Chapter 24

The raging headache let me know I was awake instead of in some sort of nightmare. My mouth felt like cotton, and the rest of me felt gripped in some sort of sleep paralysis.

The last time I’d dealt with the traffickers, they’d not known I was on to them, and that I was working with the feds to get them taken down. I hadn’t had to deal with this side of things, other than learning a thing or two about what I could do to stay alive until I was rescued.

I stifled a groan and tried to look around. Was I tied? Or still affected by the tranquilizer. I couldn’t make out shapes, but I also couldn’t move my hands to touch my face and see if I was blindfolded.

Trying for patience, I lay there and listened.

It was hard not to struggle against the lethargy that weighed my limbs, but I managed. My breathing was loud in my ears, overshadowing my heartbeat. Once I calmed, I could hear it, too. That, and not much else.

Slowly, feeling returned, and I almost wished for the oblivion from before. Along with the headache and the dry mouth, my nerves were now screaming at me, running hot fire through my limbs, and yet, I still couldn’t move.

I didn’t think I was blindfolded. It really was that dark. The lack of sounds and sight might have had me panicking, but honestly, at this point, that was the least of my worries. At least if there was no sound or sensation, there was nothing around attacking me. And if the light returned and showed me in a vat of snakes or something else terrible? Oh well. On the other hand, if they were already shipping me off to get trafficked, well, I had a vague hope of some supernatural rescue.

I wondered what had happened to Katsuro.

I was trying really hard not to think about Nimbus. He was my biggest concern, but also, panicking about him wasn’t going to help me escape.

A soft, feather-light brush against my thoughts pulled my attention inward. My mind’s eye resolved an image of an ancient apple tree, limbs spreading, and laden with young green fruits, not yet large or ripened. Beneath the tree sat Twister, expression solemn. Though he dropped his jaw in a doggy grin when he saw me.

“The storm is intense this day,” he acknowledged me.

“Very.” I came over and sat next to him. He tilted his head the same way Nimbus did when he wanted pets. I was happy to oblige. Sinking my fingers into his soft fluff and leaning against Twister. “What do I do?”

“Your powers must move to their full fruit.” He looked up at the apple tree. “Make the fruit mature, and you will have the power you need to escape.”

Before I could ask him how I was going to do that, the ground trembled, and I was thrown to my side.

I blinked, and the tremor came again. It wasn’t the ground; it was someone shaking me awake.

When I finally got my eyes open, my vision was blurry, and it took a while for the blur to resolve into a face. Not one I recognized, and my last, distant hope that I’d been rescued while I slept dissolved. The person shaking me was a guy. Younger. He had dark eyes, dark hair, light skin, and a short growth of stubble. At least, I thought that’s what he looked like. I tried to clear my vision.

“Get up!”

It took a minute to comprehend what the man was saying. My brain was as fuzzy as my vision. At least there was light now, though I was having trouble making out the rest of my surroundings.

“Get up!” he shouted.

The noise sent daggers through my brain.

When I didn’t reply, he grabbed my arm and jerked me to my feet.

I didn’t even try to stand. It wouldn’t hurt them to think I was more helpless than I was. Also… I actually couldn’t make my legs work yet, anyway.

“Dumb bitch,” he snarled, as I failed to keep my feet.

The pain of hitting the ground was a distant thing. So was the kick to the ribs. I desperately tried to regain the peace of the apple tree and Twister’s presence, but it was like trying to hang on to grains of sand. Everything slipped through my fingers and blackness took me.

The next time I struggled awake, I was alone. I lay sprawled on hard ground, as if the guy who had tried to get me to move had just left me where I’d crashed to the floor. In fact, that’s probably what had happened.

My mouth was just as dry, and my bladder raged at me.

I struggled to my hands and knees and looked around. I was in a small room with two doors, ugly beige walls, a wooden floor, and a pile of blankets where I’d probably been tossed before dickhead had dragged me off them, then left me in the middle of the room. The window had been boarded over, and a little light seeped in around the edges.

One of the doorknobs had a lock. One did not.

I really hoped the one that did not led to a bathroom.

The effort of getting there almost left me unconscious again, but I made itand sighed with relief. A bathroom.

Relieving myself, then cleaning up in the sink and drinking water helped drastically. By the time I left the closet-sized room, I was only staggering a little. I tried the handle on the other door, just in case.

It didn’t turn, but moments later, I heard the lock click and someone shoved it inward. I jerked back with just enough balance left to not fall on my ass, but it was a near thing. I cursed the dumbasses who had hit me with tranquilizer. They were lucky they hadn’t killed me. Well, okay, I was the lucky one. They probably didn’t care. They had Nimbus, and while I’m sure they were really pissed off at me, having me dead likely wouldn’t break their hearts. It wasn’t like I had information they needed or anything. My use to them was likely purely revenge.

I just had to figure out how to stay alive long enough to rescue Nimbus and Katsuro if he was captured.

The dumbass from before was the one staring at me. I was pretty sure, anyway. My brain was still a little fuzzy.

“Come on.”

I let him grab my arm and drag me out of the room, staggering more than I needed to, though I was far from steady.

We looked to be in a house of some sort. A big one, judging by the hallway dumbass pulled me down. The floors were old wood and creaked under our feet, and the dark wooden paneling seemed like it should have been decorated with tapestries and paintings, but the walls were bare like the floor. The lighting fixtures were oddly cheap-looking compared to how expensive everything else seemed.

It was a puzzle that didn’t really matter. Likely, the current owners of the house had nothing to do with the light fixtures.

Dumbass jerked me to a halt and shoved open another door.

I wanted to bitch about the treatment, but right now, I kept quiet.

What I saw on the other side of the door stole any words I might have had, anyway.

Katsuro lay sprawled on the floor, a stake shoved through his chest. I could only assume he was still alive based on the little real information I had on vampires and a wealth of lore. He lay in a tangle of limbs. His lovely black hair was no longer contained in a tail and obscured his face. His shirt was ripped, and his pants stained with dirt.

I covered my mouth with my hand to keep my gasp from escaping.

Even worse, Nimbus was in the room. I’d have been happy to see him, but he was still curled up in a little fluffy cinnamon roll, trapped in a glass cage with air holes. He was unconscious, and a golden leash tethered him.

I could nearly feel his torment, though his eyes were shut and his breathing even and slow.

Rounding on my captor, I balled my fists.

He just laughed. “Careful, or we’ll wake the vampire up and lock you in here with him.”

I couldn’t help myself, throwing out a clumsy punch to his face. I knew how to hit people, but my body still wasn’t responding right.

Dumbass just laughed and shoved me to the ground. “We don’t really need you, bitch. Boss wants to play with you a little before we feed you to your boyfriend, but if you make too much trouble, I don’t think he’ll care if we end you early.”

I didn’t get up, defeat draining any energy I had left.

“Gonna leave you here, but just so you don’t go getting any ideas, I wasn’t lying about feeding you to fang face over there. They wake up hungry and out of control. You pull that stake out of him and you’ll do us all a favor. And that cage, well, if you touch it, you won’t live long enough to enact any of those escape plans I’m sure you’re forming.” He leered. “Now be a good girl and sit and stay until we’re ready for you.”

Speechless, I watched as he turned and slammed the door behind himself.

I didn’t get the impression he was lying about anything he’d told me, and I suspected the only reason I was in here was to torment me awhile.

The room didn’t give me a lot of options. No windows, only one door, and Katsuro and Nimbus were here.

Well, it didn’t give me options, but an ancient vampire?

Fuck it. If he killed me, well, hopefully, he could at least rescue Nimbus. I went over to Katsuro and kneeled next to him. It didn’t take much to roll him onto his back, and I brushed some of his long, silky hair off of his face.

Taking a deep breath, I wrapped my hand around the stake and hoped he’d forgive me for dragging him into this mess. There was always the possibility that he wouldn’t kill me, after all.

“Just make sure you rescue Nimbus,” I said, hoping he heard me as I pulled.