like a human diner at an all-you-can-eat buffet, sampling many and just discarding the used portions after she had gotten her fill.
LaMia did not believe in repeat contact. She enjoyed her variety, and only in a rare few cases—Julian, his father and a handful of others out of a century-and-a-half of hunting—had she come across any human male who had been able to hold her interest, or warranted keeping them around for longer than it took LaMia to reach fulfillment.
She did not believe in the New Regime, did not believe the old one had been broken.
Despite what the Alliance would have its Sisters in Emsharra and Gaiam accept as true, there were more than enough suitable human males to chose from for any female Inanna to at least slake her hunger as needed, if not completely satiate herself.
“Are you going to uncuff me or not?”
LaMia started as if coming out of a trance and focused on Mateo’s handsome, irate face.
“That remains to be seen. Do you think you have earned your freedom?”
Mateo growled and pulled his wrists against his shackles. “I don’t need to earn what already belongs to me, damn it!”
“You are having a difficult time accepting your submission. This is understandable and I will make some allowances for you, but do not take advantage of my good graces.”
“What good graces? You’ve kept me shackled in this dungeon all night, you haven’t fed me or allowed me to walk around and get some exercise or—”
“You would do well not to describe my dwelling thus.”
“What? A dungeon?”
“You do not know what a dungeon is, young one,” LaMia said and returned to the bed to sit beside him. She watched him look at her with a wary expression, knew he had sensed her past as she had read his, but did not know how much further his perceptions went beyond feeling. She had not felt him read her mind, but that did not mean he had or could not. She was learning more and more by the minute that she could not put anything past the young man, not anything at all, especially since it was plain to see he did not fear her.