Chapter 15
Chapter
Fifteen
Darkness pressed down on me for a heartbeat, then the pressure eased. I stumbled on my heels and fell into hard dirt, my pulse thudding.
Striker stomped through the portal behind me and smiled down at me, a sinister, cruel grin. “Don’t forget, bitch. Fifteen minutes. If I’m not back to them in fifteen minutes, your lawyer is dead.” His smile faded. “Now get up and start walking.”
I hauled myself to my feet, leaving my heels lying in the dirt. They’d only slow me down. Cecil would be furious. Please be okay, Cecil.
“Walk,” Striker ordered. He pointed.
I turned and looked. Enormous trees surrounded us on all sides, towering high above our heads and blocking out the sun.
The trees had odd, almost alien-looking glossy fat, dark green leaves.
Strange ferns spiraled up between them, covering every inch between the fat gnarled trunks. So much green. It was everywhere.
This must be the Woods. The shifter realm.
In the distance, an owl hooted. The faint screech of an eagle answered it.
“Walk.” Striker shoved me roughly in the back.
The only clear space was the skinny path, little more than a game trail, in front of me. With no other ideas on what to do, I started walking and thought up more ideas on the way.
Oh. I had ideas. Most involved using my magic to blow Striker’s head off so I could run back to the portal and save Martina.
No, not blow his head off. I’d wait until he shifted, then I’d kill him. I’d carve out his guts and do a reverse Little Red Riding Hood and show up at the Andresano’s Nob Hill city apartment wearing his wolf skin so I could rescue Martina.
Maybe they hadn’t gone back to their city apartment.
I couldn’t imagine they’d get an unconscious lawyer through the lobby and up to their apartment without anyone seeing.
They’d probably gone to their manor house in Haight Ashbury, although they had staff there who might feel uncomfortable with the idea of their employers taking someone hostage.
Or maybe they had taken her to their terraced house in Pacific Heights, although that one was less private.
Or maybe even to their country estate on the peninsula.
Damn them for being so rich.
Pain hit my heel; I gasped. I’d stood on a sharp rock. My feet were bleeding.
Just keep going, Susan. Keep thinking. You’ll come up with something.
“Faster,” Striker snarled behind me.
I limped forward, trying to hurry. After a few minutes, he pulled me off the path and shoved me roughly through the ferns. Prickles scratched my bare arms. Striker saw the blood and smiled.
The forest around us grew darker. We were in the thick of the woods now, and barely any light penetrated the thick canopy of leaves above us.
Through the gloom, a simple wood cabin nestled tightly between the enormous tree trunks.
Just a shack, really, a box made from logs, with a leather skin hanging in place of a door. Striker shoved me towards it.
“Now, I’m going to have to do this quickly so I can get back to the human realm in time to call your in-laws, so it’s in your best interests to cooperate,” he growled, sweeping the skin aside, and grabbed me by the back of the neck to throw me inside.
“And before you ask, I’m not going back to the steakhouse, so don’t get your hopes up that your friends will find you.
Even if they break into the steakhouse, none of them are shifters, so they can’t see the portal.
” I couldn't see it, but I could feel him grinning. “They won’t know where you’ve gone.
They have no clue where you are right now.
I know you enjoy a fight, but you should probably get used to the idea that it’s over.
” He snapped a heavy metal cuff on my hand.
Old trauma bit into me; I recoiled back almost violently.
Striker hissed. “Last warning, bitch. If you move again, I’ll just stay here with you until King Connor gets here. And Gordon will pump that bitch lawyer full of lead.”
I locked my teeth. “If you do that, there’s no point in me cooperating, is there? I’ll rip the fur from your hide.”
He laughed. “Then it's in both of our best interests to get on with this, isn’t it?” His eyes burned orange in the gloom. “Give me your other hand.”
It was no use. I held out my arm, and he snapped another cuff on me. Not just cuffs. Manacles, thick heavy chains bolted to the wall.
I blinked, trying to see the room a little better. The tiny cabin was almost completely dark, but there was nothing to see anyway. Dirt floor. One rough-hewn split log for a bench. Or a bed.
Striker knelt and fastened more manacles to my feet. The iron was heavy. Something in the metal tingled on my skin, almost like a salt burn.
“I would have thought the cuffs would be enough to hold you, but you’re some overpowered bitch, ain’t ya?
Just in case, I got a shaman to do up a ward on the cuffs, so they can’t be broken by magic.
The cabin is blood-warded, too.” He touched the walls; a very faint sheen lit up over the logs, almost like a slug’s slime trail on concrete. “You know what that means.”
I did. Last time I tried to use any magic behind a ward, it bounced back on me and froze me for a good minute as if I were turned to stone, and I was forced to watch Donovan battling for his life.
“I think we’ve covered all our bases.” Striker chuckled, checking the chains, making sure they were secure.
Another laugh echoed his, higher and slightly more manic.
Striker turned towards the entrance and curled his lip.
“I told you to go back to the barracks, Henderson,” he called through the door.
The leather skin lifted, and a man’s face poked through. “I want to watch,” the stranger whined. He let out another high-pitched giggle. It sounded like a hyena’s cackle. “I want to look at her.”
“Me too,” another voice called. This one was deeper. “I want to see him hurt her.”
My gut churned. Sick bastards.
Striker stroked his chin thoughtfully. “Well, he’s on his way, and he’ll be here soon. You’ll have to ask him if you can watch.”
The strangers laughed. The sound was nauseating.
“And she should probably have a guard on her, anyway,” Striker continued. “Just in case. But stay out there, you hear me?”
“Sure, sure, sure.”
He cocked his head. “How many of you are out there, anyway?”
“Twelve,” the one he called Henderson answered, giggling. “We all want to watch him break her.”
Striker hesitated. “Stay out there,” he said, steel in his tone. “If any of you suddenly get the wise idea that it will be fine to come in and touch her, the King will skin you alive. Do you understand?”
“Yes, yes.”
“I have to go.” He leaned closer to me; I could smell his rank breath, fetid, like rotting meat.
“We’ve got plans for your friends, bitch.
Gordon won’t kill the lawyer for now, but she ain’t going nowhere.
She’s our insurance to make sure you behave.
It’s over for you now. Just remember that when the King is breaking you.
It will go easier if you accept it. Because if you don’t, you’re all dead. ”