Twisted (Rogues Shifter Series Book 3) (6 page)

As the ra
in grew heavier, battering my body with cold hard pellets. I took my mind off of my discomfort by visualizing the scene that Liam had described to me: Jackie alone in a simple bedroom, unhurt. I hoped that, like Eleanor, Kennet had a tiny spark of kindness in his sad excuse for a personality and that he truly wouldn’t hurt her.

But if he did, I'
d spend the next ten years torturing him slowly. If he killed her, it would be five hundred years; although, I’d have to leave those years to Liam, because I wouldn’t be able to live without her. I'd walk into the sun the first chance I had after she was pronounced dead. If there was an afterlife, I would search for her throughout eternity until I found her.

I s
hook off my ramblings and focused my mind on reaching my destination and continuing the search. Pulling up a burst of energy, I ratcheted up my speed and flew past the SUVs and tractor trailers on the highway, a breezy blur, forgotten by their drivers a second later.

Chapter Eleven

Jackie
: 3:45 AM Wednesday

After I’d cried myself out, I ran to the bathroom and heaved up the last meal I’d eaten. I was shaken to my core. What Kennet had done to me was worse than my long ago attack by two thugs, worse even than the rape I’d end
ured from a foster brother. Kennet had forced me to kiss him and
enjoy
it. My body had turned traitor to my heart and my mind. When we were kissing, my body had wanted more, and I couldn’t do anything to stop those responses, as hard as I’d tried. If he’d told me to strip and lay spread-eagled on the bed, I would have done it, and smiled. I pushed down another wave of nausea, feeling helpless and dirty.

I washed off my face
, then crawled onto the bed and started to curl up into a fetal position. A movement caught my eye and I noticed that Isaiah was still in the room, sitting in a chair at the small table.

“Go away.” My voice was hoarse from the acid
ic burn in the back of my throat and the crying jag.

“Sorry, healer. I'
ve been told to stay in case you try to harm yourself. And we still have much to discuss, you and I.” He crossed his right leg over his left and settled back in the chair.

“I don’t want to talk to you, so fuck off.”

“I see. So you will curl up into a ball and hide your head under the pillow and wait for him to come back and torture you again? You have two days and you've already wasted an hour with your purging and your hysterics.”

Furious, I sat
up slowly and took another look at him. “What do you propose that I do with these two days that will make any difference in the end?”

He leaned toward me and whispered
. “I can teach you how to access the lines; even though he has placed a block on them which a certain petulant cheetah shifter can’t get through.”

I quickly crawled dow
n to sit on the edge of the bed, feeling a tiny shred of hope begin to stir in my chest. “Why would you do that for me?”

“I despise hi
m every bit as much as you do.”

My mind was suddenly spinning. "I don't understand."

"I am magically bound to obey him, but it is possible..."

"We can work out something between the two of us that doesn't interfere with his orders? Some way that allows you to teach me?"

He seemed to be amused by my desperation because he smirked and said "Yes."

"Then teach me. Right now."

He laughed at me. “You must be patient."

"But..."

Holding up a hand to stop my protest in mid-sentence, his entire manner switched into business mode. "First we’ll create a serious, binding agreement. All terms will be laid out clearly so you know exactly what I require of you and also exactly what I am giving to you in return. The agreement will be bound in blood.” In his hand appeared a bowl which contained a knife and a black candle.

I sighed in frustration. “
I'm not a complete idiot. Before I make any bargains I have to know more about you. Are you a sorcerer?"

He chuckled. “I’m not like any breed of supernatural you've so far encountered
, Healer.

“
Why are you here serving Kennet? How could he bind you to him?”

“He summoned me
.”

“Summoned you? L
ike you’d summon a demon?”

H
is eyes glowed with bright amber. “
Exactly
like you’d summon a demon, Healer.”

I
opened and closed my mouth twice, then shook my head and crawled back up the bed, curling up. “Why am I not surprised?” I closed my eyes, too tired and depressed to be afraid.

“Where are you going? We need to work out our agreement.”
He sounded angry.

I didn’t bother sitting up. “I’m not making a blood bargain with a demon. You’ll eat my soul for breakfast. Plus
, I’d be trading one evil jerk for another.”

He laughed so hard that I thought he was going to go into convulsions. “Jackie, you are so entertaining.” He was instantly sitting cross-legged on the bed next to me. I sat up in a rush
and tried to move away, but he grabbed my wrist. His grip was stronger than I'd expected.

“I am not going to hurt you. I have
been ordered to protect you and I cannot go against Kennet’s orders.” He snorted in disgust. “He gives such generalized, ridiculous orders. ‘Guard her’, Protect her’, ‘Watch her’. They can all be interpreted in so many ways. We love to twist things to our purposes and Kennet has little experience dealing with my race. It will be his downfall, in the end. But meanwhile, I can be very patient, while you have less than two days: forty six hours to be precise. I need your help and you need mine. At least allow me to lay it out for you and then you can decide.”

He was speaking v
ery reasonably and so I thought, what the hell? “Fine, tell me what you want from me, and it better not be sex.”

He laughed again, releasing my wrist. “I am
growing quite fond of you Jackie, but no, I don't want sex from you. What I want is much more valuable, in fact it is exactly what
you
want. I want my freedom and my revenge. And right now, you are the only one who can give those things to me.”

“And in return you’ll train me in the next forty six hours to access the magic
so that I can escape? I can go home? That’s the deal?”

“Oh there’s much more.” I scowled. “
Let me explain. Kennet can summon me here because he knows my True Name. He purchased it from a goblin prince who carried a grudge against me.” A fire was burning in his eyes as he spoke, then disappeared when he noticed me scooting away from him.  His hand flashed out, grabbing my wrist again as he shrugged.

“But
that is a story for another time," he continued. "Using a special ritual, he can summon me whenever and wherever he wants. He can command me to do almost anything and I cannot go against his wishes. That is, unless I outsmart him, like I am now. He has not commanded me
to
keep you from learning new skills. Only to guard, protect, watch,
yada, yada
. He is an imbecile.”

I smiled
at hearing a demon—A DEMON—using an expression like yada, yada. “So how do I help you?”

“I give you my True Name and you summon me. That will cancel out Kennet’s hold on me. Then you order me to capture Kennet. He won’t have time to summon me again so
you’ll
get away through the lines and I’ll take him with me to
my
realm. I intend to enjoy myself with him for quite some time before I kill him.” He looked excited in a way that gave me the creeps.

“You’ll have to take me through the lines.”

“You'll take yourself.”

“But I can’t travel through
the lines without a fae touching me.”

“Kennet doesn’t know what you are, Jackie, and apparently neither do you. You have other blood in you besides shifter.”

“Someone would have told me that if it were true.”

“T
his blood is difficult to notice unless you know it well. You’ll have to take my word for it. With training, you’ll be able to travel within the lines just like the Seelie Fae and the higher levels of demons.”

“So you’re saying I’m part f
ae?” This couldn’t be true. Liam would have sensed it immediately.

“No, Jackie,
that’s
not the blood you carry.” He beamed at me and I felt a cold shiver creep down my spine.

I didn’t say anything for several seconds, deciding to dismiss what he
'd said as BS, but still curious to know more. “How is this possible? Wouldn’t I know if I was evil?”

He snorted. “I didn’t think you’d be one of
those
people who immediately think evil when someone says demon. Frankly, I’m disappointed.” He crossed his arms and pretended to be angry. What was actually radiating off of him was eagerness. I wondered if he knew that I could read his emotions so easily.

I narrowed my eyes and moved in a little closer. “You don’t seem particularly evil, but then I hardly know you, Isaiah. And how can I trust you? You may have me summon you and then turn on me.”

He spoke to me as if I were a child. “That is the purpose of the agreement: to protect both parties and to make sure that there are no misunderstandings. Also if you summon me, I’ll have to do as you say.”

“Unless you outsmart me,
like you’re doing with Kennet.”

He laughed. “I do not
believe that you would be so easy to outsmart. Demons rarely are. Even newborns.”

I frowned. “
Aren’t you afraid that I’ll summon you like Kennet, whenever or wherever I want?”

“It will be laid out in the agreement that you cannot.”

I shook my head and walked over to sit at the table, wanting to put some space between us. This can’t be possible. Someone would have sensed if I was part demon. Caelen would have known or even Maya. But if Isaiah could somehow train me to get around the wall Kennet had put up to block me, I could deal with a little more of his craziness. “So tell me about demons.”

“I’m not saying that many of us aren’t monsters, but so are many weres, vampires, shifters
and humans. And look at Kennet. He’s a fae noble. Believe me when I tell you, there are even worse fae than Kennet. Don’t get me started.”

“You don’t seem to like the fae much.”

“To the seelie fae, demons are just another class of their unfriendly relatives, the unseelie fae.  We demons, however, disagree. We are quite unique. However, it is true that we and the seelie have battled each other over the centuries. We are opposite in several ways.

Isaiah's eyes
glittered with mischief as he continued. "The seelie fae love order. We thrive on chaos. They like their seasons and their rituals and their circle of life crap. We like throwing a monkey wrench into the works and watching what happens. Innocents die at times, but that is true for all the races. We get blamed more often because we’re usually the ones stirring things up, but we don’t intend to cause harm, only a touch of bedlam or a tiny smidge of pandemonium. Nothing  dire. We like to change it up, as they say.”

He gave me a smile meant to put me at ease, but
it only managed to make me more wary. “I can assure you, Jackie, that I am no more evil than Liam or Garrett. I know you’ve seen some of what they can do.”  Images flew into my head of Garrett ripping out the throats of weres and torturing a black witch and Liam’s cruel tormenting of Kent Brownlow.

Something occurred to me suddenly. “
Are demons and the fae enemies?“

“
They have fought each other in the past, but vampires and weres are enemies and you’ve managed to get around that, haven’t you? At least with the ones you surround yourself with. As for your status as a sponsored friend, you are what you've always been. When the fae find out, some may want to rethink the alliance, but they’d be stupid to do so. In you, they have a ready-made envoy to the demon realm. That's quite a coup for an intelligent fae leader. Lord Caelen is just that.”

Wanting to keep him talking, even though what he was saying was
completely crazy, I said, “I don’t think that I’ve stirred things up or caused a lot of chaos in people’s lives. I’m a healer so I guess my so-called demon genes aren’t that strong.”

He actually giggled. “D
emons all over the realm are following
your
story. You’ve been a thorn in the side of society since the day you started walking and talking. As a so-called human, you were more trouble than your foster parents could handle. As a shifter, you’ve beaten a 260 year old tough-assed vampire in a duel, given a 3000 year old fae lord the run around, become the master of a cu sith, won the support of the Shifter Council
and
the Fae Council of Elders and last but definitely not least, you’ve earned the love and respect of a vampire slated to be one of the most powerful on the mortal plain.  And you think this is all because you’re a sweet, peace-loving healing cheetah shifter? “ His tone had taken on a teasing lilt.