Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The table pressed against her back, butt and shoulder like a block of ice, its chilly surface biting at her hot flesh.
Ignoring the dull ache in her shoulder from Peter’s gunshot, sweat trickling into her eyes, Regan tugged at the thick metal shackles locking her wrists beside her.
They didn’t budge an inch. She wasn’t going anywhere.
She pulled in a deep breath, staring at the high ceiling.
McCoy had dragged her from the van after what felt like hours driving through the streets of Sydney, his hands mauling her breasts as he did so.
He’d thrown her over his shoulder, chuckling at her struggles.
His long fingers had found her ass, squeezing at each cheek with punishing pressure until tears stung her eyes.
She ground her teeth, trapped immobile on the table. She’d be damned is she’d cry out though.. She wouldn’t give the bastard a single sound. No matter what he’d done to her.
Studying the ceiling, she gnawed on her bottom lip, unease churning in her stomach.
Apart from carrying her from the van and fastening her to this table inside a mansion that made the one she and Declan hid in at McMahon’s Point look like a shack, McCoy had done nothing to her.
Not even given her a leering grin. The moment he stepped foot inside the quiet, mausoleum-like building, he’d become different.
If he’d been a dog, Regan would’ve said he was almost cowering.
As if a more dominant animal lurked nearby.
A chill rippled over her flesh and her nipples pinched into tight points of fear under the light sheet covering her. A more dominant animal…Epoc.
Neck straining, shoulder throbbing, she lifted her head from the metal surface and looked around the room as best she could.
Harsh overhead fluorescent light bleached all color from the space, making it hard to see anything.
Apart from the table she lay strapped to and two smaller, stainless steel ones on either side, it seemed empty. And very inhospitable.
Sudden movement in the corner of her eye caught her attention and she rolled her head to the side. Anger crashed through her. Cold and absolute. The blonde.
The woman walked toward her, a small metal tray in her manicured hands, the same apprehensive expression in her cool blue eyes. She stopped by Regan’s table, giving her a troubled look. “Your shoulder hurts, yes?”
“My shoulder?” Regan creased her forehead in mock confusion. “No. Not at all. Why?”
The blonde cocked one perfectly arched eyebrow, pursing her lips.
“Just as stubborn as your brother, it seems.” She deposited the tray on a bench beside the table before turning back to Regan, a cloudy-filled syringe in her hand.
She lifted it, examining its contents in the glaring fluorescent light.
“This will not hurt,” she murmured, flicking at the glass tube with one blood-red nail.
“In fact it will give you a small…” She paused, as if searching for the word she wanted, “…buzz.”
Before Regan could react—and really, strapped to the table like she was, what could she do?
—the woman plunged the needle into the crook of her arm.
A sharp sting, like the prick of a pissed-off wasp, punctured her flesh and she bit back a hiss.
“What was that?’ she demanded through gritted teeth. The inside of her elbow tingled.
“An experimental concoction designed to heighten your physical awareness of stimuli.” The blonde returned the now-empty syringe to the tray. “Epoc wants to see how a human responds to it.”
Regan narrowed her eyes. “So, Declan was right. Epoc does own the police.”
The woman tilted her head to the side a bit. “Not all the police.”
“But obviously my brother’s Command Area. What happened to his real partner? Is he dead?”
White-blonde eyebrows rose. “I don’t kill indiscriminately, Regan. I’m not a monster.”
Regan snorted. “Sure about that?”
“I see you share your brother’s trust issues, yes?”
Hot anger tore through Regan’s veins, and her skin tingled. Pulling at her restraints, she glared up at the woman. “He didn’t trust you? What a surprise.”
Cool fingers pressed to her shoulder, sending tiny licks of rippling ice down Regan’s arm. “You need to stay calm,” the woman murmured. “Remember, you’ve just been injected with an experimental sensory accelerant.”
A warm throb pulsed in Regan’s elbow and she fidgeted, growing increasingly aware of the soft caress of the sheet covering her naked body, of the cool touch of metal on her wrists and ankles. She pulled in a short breath and the gentle feathering of air on her tongue felt like a soft kiss.
The woman watched her, eyebrows dipping into a small frown. She picked up a folded cloth from the tray and touched it to Regan’s shoulder, patting at the bullet wound in almost hesitant strokes.
A slight sensation whispered down Regan’s arm, like a single sliver of ice and her breath caught. She stared up at the blonde and for a moment her vision blurred, before coming back, sharp and clear. “What did you do to me?” she demanded, lips dry.
No reply.
“What did you do?”
Again, silence.
Regan shifted on the table, her skin prickling.
She felt odd. Like she was standing too close to an immense electrical charge.
A biting metallic taste coated her tongue, sharp and bitter.
Her nipples pinched into harder, puckered tips, pushing at the sheet draped over her.
Squirming twists of heat unfurled low in the pit of her stomach and she dragged in a hitching breath, pulse pounding in her throat.
“Please…” She gave the woman beside her a beseeching stare, hating herself for it. “Please, what did you inject into me?”
The cloth continued to pat at her shoulder, cool and damp, and ripples of delicious chills ran across Regan’s skin.
Blue eyes studied her, and once more, even as her body reacted, Regan couldn’t miss the apprehension in their clear, direct depths.
The woman was troubled about something. “The wound will heal,” she said softly.
“Despite the amount of blood, the bullet was shallow. I removed it in the van.” She lifted the cloth from Regan’s shoulder and touched the flesh there with gentle fingers.
Ribbons of delicate pleasure spiraled out from the contact. Made Regan’s breasts swell with a base response.
“It seems to have an aphrodisiac affect, doesn’t it, Yolanda.”
Icy alarm rolled through Regan as a gravelly male voice filled the room.
She turned her head, staring at the short man with the gleaming scalp and amber eyes crossing the floor toward her.
“You’re a dreadful host, Epoc,” she stated with a sarcastic reproaching tone, trying to ignore the sinful sensations licking up her limbs from the cold, hard manacles.
“I’ve been here for ages and no one’s offered me a drink. ”
His shining golden gaze bored into her, making her flesh crawl. “Regan Thomas, animal-rights activist and all-round annoying female. You’ve made this day quite entertaining.” A wide smile stretched his mouth and his stare grew malevolent. “Hasn’t she, McCoy.”
Regan’s heart froze. Oh, no.
She twisted her head, trying to see the man Epoc spoke to.
Overwhelming dread and hate crashed into her.
She did not want to be trapped on her back.
She couldn’t be trapped on her back. Not with that bastard walking toward her.
Her blood roared through her veins and she tugged at the restraints on her wrists.
Exquisite ribbons of slicing pain shot up her arms, made her nipples pinch harder again.
The sheet slithered across her body, and Regan’s flesh—fuelled by whatever Yolanda had pumped into her—responded, rippling into tiny bumps of delicious pleasure.
Shame and rage consumed her. “Come near me, McCoy and I’ll rip your balls off, you bastard!
” she snarled, twisting her head from side to side, trying to find him.
If he touched her now, with the shit in her veins perverting her system…
Epoc smirked. “I don’t think she’s that happy to see you, McCoy.
” He pressed his hand to Regan’s shoulder, forcing her shoulder blade to the metal table and her pussy constricted at the chill of the surface on her hot flesh.
“Do not worry yourself, Ms. Thomas. McCoy will not touch you unless I say he can.” He drew small circles on her skin with the tip of a finger, sending shards of sinful sensations down into her breasts.
Amber eyes locked on hers. “Believe me, he has been reprimanded for his inappropriate behavior at the farm.”
“And I should believe you because?”
“Because I am the Alpha of this clan. And as such, my word is law. Yolanda can vouch for that. She was meant to bring your brother in at sunset for…Ah, ‘questioning’ but failed to do so.” He lifted his head and studied the blonde standing beside the table.
“She was punished for failing to follow my orders.”
Regan watched Yolanda’s high cheeks fill with pink heat before the woman dropped her stare from Epoc to the floor.
“But never mind,” he continued, returning his attention to Regan.
“It is of no consequence. Fortunately for her she delivered you instead. A much more valuable subject.” His hand lifted slightly from her shoulder and smoothed along the line of her collarbone, her body thrumming with a charged electrical current at the contact.
“Such lovely bone structure,” he murmured, his stare following the path of his tracing fingers.
“So delicate. Fragile.” He flicked his gaze back to her face.
“Surely the Onchú piece of filth told you how order is kept in our kind? The Alpha has the right to anything in the clan.” He dropped his head lower to hers, his lips almost touching her cheekbone as he stared into her eyes. “Whatever I want is mine.”
Pussy clenching, stomach churning, Regan spat at him.