21. Leia

Chapter 21

I groaned and rolled over, my head pounding. Music wove around me. A jazz trumpet, loud and far too happy. And the pounding inside my head was matched outside my head by the jarring beat of a large drum. I swallowed against a roil of nausea.

Voices cheered and people clapped somewhere farther away, and there was laughter, but my eyelids were too heavy to lift. Everything was foggy like someone had stirred my thoughts into a thick gloop.

I groaned, then retched and swallowed against the bile rising in my throat.

Something was wrong. Nothing sounded the same, nothing smelled the same. I'd left Nicolas's house and come home, but now I wasn't there either.

Panic sliced a keen cut of awareness through me. Not at home. I opened my eyes, but the sudden movement hurt and I closed them again even as fear began to take hold. It whispered across my skin, and I shuddered.

I rolled on my side and opened my eyes carefully. It was like I'd spent the night drinking, matching Dad mouthful for mouthful. The room spun, the walls looming in and out of focus as I tried to make sense of what I could see while the panic settled to a steady buzz that threatened to cloud my senses.

The walls were jarring, vivid splashes of color, and I closed my eyes again. I was definitely somewhere new, and… Fuck. Fuck, what did I remember? Why did everything hurt?

Shit. I needed to think. But my skull still beat to its own rhythm. I shifted onto my back and waited until the room had stopped swirling around me before I prayed for a plain white ceiling and opened my eyes.

When everything had finally steadied, I glanced around, taking my time with each movement as I cataloged my surroundings, trying to be logical and keep the terror clutching at my throat at bay. My chest had tightened, too, and my breaths were shallow.

Okay. Okay, I could do this. I'd just spent time with the Vampire King of Baton Rouge and survived his brother nearly biting me. I could find my way out of one small room. I swallowed, the movement awkward and heavy.

I was on a heavy wooden bed, and the only other things in the room were a window and a door. Well, that limited my possibilities for breaking the glass and making my escape.

I climbed from the bed, hesitance delaying each movement as I tested each one to see how much it might hurt. Finally, I leaned against the window, breathing heavily, although I couldn't say what had taken most of the effort. I felt all around it for a latch or a fastening, but there was nothing to use to open it. It was simply panes of glass set firmly within a frame. The glass wasn't even truly transparent. I couldn't see out and no one could properly see in.

No one would know I was even here.

A scream threatened to rip from me, but I held it in. Maybe the only weapon I currently had was my silence. My thoughts were fragmented, and I breathed deeply as I tried to bring them back into order.

Fear was my enemy. I needed to calm down.

I dragged myself to the door and turned the handle, but nothing happened. It didn't even rattle. Nothing groaned or creaked—maybe only my bones as a sigh rising through me shook them.

I waited a little. Silence was good, but not if it prevented being rescued.

"Hello?" My voice was scratchy, and I tried again a little louder, ignoring the instinct to make myself as small as possible and hide away.

The panic pressed harder now, heavy and cloying, and my breathing was increasingly rapid.

I pressed my ear to the door, but either the wood was too dense or there was nothing beyond it because all I heard was my own blood thrumming through my head.

I beat on the door until my hands were sore and I was so tired I wanted to fall back into the bed.

There was no way out, and all I could do was wait. But I didn't get back into the bed. I couldn't be lying there helpless if someone appeared, and someone would appear, I was certain about that much.

What was the last thing I remembered? I waded through my gloopy thoughts, searching for my memories. I'd left the bar and gone home, and Nicolas had made changes. Lots of changes.

My room had been different…but not like this. I saw my room, but did I fall asleep in it? I'd seen the bed but had no memory of lying down.

But who would take me? Who the hell would bring me here to this noisy, colorful place?

I groaned and pressed a finger to my left temple to try to ease the throbbing. I'd gone home, but maybe Nicolas had never released me from my contract. It had seemed easy. So easy.

Perhaps too easy.

Maybe he'd never let me go. Nicolas must have taken me. It was the only explanation. He knew exactly where I'd be. I'd run away from him, but he'd known I wouldn't run far.

Fucking Nicolas Dupont.

But the panic subsided a little. If Nicolas had taken me to fulfil the contract, I could at least handle that. I'd deal with him when I felt stronger. Decision made, I approached the bed and climbed back on.

I closed my eyes and prepared to sleep. Now I knew what had happened, I didn't care to stay awake. Nicolas could find out exactly how disinterested I was in his games.

I'd just relaxed when the door cracked like thunder as it smacked against the wall, and I almost fell off the bed.

"Nicolas Dupont," I yelled before I'd fully straightened. "What the hell do you think—"

I bit off my words.

Man in front of me.

Not Nicolas.

He grinned, then spoke like he could read my addled mind. "Oh, I'm not Nicolas Dupont, ma chérie." But something in the way he spoke Nicolas's name implied a viciousness not present in his casual pose or his easy grin.

My skin shifted like it wanted to crawl away from my body in this guy's presence. I lifted my chin, trying to prevent myself from shaking.

"Where am I?" My voice rang out clearly, despite the unwillingness of my skin to stay and protect me.

He laughed. "Why, New Orleans. Can't you tell? We're holding quite the party to celebrate your arrival."

He gestured vaguely toward the window, indicating outside, where the music continued.

There was even something sinister about his laugh. Something otherworldly that I couldn't pinpoint. He had an eerie calm, but his eyes were alive and alight, almost crazy.

"Is Nicolas here?" I tried to sound casual as I stepped farther behind the bed, almost shielding myself from this man I didn't know.

"Is Nicolas here?" He mimicked me, his voice falsetto, his hands clasped sweetly over his heart. Then his voice returned to normal. "No. He is not here. That would be quite unacceptable. He'd spoil all our fun."

He took one gliding step toward me, then another.

I stifled a scream.

Fucking hell. Another predatory male.

Except this one made me long to be anywhere but in his presence, while Nicolas's proximity had made me long for him inside me.

I shook my head, still trying to stir my thoughts into action. None of this made any sense. "What do you want? Why am I even here?" The heavy fear from before returned, binding me, constricting me.

He laughed again, the sound rolling over me and leaving me unclean. "I want to get everything I've always wanted. And you're the key to it all."

I opened my mouth to ask what the hell he meant, but still laughing, he began to back away, until all I could see and hear was his eyes watching me and his laugh booming off the walls like the sound itself could attack me.

He slammed the door shut behind him, and fine pieces of plaster flaked off the wall and floated to the floor, but it was like the laughter continued, mocking me. He'd left without even giving me a name, without telling me anything he planned to do with me.

Probably no one else even knew where I was.

Who would think to look?

Nicolas. The thought came to me unbidden, piercing through the fear.

But I knew, and with a certainty that shocked me. If anyone looked for me, it would be him.

If anyone came for me, it would be Nicolas Dupont.

More than once, he'd declared me as his, and if I believed anything of him at all, it was that he didn't stand idly by while someone took what was his away from him.

I ran to the door and beat on it again, then the window, a whirlwind of frenetic activity as I tried to find a way out, but the music continued, raucous and happy, and there was no way anyone near that noise would hear my pitiful attempts to get their attention.

None of this made sense. And I should never have run away from Nicolas. He'd begged me to stay. In his house, I might have been his pawn, a piece in his game to get what he wanted for his future—but here in this strange room with a man I'd never met, I was a victim, and for the first time since I'd signed Nicolas's contract, I was a true prisoner.

I might even be food.