Chapter Five
Mandal was the driver again, and he took me to the same hotel.
This time, he pressed “G” for the garage while entering some numbers into the elevator’s keypad.
We descended, passing the garage level with a mechanical ding that counted off three more floors below what the hotel had showed to be the lowest floor.
I glanced at Mandal. “How many secret levels does this place have?”
His expression was bland. “I wouldn’t know, ma’am.”
He probably would, but he wasn’t telling. Still, I’d said I’d needed precautions before pulling on the Beast’s power. Being several floors below the general public was a good start.
Six beeps below the garage level, the elevator doors opened.
It looked like we’d arrived at the foundations of the hotel.
The air smelled old and musty, and a thick layer of dust carpeted the concrete floor between the steel pillars.
If there was anything more down here, I couldn’t see it.
There was no light aside from the glow that came from the elevator, and that only extended out a dozen feet.
Mandal stepped out of the elevator. “This way.”
I stayed put. “Not until you tell me where we’re going.”
“With me,” a familiar voice said.
Remy appeared in the glow of the elevator’s lights. He was wearing a black button-down shirt and black pants, a good pick considering the dust looked several inches high in places.
“You should’ve told me to wear boots,” I said.
The faintest smile curled Remy’s mouth. “My apologies.”
That was the nicest thing he’d said to me. It was so nice that it made me suspicious. “This might be a great place to dump a body, but remember that the Beast breaks out whenever my life is threatened. So, if your plan is just to put a bullet in my head, it won’t work. Believe me, I’ve tried.”
I’d also tried drowning, overdosing, jumping off a bridge, and even leaping in front of a train. The Beast always took over at the last second, saving itself by saving me. I’ll say one thing for the Beast—it had excellent survival skills.
Remy’s mouth quirked. “I haven’t been digging your grave, excellent body dump site or no. But there is a secure room where we won’t be disturbed, so your passenger can’t get out even if it does make an appearance.”
“Like you’d do your own digging,” I muttered, but I’d come here for a reason, so I stepped off the elevator.
Remy’s laugh brushed across my skin in a tangible stroke. I might have blamed the sensation on the acoustics of this large, empty space, but no. It was Remy and his baffling power to make sound either a weapon or a caress, depending on his mood.
“Probably not.” Remy pressed a button on a small device in his hand.
Muted light turned on in a room I hadn’t been able to see before. It was about thirty feet beyond the nearest large, thick metal column. Remy started toward it.
I did, too. As soon as I passed the metal column, a paralyzing sensation shot from my feet to my chest.
Overhead lights turned on, their brightness competing with my new vision that showed starbursts against the scarlet in Remy’s aura. Those lights also showed that this room wasn’t the hotel’s foundations, as I’d originally thought. No, it was a huge metal-and-magic trap.
The Beast turned my voice into an enraged howl. “Whatareyoudoing?”
“Seeing what sort of creature is infesting you.” Gone was that hint of humor in Remy’s voice. Each word was now so hard it felt like invisible nails pressing against me. “I’m not letting you go until I know exactly what I’m dealing with.”
I tried to shove the Beast down. It tore at me so fiercely I started bleeding from its inner slashes. Pain scalded me, and my blouse turned red.
Remy’s brows went up as he saw the blood. “Interesting.”
“That’ll be … your last word … if you don’t run,” I ground out.
A new scent competed with the harsh tang from my own blood. Something darkly spiced and rich. It came from Remy, I realized, but another inner tear made me forget it. I couldn’t hold the Beast back any longer. It was coming, and no cage could contain it. I’d tried that before, too.
“Run!” I said again, my vision blackening—
The next thing I knew, light exploded back into my eyes.
I felt dizzying relief to be back in control, and sick fear over what I might have done.
Habit had me spitting out the foul taste in my mouth, but instead of ashes from the burnt-up remains of someone’s body, it was …
dust. And it hit Remy right in the face.
He was that close to me, and he looked very different from the last time I’d seen him. His face was darkened from the grime I’d just spat at him, and he was covered in blood.
“Raine,” he rasped. “You’re back.”
He staggered down to one knee with the words. I was appalled at the multitudes of deep lacerations on his back.
“Mandal!” I shouted. Remy needed stitches and a blood transfusion, stat.
No response. Hopefully that wasn’t ominous. Maybe Mandal had run away when the Beast got out.
I ripped off the ragged remains of Remy’s pants in order to stem the worst of his bleeding. I had no clothes on to help with that. As usual, the Beast had torn mine off when it came out.
“I told you to run,” I muttered as I worked.
“Stop,” Remy murmured, batting at my hands. “I’ll be … fine.”
“No you won’t,” I snapped with uncharacteristic honesty. At once, I modulated my tone to my soothing nurse’s voice and backtracked. “Not until we get you out of here. You need stitches and a blood transfusion, so try to stand. We’re going to walk to the elevator and get you some help—”
“No.” Now his hand caught mine with surprising strength. “We’re locked in … magically.”
I bit back a curse. If that was true, Remy was doomed unless I used the same creature who’d mangled him to heal him. He’d lost too much blood to survive otherwise.
I concentrated on pulling power from the Beast without freeing it again. If I screwed this up, Remy was dead, but he was also dead if I did nothing.
Remy’s hand tightened on my arm as he realized what I was doing. “Don’t.”
The power in the word froze me. I stared into Remy’s bloodshot eyes, feeling as if their intensity burned me.
“I have to,” I said as calmly as I could.
Incredibly, he smiled. “You don’t. I’ll be … fine.”
Blood loss could cause delusion, and he had to be delusional to think he’d survive this without me healing him.
“Yes, you will be after if I do this—”
“No.”
Damn him for putting even more magical whammy into the word! Now all of my limbs felt heavy, as if they didn’t want to move even though my mind screamed that I had to act.
“Remy—”
“Remington,” he interrupted, that faint smile widening. “Only friends … call me Remy, and friends don’t … maul friends.”
Fool! I almost screamed, but didn’t because I didn’t want that to be the last thing he ever heard. Maybe I could pull from the Beast’s power when Remy passed out, which would be soon, and … why was Remy’s skin suddenly moving?
“Holy shit,” I whispered, seeing those deep lacerations close in on themselves until they sealed shut.
His bleeding stopped, his face lost its grayness, and his eyes were no longer glassy and bloodshot.
Shocked, I ran my hands over his newly unblemished skin.
I’d only seen this sort of incredible healing when I used the Beast’s power on someone.
“How?” I asked with disbelief.
Remy waved a bloody hand. “My powers are impressive.”
His arrogance had certainly returned. His voice sounded back to normal, and when his gaze raked over me, I was suddenly very aware that I was naked and he mostly was, too.
“Want to really impress me?” I muttered while snatching my hands away from him. “Make my mechanic stop ripping me off.”
“Done,” he said, rising.
I glanced away, which was ridiculous since I’d seen countless naked men in my line of work. But none of their bodies had such a mouthwatering display of muscled flesh, chiseled abs, and a treasure trail of dark hair that led to his …
I crossed my arms over my chest. “I’d love my clothes back, if you saw where they went.”
Remy strode away. “Think they’re over there.”
I waited, occupying myself by gauging whether the Beast was still a threat. It felt well below the surface at the moment, almost to the point of being undetectable. That shocked me. It hadn’t felt like this since it ate those three attackers.
I stiffened. “Did I kill someone down here?” Was that why the Beast was satiated, and Mandal was nowhere in sight?
“No.”
I almost sagged with relief, but suspicion kept me tense. “I’ve never regained control without the Beast killing at least one person after it broke free.”
Something soft landed near me. My clothes. Or what was left of them.
I kept my back to Remy as I tied my torn blouse around my chest. The best I could manage was a makeshift bikini top.
“I could tell you how it didn’t kill anyone,” Remy said from behind me. “Or, I could show you.”
I stopped trying to shimmy into my ripped jeans. “How?”
“This area is rigged with cameras.”
“Won’t matter,” I said with a harsh laugh. “I don’t know how, but the Beast glitches every nearby electronic device when it breaks out. Even cell phones briefly stop working.”
That’s why the Beast wasn’t right up there with Bigfoot when it came to well-known mythological creatures.
“Normal electronics would glitch,” Remy agreed, sounding like he was right behind me now. “Mine won’t.”
I finally turned around. From Remy’s expression, he had total confidence in his statement. That also explained the pitying sort of challenge I saw in his icy blue eyes.
Do you dare to see what you become? his gaze asked.
He thought I couldn’t bear to see myself as a monster, but being a monster was old news to me.
No, I paused because I hadn’t seen the Beast in its true form since my mother and grandmother’s deaths.
Could I handle the PTSD that might bring?
And did I want to risk remembering the other things my mind still hid from me?
I stood, wrapping my torn jeans around my hips as if they were a makeshift skirt.
“I told you before—I’m only scared of one thing. This isn’t it, either, so show me the video.”