Tempting Gray - Untouchables 02 (15 page)

“What happened?” she asked when they reached
the top of the stairs. She wanted to be tough, but she was scared. She was more
scared than she’d ever been in her life. Her eyes were wide, frightened, her
skin clammy from cold sweat.

Distractedly, he glanced down at her and seemed
to realize just how scared she was. Voices called out below. It didn’t sound
good.

“I’ll explain, come on.”

No more needed be said. Instead of going out
the front door as she had expected, he veered them deeper into the building
down a long empty hallway with a bunch of closed doors. He found one toward the
back of the building and took them inside. It smelled musty and the room could
use a good dusting. It looked like nothing more than a very old, unused office.
Maybe this facility had once been a real building before being bought and
turned into a casino.

“What happened?” she asked, looking at his
hands. “Whose blood is this?”

He snatched them away. “Not mine. Listen, I’m
going to get us out of here but we can’t go out the front. They’ll already be
searching for my car. They’ll be waiting there.”

She froze. “Wait, I can’t shift. You might be
able to run out of here with your vampire speed, but I run barely faster than a
human, Grayson.”

His eyes cut to hers. “I know. I’d never leave
you.”

“Of course. I’m sorry.” She knew in her heart
and for many other reasons that Grayson would never leave her like that. It
went completely against his morals. He stood in front of her alive and well.
The past twenty or so minutes of fear seemed all for nothing. He was here and
fine and acting like nothing strange had happened. This suddenly made her mad. “What
happened and why are we in here?”

“They’re looking for me.”

She tried not to look freaked-out but failed
miserably. “Who is they and shouldn’t we be, oh, I don’t know,
leaving
?”

“Keep your voice down,” he said with remarkable
calm. He went to the window, a small thing that couldn’t be any more than
twenty-two inches wide, and was covered in a thick layer of brown dust that had
settled on it.

He’d never be able to fit through that.

“I found Jericho’s torture rooms.”

The words didn’t comprehend. She shook her head
to clear it and tried again. “What was that?”

He didn’t look at her. “I found a couple of
cells down below, s from the casino floor. Plenty of guards and he had a few
prisoners. I had to take down one of the guards.” That explained the blood on
his hands.

Chills broke out over her arms making her rub
them to find warmth. “And there were torture rooms? Not that the cells don’t
sound like torture enough.” She laughed unevenly at the poor joke.

“No, there was an open space made entirely out
of concrete and a smaller cell attached to it. The bars are made out of silver
so it doesn’t matter if he has a Were or a vampire; either way, you’re caught.
Chains, shackles and old bloodstains on the floor. Not a good place to be. But
no sign of the Donatos. Not even a whisper about them.”

“What are we going to do?”

“Sit tight for a few minutes and let them fan
out a bit. They found the guard down while I was leaving. They’re looking for
me. Don’t worry, we’re getting the hell out of here. It’s two and a
quarter-miles to the next town if we head south. By time we get there, I’ll
have a team waiting for us.”

“How can you be so calm about all this?” She
laughed humorlessly. “How do you know they won’t catch us?”

He turned and really looked at her. His gaze
flickered with something she didn’t recognize and in the next moment he crossed
to her before she could make nary a peep, and pulled her into his arms. Heat
wrapped around her cold body. So much heat, she shivered from it and stood in
his arms like a trembling leaf as he held her. Her muscles twitched from being
tense for so long. Finally in his arms she could relax. His touch coaxed that
response from her.

She buried her face in his shirt. She inhaled
his scent and the tension eased in her back. He rubbed soothingly up and down
her back. The hard, strong wall of his chest comforted her nerves and slowly
brought back her bravado.

“I didn’t think you were coming back.”

“You stayed longer than you were supposed to.”

A change occurred then. As if they’d both
finally said what they’d been holding in.

His dark gaze slid to her mouth. Even as her
breath caught she knew he was going to do it, and she rose on her feet to meet
him. Grayson dipped his head and covered her mouth with his. They held the kiss
for a suspended moment of time. It was hard and hungry, close-mouthed. Passion
simmered beneath the surface like a geyser. He pulled back and she was caught
up in his gaze.

“Grayson.” A whisper. A plea.

His hands squeezed her about the waist bringing
their hips ever closer. “Arabella.” His voice was thick with lust.
For her
.
He never used her nickname and only he could make her name sound exotic and
beautiful.

She couldn’t believe she was seeing this side
of him. This passionate Grayson that overwhelmed her and made her yearn for
more. The crush she’d been harboring for so long felt like a rosebud only now
blooming into something big and bold and beautiful. Oh how dangerous this was
for her. To risk her heart for him.
He isn’t broken, no matter what he
thinks.
The stakes were high of she lost the battle with him. She’d be
crushed.

He cupped her breast. The daring touch took her
completely by surprise. She swore her head spun for a moment. His kiss muffled
the sound of her moan but did nothing to disguise it.

That’s how they were caught by the one with the
Mohawk.

Mohawk stepped into the room. Guards hung with
him like he/she was important.

“I didn’t think you’d come to my place, but you’ve
made this so much easier.” Even the voice was a cross between masculine and
feminine. No obvious gender.

“Jericho?” Grayson said, confusion thick in his
voice. He pushed her behind him smoothly.

The man, yes, a
man
smiled. It was a
resigned smile that only curled up one side of his mouth. A frightening grin.

“Put them down.”

She didn’t know what it meant but her muscles
coiled ready for battle. Grayson had an entirely different response.

Moving so fast she could barely keep up, he
snapped his wrists throwing two small silver blades. Jericho ‘The Butcher’
Donato, a Mohawk wearing androgynous vampire warlord, ducked missing the
attack. The guard standing behind him wasn’t so lucky. He took the blades to
the neck. While all this occurred in the span of two seconds or less, Grayson
sprinted toward Jericho.

Completely calm and unfazed, Jericho
sidestepped Grayson’s attack and stuck something against his side. The crackle
of electricity snapped. Body jerking with involuntary spasms, Grayson collapsed
on a groan, his body shaking with the aftermath. The sound of Grayson’s pained
groan sent Arabella into a spiral of emotion she’d never felt in her entire
life. A consummate rage that made her feel more animal than Were.

Arabella had never felt the cold bonds of
handcuffs in her life. The silver cuffs singed around her wrists like the devil’s
handshake. Grayson marched ahead of her. She didn’t have to read the lines of
tension across his back to see he was pissed, to say the least.

They were surrounded by guards with Mohawk, aka
Jericho the freaking Butcher, leading the front back through the casino and
toward the back room door Arabella really didn’t wish to see. As they came onto
the floor, chained, dragged and scowling, it was Kane she saw inching his way
closer to see. His intelligent eyes watched them closely. Well, now he knew for
sure she was up to no good.

They weren’t gentle as they pushed and shoved
them down a concrete staircase that went on and on. Deep below the casino. The
smell hit her first. The stench of foul feces, urine, blood and filth. She
gagged as her stomach convulsed in one violent pulse. Grayson looked back at
her, concern warring with a thousand other emotions.

The guards dragged them down a much shorter
hallway. Two prison cells lined the left and right side of the room asymmetrically.
The bars were indeed made out of silver just like Grayson said. One man sat
hunched in one of the cells. His hair was overgrown, he wore a ragged brown
cloak, and didn’t look up at them as they were dragged in. In the front of the
room she found what Grayson had described as the torture room.

A concrete, cold looking open space with a
length of chain hanging from the ceiling in the center of it over a drain. A
drain, how
necessary,
she thought morbidly, picturing all the various
kinds of liquids that had spilled down that pipe over the years.

“I’ll be right back,” Jericho said and went out
a door at the other end of the room. It was a utilitarian door with a level you
pushed down to open like you saw in stairwells in office buildings. Arabella
eyed that door wondering if there was a way out of here through there.

What was the Plan B? Or did they even have one?

One of the guards opened a cell. It hit her all
at once—an all-consuming fear. All she knew was that she couldn’t let them lock
her in there. She’d never get out. She’d died there. She’d be at their mercy.

And so she screamed all holy terror. The kind
of scream that called to others and notified them aptly—something very bad was
happening. The guard behind her hit her in the back of the head with his gun.
The heavy blow sent her sprawling into the bars hard enough to bruise. So much
pain. It throbbed at the back of her skull. Wincing, she turned around, caught
sight of the guard then suddenly launched herself at him. It was like she’d
been taken over with an animal. One that wanted to survive.

The guard stumbled back several steps and she didn’t
hesitate to lean down and bite. She might not be able to shift but god dammit
she was a Were. Were bites weren’t delicate or pretty like a vampires. When
they bit they bit to eat steak, not slurp a drink. So when Arabella growled a
feral, cat-like sound and grabbed the guard’s hair yanking his head back,
tugging down his shoulder with her other hand, and struck, she bit
through
his
throat. Blood spurted in her mouth, meat and tendons crushed by the power of
her jaw, mangling it. Swiveling her head around like a dog with a bone, she
jerked back and the guard screamed much as she had before. He clutched at his
neck as he dropped her like a hot potato and leapt back.

“Get her the fuck off me!” he screamed. Blood
spurted between his fingers and dripped down his chin.

Someone grabbed her by the hair. That hurt—a
lot. Strands tore and skin pulled. She was shoved into a cell. She spun as soon
as the door slammed shut. “Let me the fuck out of here!” She reached through
the bars thinking to grab one of the guards and do anything to hurt him. But
one of the bigger ones stepped forward and shoved her back. Her foot slipped on
a loose piece of flooring and she dropped to her ass biting her tongue in the
process.

“Fucking cunt. I should rip her damn head off,”
the one she’d gotten a piece of said as he stood.

Suddenly an arm wrapped around her chest and
dragged her backward. She jerked then saw who it was and relaxed. “Grayson—”
she began, then gasped when she saw what had been done to him. His face was
swelling around his left eye. Purples and blues were beginning to infuse his
irritated skin. Blood had dripped from his nose leaving a red line above his
lip and he wore a pained grimace that spoke of other bodily injuries. “What
happened? I sort of…went wild for a minute there and didn’t see you.”

He scowled as he positioned himself to lean
back against the wall. She’d turned into him and they were nearly hugging. Much
as they’d been when they were caught. “Nothing happened. Listen to me, I’m
going to get us out of here.”

She almost smiled. “I knew it! I knew there had
to be a Plan B.”

He looked contrite. “I don’t know if I’d called
it that, but yeah. Something like that.”

She waited for him to continue. “Well, what is
it?”

The door opened and Jericho came back into the room.
The vampire was cool and collected. He had a silver machete in his hand. Her
hand curled into his shirt.

“Tell me,” she said, her voice barely audible.

“We’re going to have to wait.”

That’s all he got time to say before Jericho
came to the cell. “Bring him out.”

The guards unlocked the cell and slid the door
along the track to open it. Grayson stepped forward. He went so willingly.
Always the hero.

She fought it instantly. “No!” She dove forward
to charge one of the guards, not caring if she got hurt; she’d do anything to make
sure they didn’t hurt him. But Grayson caught her attack and he shoved her back
into the cell.

“Be calm!” he ordered. And she saw it on his
face. He was doing this to protect her. Probably in some way she couldn’t even
conceive of now, he was protecting her in some way. That was his nature. It’s
who he was.

They dragged him out of the cell but Jericho
held up his hand. His eyes slid between Arabella and Grayson. A sinking feeling
began in her gut and moved through her whole body.

“Stop,” Jericho said. Everyone stopped. “Bring
her instead.”

The guards took one step toward her when
Grayson tore a path straight to Jericho. He caught The Butcher by surprise and
landed a right hook so hard, Jericho’s head made an awful
crunch
. But
they quickly caught Grayson and shoved him back inside. She went without a
fuss, dread making her limbs heavy.

She didn’t turn around. Even as she heard
Grayson fighting and the guards hitting him.

“Shut him up,” Jericho said. Some of his calm
was gone after Grayson’s surprise attack. His voice because hoarse and wispy,
almost soft. It was eerie as hell.

What is happening to me?

Her hands were shoved into shackles and wrenched
above her head. Her ankles were bound by ice-cold metal to the concrete floor.

“Take her clothes off.”

No!
She went numb. Shaking too hard, her teeth were
chattering. She was blinking fast trying not to cry but tears slide down
anyway. Her shoes are taken first. Bare toes touched the ice-cold floor. It felt
wet and it scared her to think what from.

The fight in the cell reached a climax. Someone
was hurt. Or maybe several someone’s. Maybe Grayson managed to kill one of the
guards. Wow, the thought threw her through a loop. She was wishing someone
truly dead—not something she’d ever done in her whole life.

The dress was cut from her body ruthlessly with
scissors. They spared no scrap of cloth until all that was left was bare skin.
She couldn’t keep from flinching. She was so exposed. The chains left her to
hang some of her weight on her wrists. Her toes just scraped the floor. The
perfect torture device to make you feel perfectly unstable and wobbly.

The cell door crashed closed behind her.
Shaking under the weight of Jericho’s crazed stare, she peered over her
shoulder. A cry escaped her when she found him. He was flat on the ground,
unmoving.

“Did you kill him?”

No one said anything.

“Well, answer the lady,” Jericho said in that
soft voice. An edge of violence was in his words.

“Nah, he’s just out. Took a few hits to the
head. He’ll be ready for you,” the guard promised.

“There you have it.” Jericho moved and she
flinched, afraid he was coming to her, but instead he began circling her. Oh,
it was so much worse. Now he went in and out of her line of sight. Each time
saying nothing but merely watching her.

“You dyed your hair. Why?”

The thought of telling this man anything personal
about herself made her gag. “Why can’t I sense you?”

That smile came back. “Please, tell me what you
mean.”

So polite, so soft-spoken. A maniac in
disguise. “I-I’m sure you already know all about me. I can track people. I
found you but I didn’t
sense
you.” She’d known something was different about
him, but it’d barely set off her radar at all. Arabella had worked on honing
her tracking skills with the help of her father for a long, long time.

He stepped forward, so close she jerked back in
the chains but that only sent her swinging further back than she wanted. She
paled as she realized the momentum was going to jerk her forward—and into him.
Her flesh crawled like millions of squirming worms writhed across her body.
Just as she knew would happen—she swung back too far then surged forward. No
matter how hard she tried to buck away at the last second, she simply didn’t have
enough maneuverability to miss slamming into him.

He caught her. Above the waist, the Mohawked
Butcher held her bare straining body against his. She saw into his eyes. She wanted
to look away but in that moment she thought of Grayson and that gave her the courage
she needed. His eyes were pale blue. And they were dead. Completely and utterly
dead. He had the eyes of a man who’d stolen lives without guilt or remorse. He
was a killer. And she was a mouse.

“You are a special Were.” He brushed the hair
back from her face like a father to a daughter. “I want to know all about your
ability. You’ll tell me about it, won’t you?” This was a man you did not say no
to.

Arabella chose not to say anything. He
continued to stroke her hair as she waited in fear of his reaction. Would he
yank her hair? Each agonizing stroke made her wince, waiting for it to come.

But he stepped back and away. He disappeared
behind her. The guards were nowhere in sight. All she could see was the door
Jericho had used earlier and the concrete wall surrounding it. She became aware
of how cold it was down here. Her skin prickled with goosebumps and the hair
stood up on her body. Her nipples were hard and her fingers were like icicles
from hanging above her head for so long.

She suddenly screamed as icy cold water doused
her backside. A hose with so much pressure the flow of water blasted her,
stinging and so cold. She shivered, her body jerking to try to get out of the
water. Then it stopped. She was breathing hard—part terror, part shock. That’s
when she realized having the hose off was worse.

Her sensitive skin turned even colder as the
cool air caressed her like an open wound. Jericho hugged her from behind one
arm wrapped around her hips. She was shaking in his hold unable to control the
impulses. Her teeth chattered viciously.

A sharp edge pressed into her abdomen above her
hip. His hatchet. He didn’t say anything. But she felt the blade cut into her.
He gave it a sawing motion and then it vanished. Gasping, Arabella stared down
at the line of blood he left in his wake. He’d cut her. Not very deep, just a line.
It felt like a warning—or a threat.

“Don’t! Please don’t!” Her plea didn’t even
make him turn his head. He cut her again. This time she didn’t bother begging.
It served no purpose. He had her in his complete control.

When he was done he’d cut five lines into her
each one getting longer and deeper as he went.

“Tell me how you found this place.” The hatchet
lifted. It was polished silver, very pretty. It looked handmade and customized
just for his hand. Hatchets were primitive weapons, and still one of the best
tools to kill with. The edge of the blade touched the puckered tip of her
nipple.

Arabella tensed, holding her breath as she
tried not to move. He held the blade there with ease. “I tracked you. But I don’t
understand how I tracked you here without actually recognizing you when
I saw you.”

He pulled away. Only then did she let out the
large breath she’d been holding.

“You’re not the only one with a unique ability,
Arabella. My family’s quite good at hiding from people. It’s our own special
power. If you want to think of it like that.”

“But then how did I know this was your
c-casino?” she retorted, stammering from cold

It sounded like Grayson was waking up. There
was some groaning and shuffling around behind her. Her heart started racing
again. Jericho came around in front of her. With the top of his hatchet he
lifted her chin until she met his gaze. Her blood tipped the edge of the blade
in reminder of what he’d done.