Eliana (20 page)

An angel.

And he was hers to do with as she pleased.

The barker had followed her inside the cage. He leaned closely to whisper, “Touch him. Fuck him if you like.”

The brazen orders filled her with the heat of both embarrassment and longing. She caressed Kon’s skin and found it soft and yielding. He leaned into her as if craving the touch.

Shameless, indeed. She stroked his butt, loving the firmness of the curved flesh. She slid two fingers into the crack and rubbed the tight muscle of his asshole. He shivered. “Touch yourself,” she said.

Kon obeyed. He spat into his palms, then grasped his flaccid cock.

The barker passed something hard and heavy into her hand. “Use it.”

It was a dildo carved from a dark wood. The length was already shining and slick with lube.

Kon looked over his shoulder at the dildo. He started to pant.

“On your hands and knees.”

He dropped, body beautifully arched and waiting. Fully aware of the shocked gazes of the onlookers, she placed the dildo and slowly inserted it, fascinated by the way his body stretched to accept the foreign object. Kon’s panting increased.

“Gaze upon him! This freak of freaks, this shameless sodomite! See the lust in the eyes of this son of a devil and a demon with the face of an angel.”

She walked in front of him. He raised his head to look at her, begging not with words but with his eyes and body.

She almost backed away, but the barker was there behind her, blocking her exit. He pried her hand open and laid a flogger in her palm. “Thrash him. Take him to the next level.” With a nudge, he propelled her back toward Kon.

Gesturing, she said, “On your knees against the bars.”

He crawled toward the bars and used them to lift himself onto his knees. He pressed his body so tightly against the iron that his cock projected past the cage, just within reach of those closest.

Eliana flogged that handsome, bare back. Reddened welts crisscrossed the formerly immaculate skin. Kon’s panting changed to slow, meditative breaths.

“He likes it,” the barker whispered in her ear. “Do it harder. Make him bleed.”

It was too much, too far, but she couldn’t stop. Kon never cried out. He accepted the lashes as if they were a drug he used to escape. Audience members pushed and shoved. A lucky few made it near enough to stroke Kon’s erection, which showed no signs of flagging.

“More,” the barker said.

Eliana lifted her hand for one more blow.

* * * *

Dane soon regretted his suggestion that Eliana touch Kon. She went motionless for several minutes, then gasped and snatched her hand away. “Kon? You bastard. Wake up. Wake up
right now
.”

To Dane’s shock, she smacked Kon hard on the cheek. He grabbed her around the waist and yanked her from the bed. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“All he’s doing is lying there feeling sorry for himself. I didn’t leave my family behind to put up with shit like that.”

“Like what? What did you see?”

“I’m tired of being used to fulfill another man’s fantasy. If that’s the only reason you brought me here, you can go to hell. Both of you.” She elbowed him in the gut, forcing him to let go.

“Wait. Just wait.”

She didn’t. She headed toward the kitchen, limping and breathing hard.

“What the hell have you done now, Kon?” Dane asked and set his hand on Kon’s forehead.

It didn’t take long to understand Eliana’s disgust. The carnival barker—physically appearing as Dane but acting on Kon’s subconscious—was manipulative to a sickening degree. When he ended the contact, his skin crawled.

The outer door opened and shut. Dane’s heart sank. So Eliana was leaving, then.
Fine. I’ll do this on my own.

“She’s right. That’s enough. Wake up, damn it.” Uncaring of how fragile Kon looked, Dane slapped him as hard as he could.

From behind him came the ominous
click
of a handgun being cocked.

“Is this how you repay your Warden’s kindness? Run away for most of the day and then come back and give him a beating?”

Hands in the air, Dane slowly turned around. Evan, grim-faced, aimed a pistol at him. Two Wardens, both of them large, muscular men, flanked him on either side. They too were armed. Dane saw them only in passing around the enclave and had forgotten their names, but he knew they were the ones Evan called in when he had particularly difficult cambions to deal with—ones who needed “tamed.”

Shit.

“Where did you go, Dane? It’s been almost twenty hours, and you put nine hundred miles on the car.”

“That’s none of your business.” He prayed Eliana would have the sense to stay where she was and out of sight.

“You went out to buy him more drugs, didn’t you? Hand them over.”

“I didn’t give him the drugs. I told you. His father sent them.” Not that he had any hope of convincing Evan of the truth.

“You expect me to believe a dead man sent his son drugs? I think not.”

Fuck this
. The gun was a threat. Dane didn’t believe Evan would actually shoot him. Projectile weapons weren’t used even for the most dangerous cambions. “Just because your lover OD’d—”

“She did
not
overdose. She never would. Her fucking cambion drugged her.”

Kon had told Dane otherwise, and Dane knew who to believe. Dane glanced at the two guards. Both were impassive, seemingly indifferent to Evan’s irrational display.

Evan waved the gun. “You’re going to follow these nice men to a room down the hall. Then you’re going to let your demon feed. Tomorrow you’ll be transferred to the enclave in Yuma.”

The desert. Middle-of-nowhere Arizona and the last stop for untreatable, incorrigible cambions. “Like hell. Kon won’t let you.”

“He won’t have a choice, especially when I inform the Warden’s Council you assaulted the Chief Warden and tried to kill your own Warden.”

“Kill him?” Dane couldn’t hide his incredulity. Evan had lost it. He’d gone totally, flipping crazy.

“You gave me a few bruises. I came in and saw your hand raised against a helpless, unconscious man. Who do you think they’ll believe?”

Dane backed away. “I’m not going.”

The guards didn’t give him a chance. They lunged, and there wasn’t enough space in the room for Dane to get around them. One grabbed his arms and slammed him into the wall. A bruising ache shot up his hip and shoulder.

Evan gazed at him without pity. “I let Kon have too much leeway. A cambion can never be a Dom. They’re dangerous. Unpredictable. Too much power and they turn on those who love and trust them.”

The second pulled out a TASER. He fired. The electrified darts dug into Dane’s skin. Electricity singed every nerve in his body. He opened his mouth to scream, but muscle control fled completely. Paralyzed, he dropped to the floor, helpless as the guards dragged him from the room.

Chapter Twenty

Eliana huddled in the kitchen, biting her lip against the pain the awkward position caused. She didn’t need to see the situation to understand what was going on.

Dane
. She had no idea where Evan was taking him, but it couldn’t be good. She didn’t like the sound of forcing him to let his demon feed.

She peeked around the corner. Evan sat on Kon’s bed, stroking that slack, pale face with a gentleness that went beyond mere friendship. No wonder the crazy fucker had come to bother her the first day she’d been here. He’d wanted to see if she posed any sort of a threat to Kon.

Impatiently, she waited until Evan placed a kiss on Kon’s forehead and left. Then she crept out to Kon. Tempted as she was to simply go after Evan and whip him with his own pistol, she didn’t know the layout or the rules of this enclave. If she wanted to help Dane, she needed Kon.

That, however, remained dubious. Kon had shown no signs of consciousness with Evan nearby, and she didn’t have much hope she’d be able to do any better at getting his attention.

The insistent beeping from the damn monitors didn’t help. She unplugged the machines. “Kon?” She slapped him again. When that failed, she shook him. “Kon. Damn it. Wake up. If you don’t, Evan’s going to do something terrible to Dane.”

Nothing happened.
Damn him
. At a loss, she dropped to the bed. “If you’re wondering why I left, it’s because you
scare
me. And you know how much I hate being scared.” Apprehensively she set a hand on his forehead. This time she wasn’t sucked into one of his dreams, but the unhappiness emanating from him grated on her nerves. “You’re not sick. Stop fucking feeling so damn sorry for yourself.” One by one she yanked the heart monitor’s electrodes from his skin and hoped the adhesive hurt.

A hand grasped hers. She startled and twisted around to see that Kon’s eyes were open, his pity directed at her rather than himself.

“I’m sorry, Ellie.”

Grief sprang upon hearing the nickname. Little Emilio had called her that. Emilio, broken and dying in her arms only a few months ago. Through tear-fogged eyes, she gazed at Kon and saw him fragile and ill and full of the same gaping loneliness which ate her from the inside out. “Jerk. You should be. Are you done feeling sorry for yourself? If not, I’d be happy to slap you again.”

He smiled faintly. “I’d like that.”

Of course he would
. “Get up. You’ve got to help me save Dane.”

“Dane?”

“Yeah. You know, big blond guy. The one you were imagining as a carnival psycho?”

“Dane.” Kon struggled to sit up. Eliana had to help him, reminded uncomfortably of the times she’d aided her drunken stepfather. “Where is he?”

“I don’t know. Evan and two henchmen took him down the hall. Something about forcing his demon to feed.”

She hadn’t thought Kon could go any paler, but he did. “I need my clothes.”

Eliana grabbed jeans and a sweater from the dresser. “Arms up, and don’t you dare fall down.”

“Why did you come back?”

She jammed the sweater over his head. “Dane asked me nicely and apologized for your bad behavior. That doesn’t mean I’ve forgiven you. Legs, please.”

With a grunt, he swung his legs over the side of the bed. He thrust them into the jeans but had to lean on her for support when he stood.

“Can you walk, or do I need to lend you my cane?”

He staggered to the door. “If Dane’s in trouble, I’ll fly if I have to.”

* * * *

The guards had stripped Dane and restrained him facedown on a padded bench, wrists and ankles cuffed to the legs. Evan waved a syringe in front of Dane’s eyes. “Kon doesn’t believe me when I tell him how dangerous you are, so I’m going to have to show him. This is a special formula, one designed by Kon’s father, in fact. Very useful for dealing with reluctant cambions.”

The needle pricked his arm. Dane hissed. Evan depressed the plunger as if he administered injections on a daily basis. “There,” he said, removing the needle. “Just a minute or two and your demon will be out and ready to feed.”

Feed on what?

His demon came, filling his body with the familiar heat and brutal arousal. Like a hound on a scent, the demon lunged at the strongest source of sexual energy it could find.

Oh.

Evan
was
getting a kick out of this, but his pleasure was twisted. Wrong. He dangled a rattan cane where Dane could see it. He swung it through the air, the eerie whistle a promise of pain to come.

Dane had felt the kiss of leather upon his flesh more than once, but always wielded by a skillful, attentive hand. Evan, for all the knowledge of anatomy and sexuality required of all Wardens, brandished the cane with less than professional care.

Evan swung. The cane landed on the sciatic nerve in his back. Fire radiated outward, licking at his nerves with a cruel bite. Dane ground his teeth to keep from crying out.

“How does it feel to be on the receiving end? How do you like being preyed upon the same way you’ve been preying on Kon for the past few years?”

Reasoning wasn’t going to work, so Dane kept his mouth shut and hoped Eliana was safe. With luck she’d find help, and this would be over. Soon.

Evan struck again, this time at a poor angle. The cane bent around Dane’s body and stung the tender part of his waist. Dane muttered a curse.

Safe, sane, and consensual.

This session was none of those. Dane ground his teeth together and weathered the blows without giving Evan the enjoyment of hearing him scream.

“You always were stubborn. Let go, Dane. Let the rage out.” There was madness in his eyes along with the jealousy smoldering every time Dane was in his presence.

He’d be damned if he gave in. Cambions weren’t mindless, sexually depraved creatures unless their Wardens treated them as such. Kon never had. Kon loved him, and except for the rare slip, treated him as an equal. Evan only wanted to belittle Dane, to drive him to the brink so he had “proof” Dane was dangerous and should be sent away—leaving the path clear for him to be the only one to console and comfort Kon.

Dane focused on his breathing. Long, deep, and slow. In and out. His demon writhed, demanding sustenance he couldn’t provide.

Snap.

The cane landed another stinging blow. Dane arched his back, unable to stop the instinctual response as pain flooded his back, all the way down his legs and into his toes.

Snap.

Evan made another strike to the vulnerable parts of Dane’s back. Needles prickled in Dane’s hands and feet as if they’d gone to sleep and been brutally woken. His control slipped. The grip on his demon dissolved. Panic took hold.
No. No…

Snap.

Dane’s demon shattered its prison and took hold of his body with the ferocity of a wounded, ravenous tiger. It turned its gaze to the man holding the cane, taunting it, hurting it. One thought repeated over and over in its head.

Kill.

Chapter Twenty-One

Five years earlier, Kon had been the first one on the scene when Evan’s lover Tasha had been found dead. Tasha’s cambion, Jared, had been frantically trying to resuscitate her, but Kon knew she was too far gone because he couldn’t feel her at all with his Sensitivity. Evan had raced in and driven his fist into Jared’s jaw. Jared flew off the bed and landed hard on the floor. Hurt and bleeding, the cambion crawled back toward the blue-tinged, lifeless body of the woman they both loved.