Chapter 27
Chapter Twenty-Seven
MAYA
I jolt awake, my heart hammering against my ribs as I feel the familiar bite of restraints around my wrists and ankles. Nylon straps chafe against my skin, rather than the cold metal that is more common in my memory. The clinical smell of antiseptic fills my nostrils.
My eyes snap open and lock onto a scalpel glinting in the dim light. The blade hovers inches from my face, making my muscles tense in anticipation of that so familiar pain.
No, no, no. This can’t be happening. The rescue was real. I remember Poe finding me…carrying me. I remember being enveloped in Ares’s scent, cradled by soft cotton.
This can’t be real…
“Stay still,” Poe stares down at me with an expressionless face. “One wrong move and I might accidentally slip.”
I feel a surge of relief at the sound of his voice. But that relief is immediately followed by icy fingers of dread tipping up my spine when I realize I didn’t imagine the fact that I’m tied down .
I also wasn’t imagining the scalpel in his hand.
“Poe…what are you doing?”
“Talking is almost as dangerous as moving,” he replies, dark eyes narrowed in concentration. He holds up an empty syringe between two fingers. “I’ve already given you the anesthetic, but I can’t promise this will remain pain free if you keep distracting me.”
My mind sticks to the fact that he is about to do something that could be painful.
A familiar burning sensation spreads through my chest, the first stirrings of genuine panic. But I force all the words out, anyway. “Please, tell me what you’re doing.”
“I’m doing what I should have done from the very beginning.” His face hovers over mine, blocking out the harsh overhead light. His sea salt scent mingles with the antiseptic, making my stomach roll. “The moment you walked back into the palace, I knew trouble would follow. To be fair, you still surprised me with just how much trouble it would be.”
My lips part to argue, but the words die in my throat as the cold metal of the scalpel presses against my skin. The familiar position, the clinical smell, the bite of restraint.
“Please,” I whisper, hating how weak my voice sounds. “Poe, please don’t?—“
“Shhh. I told you about talking.”
I watch the scalpel press into the tense bulge of my upper arm. As promised, I don’t feel any pain, but the anesthetic does nothing to prevent a wash of nausea as blood beads on my skin.
Poe makes an incision barely the length of a fingernail before setting down the scalpel. He uses a pair of tweezers to pick up a tiny metal disc between the tips and holds it close enough for me to see.
“This is a tracking device, one of the most advanced available.” He says it conversationally, like this situation is entirely commonplace and not a gross violation of my body. “As long as you’re still in its range, say about a hundred miles, I’ll be able to pinpoint your location to within a few feet.”
When I pull at the nylon straps holding down my wrists, the movement tenses the muscle enough that the wound in my arm fills with bright red blood. Poe gives me a chastising look as he blots the cut with a piece of gauze.
My fear has faded somewhat, if just because he was telling the truth about the lack of pain.
“Why am I tied down?” I demand.
His eyebrow quirks. “You actually expect me to believe that you would sit still for this just because I asked?”
The answer to that is obvious, so I don’t bother saying it out loud.
I have to turn away when the tracking device pushes gently under my skin, fighting back the urge to vomit. He sutures the slight wound neatly enough that this can’t be the first time he’s done it. After wiping away a few errant drops of blood, he sits back and stares for a long moment.
“Should come in handy the next time someone tries to fucking kidnap you.”
It’s only then that I realize the cold distance in his demeanor is the easiest mask he can conjure for his rage.
Poe is angry. Possibly even angrier than I’ve ever seen him before. His eyes glitter with barely contained fury, just waiting for a chance to be unleashed.
I pitch my voice to something softer, like I’m not terrified out of my mind. “You didn’t find him.”
It isn’t a question.
He regards me with a gaze full of dark promise. “I will.”
I pull at the restraints again until a light twinge of pain arrests my movement. Guess the anesthetic is wearing off. “You can untie me now.”
Poe shifts closer on the bed, looming over me as he studies my face. He makes no move to undo the nylon straps.
The receding edge of my anxiety rears back as a pregnant silence grows between us.
“I have questions,” he says finally.
I pull at the restraints again, harder this time despite the way the movement pulls at my new sutures. “Let me go first.”
“I like you the way you are for now.” His fingers gently trace the pulse in my wrist, just below the stiff nylon wrapped around my wrist. “Who knows when I’ll get an opportunity like this again?”
“I’ll scream,” I threaten.
“Wouldn’t blame you. Unfortunately, no one will hear it.” He jerks his head toward the closed door I can only presume is also locked. “Everyone is busy with the clean-up effort. They won’t be back for hours.”
“Poe…”
He picks up the scalpel and taps it gently against the nightstand. “Now, about those questions.”
The blade glinting in Poe’s hand becomes the only thing I can focus on. It doesn’t matter that I’m nearly positive it’s an empty threat, that he has no intention of using it to hurt me. If he wanted me in physical pain, then he wouldn’t have bothered to use an anesthetic.
But the terrified animal part of me doesn’t care. My hindbrain is alight with remembered fear and anxiety.
My chest constricts as memories flood back. The cold metal table, the doctor’s emotionless voice, the endless cuts and experiments. The restraints bite into my skin just like before.
“No, no, please...” My breath comes in short gasps. The room spins as panic claws up my throat. “I can’t…I can’t do this again.”
“Maya?” Poe’s voice sounds distant through the roaring in my ears. “It’s just me. You’re safe.”
But I’m not safe. I’m never safe. The doctor would always reassure me too, right before he’d cut into me, laughing at my na?ve belief that mercy would ever come. My body thrashes against the restraints as terror takes over completely.
“Let me go!” I shriek, yanking so hard the bed frame rattles. Electric pain shoots from the wound in my arm, but I barely feel it. “Please, I’ll do anything. Just let me go!”
“Shit.” Poe drops the scalpel with a clatter. His hands hover uncertainly over my shoulders. “Maya, breathe. You need to breathe.”
I can’t breathe. My lungs refuse to expand properly as sobs wrack my body. Black spots dance at the edges of my vision.
“I don’t want any more experiments,” I choke out between gasps. “Please don’t cut me open again.”
“What experiments? Maya, look at me.” Poe’s face swims in my blurring vision. The clinical smell of antiseptic makes bile rise in my throat. “No one’s experimenting on you. I was just putting in a tracker.”
But his words don’t penetrate the fog of panic. All I can see is the doctor’s wintry smile, feel the bite of scalpels, hear my own screams echoing off sterile walls.
“Make it stop,” I beg, tears streaming down my face. “Please make it stop.”
Poe’s hands flutter uselessly around me as my panic attack intensifies. “Maya, you have to relax.”
But I’m too far gone to respond, lost in the grip of remembered trauma as I continue to struggle and sob.
Poe shifts on the bed. I’m barely aware of it as the restraints fall free and my wrists are released.
He gathers me up in his arms, rocking me gently back and forth as my body continues to shake. I curl into a tight ball in an instinctive move to protect myself from the perceived threat. I barely hear the words of comfort he murmurs in my ear until several minutes have passed.
Reality slowly filters back into my conscious awareness. The soft mattress beneath me is nothing like the cold metal table from my memories. Burrowed into Poe’s chest, all I can smell is his signature sea salt and driftwood, not the acrid bite of antiseptic and old blood.
“That’s it, just breathe,” Poe hums, rubbing gentle circles on my back. “You’re with me. You’re safe.”
I let him comfort me for as long as I can stand it.
“It’s fine. I’m fine now.” My shaking hands push at the wall of his chest, about as useful as trying to move a boulder. “I just needed a minute.”
His arms tighten around me. “Nice try. I know a trauma response when I see one. Something triggered you. Was it just the scalpel or also being tied down that did it?”
I briefly consider lying, but decide against it. His piercing gaze is too alert as he studies me. “Both, probably. I thought you were going to cut me again.”
“What experiments were you talking about?”
I furrow my brow, feigning confusion. “Experiments? Is that what I said? I think I was just freaking out, talking nonsense.”
He brushes a thumb over the bandage on my arm, too light to cause pain. “Waking up bound to the bed really seemed to trigger you. Why is that?”
“Anyone waking up tied to the bed is going to freak out.” I lamely shrug at the skepticism I see in his gaze. “They used to restrain us at the Institute as punishment. Maybe that’s why.”
He makes a low humming sound in his throat, expression contemplative. “Maybe.”
“I’m fine now.” I try to pull away, but Poe’s grip remains firm around my shoulders. My heart rate picks up again, though not nearly as bad as during my panic attack. “You don’t have to comfort me. Seriously.”
“I still have questions,” he says, voice deceptively gentle. “And I’m afraid I really need answers.”
“I already told you everything important.” The lie tastes bitter on my tongue.
His fingers play at the edge of my bandage. “I don’t enjoy causing pain, Maya. Especially not to pack.”
“I’m not pack,” I remind him, echoing his own words back at him.
“No, but you’re something.” He shifts to look down at me, studying my face. “And you’ve been keeping secrets this entire time. Which is exactly why I need to know what happened tonight. Was the man who grabbed you someone you know?”
I press my lips together, hoping to hide a slight tremble. “No.”
“So you weren’t going with him willingly?”
“Of course not!” I don’t have to pretend at indignant anger. “I was unconscious, if you remember.”
Humor briefly twists his lips. “True enough. But that doesn’t explain why someone would try to make off with you, specifically.”
It’s so tempting to tell him the truth, but I just can’t.
Poe is absolutely loyal to Logan. Anything I tell him will be immediately shared within the pack. I have no reason to trust that they won’t just turn me over to the High Inquisitor and be done with it. Logan can always find another Omega to pretend he plans to mate.
And that’s assuming he doesn’t have a true mate hidden somewhere in the palace.
If Logan has no intention of keeping me, why would he take the risk of protecting me?
I swallow past a painful lump in my throat. “I don’t know.”
“I see.” Poe’s thumb brushes across the pulse point just above my collarbone, and I suppress a shiver in response. “Maybe he saw an unbonded Omega wandering by herself and took advantage of the chaos.”
“Maybe,” I repeat.
“Or maybe there’s something you aren’t telling me.” His arms tighten hard enough to force the breath from my lungs, leaving me gasping. “But how can I be sure?”
I babble something incoherent, the burn of tears in my eyes. So recently quelled, the panic threatens to rise up again.
Gently shushing me, Poe makes a point of picking up the scalpel from the floor and tossing it across the room, far out of reach. I hear it clatter against the wooden floor, but can’t see where it landed.
“Tying you up is too close to torture, I think. Breaking your mind into pieces wouldn’t be helpful.” He presses a chaste kiss to my temple. “I guess I’ll have to come up with another way to get you talking.”
I let out a surprised shriek when he abruptly flips us on the bed. My back hits the mattress hard enough to almost bounce me off the mattress, but his body is almost immediately there and pressing me down with the sheer weight of him.
His hands grasp the neck of my ruined dress and yanks it down. With all the damage already done by the events of last night, the fabric tears as easily as tissue paper. He keeps his body propped up on his elbows, staring down at my bared flesh with an expression that has gone openly feral.
When he growls, the sound is all sensuous heat. “You only get to come if you tell me what I want to hear.”
My jaw drops, but the question on my lips turns into a low groan as his mouth closes over my now bared nipple. Electric heat, bordering on painful, bows my spine, which forces more of my oversensitive flesh against his tongue.
“Who was he?” he asks, pulling back slightly.
“I don’ t know.” I let out an involuntary gasp when he nips me hard enough to ache. “I don’t know, Poe!”
He presses a kiss against my nipple, soothing the pain of his bite. “What did he look like?”
“I could barely see anything.”
His thumb traces the curve of my other breast before pinching my nipple between his fingers. The slight pain sends a shock of surprised pleasure straight between my legs. “Tell me what you remember.”
I give a vague description of a man with dark hair and eyes with an average build. One that fit any of a hundred people who could have been in the palace.
His hand strokes soothingly down my belly. “A beta, then? Must be, since I can’t smell him on you.”
I shudder when his fingers tease at my inner thigh, subtly spreading my legs further apart, and curse myself for letting even that bit of information slip. “I guess so.”
He licks a swath of my neck as his hands rub gentle circles on my thighs. “You don’t sound sure.”
“Well, I am.”
He pushes up on his knees to settle himself between my open legs. His hand snakes over my hip, fingers teasing above my wet center without touching. My answering arch is pure instinct. “Let’s find out.”
A throb settles deep in my womb. “What are you doing?”
Instead of answering, he flattens his tongue along my slit and licks hard.
Poe groans, a rumbling sound of animalistic need as my hips thrust against his face. He locks my thighs in a bruising grip, keeping me exactly where he wants me as his tongue dances lightly across my flesh.
I push up on my elbows to watch him, the only part of my body I’m in control of as his hands tighten on my thighs, keeping me in place. “Poe…”
He pulls back to slide two fingers inside of me. If he’s surprised to find how ready I already am, he doesn’t let it slow him down. “Why were you alone in the hallway and not back in the harem where you belong?”
I wind my fingers into his hair, trying and failing to tug his head back down. At least I can answer this question honestly. “I got lost.”
His tongue gently flicks against my clit. “Why didn’t you ask a guard to show you the way?”
His name falls from my lips like a prayer as I arch against him. Then he lifts his head, shattering my attempt to reach the peak. It makes me want to scream.
“Because there weren’t any guards. The hallways were deserted.”
“You’re so wet. You want this so bad, don’t you Maya?” His mouth replaces his fingers. Hot and demanding, he doesn’t slow down for an instant as he pushes his tongue into the entrance of my core. “Too bad you’re so fucking stubborn.”
Tears of frustration burn the back of my throat. “What do you want me to say?”
“Who was he?” Poe demands, continuing the gentle rhythm that is enough to keep me just on the edge without falling over it. “Tell me his name. Tell me how to find him.”
“Don’t stop,” I demand. “Please don’t stop.”
His gaze is indulgent. “Good girls tell the truth. And only good girls get to come.”
“Poe,” I breathe, body lifting greedily into his mouth. “Please, just finish it.”
His answering chuckle is muffled against my skin. “No.”
“I don’t know.” The words rub against my throat and tears spring to my eyes. It takes everything I have to force coherent words out of my throat. “I can’t tell you what I don’t know!”
Fingers tighten on my thighs, hard enough to bruise. He lifts his head enough for our gazes to meet over the plains and dips of my body. For a frustrating moment, I wonder if he’s about to pull away from me altogether.
“Spoiled little princess,” he murmurs, darkness in his gaze. “Can’t deny you even when I should.”
He sets his mouth to me with clear intent, licking and stroking in a way that drives me to the edge with desperate ferocity. I come hard enough to draw a scream from my throat, pleasure driving like spikes down my spine in a way that verges on excruciating.
I collapse back on the bed, the emotional rollercoaster of the last few minutes exhausting me in a bone-deep way.
Poe stands over the bed, watching me blink rapidly in a fight to keep my eyes open. His voice drifts over me as I drift back asleep, distance enough that I could have dreamed it.
“If you won’t let me do this the easy way, then I’ll have to do it the hard way.”