A glass cage with thin, riverlike cracks running through the center.
Exploit. He banged against the mental glass, over and over again. Nothing. He clawed at it. Still nothing. Damn it!
“Now,” he heard the queen say, pulling Nicolai back to the present. To Jane and their connection. Somehow, enough of his magic had escaped to allow him to continue watching her despite the distance between them.
Leather whistled through air. The first blow landed. Jane squeezed her eyes shut and pressed her lips together. She grimaced, but not a sound did she make.
They had done it. They had whipped her.
Just like that, something inside of Nicolai broke. Not the glass cage, but something far more dangerous, roaring like a wild animal pushed beyond its limits.
From the first moment Nicolai had spotted Jane, his body had reacted to her. He had experienced lust, guilt and possessiveness in varying degrees. Now, the possessiveness simply took over.
Mine, he thought again.
This time, the word sprung from deep inside him, as unstoppable as an avalanche. He did not understand the fierceness accompanying the thought, and refused to ponder it now. Later. He would ponder later. Right now, more than before, he knew only that she was his—his savior, his woman—and nothing else mattered.
The guards had touched her, hurt her. They would die. Painfully. By the time he finished with them they would probably thank him for killing them.
All he had to do was free himself. And he would. Nothing would stop him. Not now, not anymore.
“Soon” had at last arrived.
Being a magical vampire, as Jane had called him, was not going to aid him; he admitted that now. Still his determination intensified, blending with the hate, the burn of that possessiveness. He would reach her by grit alone; he would save her. No matter what he had to do. His gaze strayed to the wrist cuffs and narrowed. Without his thumbs, his hands would slide right through.
He didn’t have to think about it. Goodbye, thumbs.
Biting his tongue against the pain he knew was to come, he slammed his hands, thumbs out, into the headboard. Crunch. The bones broke with that very first punch. He sucked in a breath, but, like Jane, he did not utter a sound. Punch, punch, punch. Each new blow caused even more damage, ripping tendon, tearing muscle, flattening bone.
By the time he finished, he was sweating, bleeding, his hands limp. But his top half was free. With a growl, he jolted upright. Heard the whistle of leather through air, a soft inhalation of breath. Another lash against Jane’s delicate skin.
Skin he wanted to caress.
His hands were too mutilated to grab the key. In fact, his efforts sent the little piece of metal sliding to the floor with a clink. He would need it later, to remove the neck cuff, and so he would pick it up with his mouth—after he’d freed himself.
Through narrowed eyes, he peered down at his feet. At a different angle, those feet would glide straight through the metal rings. And all he had to do to achieve that different angle was break every bone that ran from his ankle to his toes.
Nicolai started kicking the footboard.
JANE CLOSED HER EYES to hide the tears trying so determinedly to form and spill. It wasn’t like she’d never experienced pain before. For God’s sake, her spine had been broken, her legs unusable for months. Then there’d been the surgeries. Surgery after surgery to pin her bones in their proper places. Then, of course, the rehabilitation.
So, this whipping? Not even a blip on her agony radar. And yet, the humiliation of being bent over a table, her clothing ripped away, her scars revealed to those who sought to harm her, her body bound with ties she couldn’t see—magic?—nearly undid her. And for what? For failing to speak with a fat, ugly woman when summoned?
Poor Odette. Was this how she’d lived? Always fearing the next punishment? And poor Nicolai. Jane could not blame him for doing everything within his power to save himself. She would have done the same.
In fact, she could blame only herself for this. Had she listened to Nicolai, had she freed him when he’d wanted, they would have been far, far away from this dreadful place. Well, he would have been. He would have left her behind. And he still might, she thought. During their talk, she had not garnered a promise from him. Not to keep her with him, not to protect her. And now, it was too late. There was no way she’d leave him bound after this. Not for any reason. She would free him the moment she was physically able, then take off on her own.
Dumb on her part, maybe. Probably. Okay, definitely. Allowing herself to be separated from the one person who knew who and what she was, the one person who could get her home…so damn foolish. But that still wasn’t going to stop her.
And, wow. Jane Parker, considered a dummy. That was a first. She laughed without humor. A novelty in the face of pain. Nice.
“This amuses you?” the queen demanded.
Jane refused to acknowledge her.
There was a squeak of outrage. “Clearly you are not hitting her hard enough. You.” The queen snapped her fingers. “Take over the whip. Your arms are stronger, as I can well attest.”
Oh, gross.
A pause, then the whip continued to descend. Harder, so much harder. Over and over again, minutes ticking by. Still Jane did not utter a sound. She wanted to go home. Back to her boring life, where she was in control.
The whip stopped falling. Finally, a reprieve.
“Have you at last learned your lesson, Odette?” the queen asked, expectant. “Or shall I have him remove the skin on your legs, as well?”
She opened her mouth to tell the bitch to go to hell—no ignoring her this time—but she stopped herself before a single word escaped. Did these people believe in hell, or even know what it was? Would she announce her humanity and lose the protection—what little there was—in being thought of as Princess Odette?
“Silence will not—”
A roar echoed from the walls, harsh, guttural and a promise of pain.
Everyone in the room stilled. Jane forgot to breathe. That sound…she’d never heard its like. There was an animal on the loose, a lion probably, there just had to be. And people were clearly on the menu.
Another roar, followed by the crash of furniture and the shattering of knickknacks. Screams of agony. Gasps, racing footsteps. Had her guards left?
“Don’t leave me here,” she shouted.
“What’s going on?” the queen snapped. Okay. Good. She was still here. Bitch that she was. “You, find out. You, shield me.”
“Free me,” Jane demanded. “Now.”
They paid her no heed.
One of the guards headed toward the entryway, where other guards were pouring inside to escape the beast, but he didn’t make it outside the room. Not alive. There was a blur of movement, then blood was squirting, a headless body falling.
From the corner of her eye, she spotted Nicolai. He was a mess, covered in blood, limping, his arms hanging at his sides. His fangs were bared in a fearsome, crimson scowl, and she knew.
He was the animal.
Thank God. Some of the tension drained from her. Somehow, some way, he’d managed to escape. His plan to destroy the people who lived inside this palace was well under way.
Before, she’d thought there would be survivors. Now, not so much.
He barreled into another guard, his shoulder slamming into the man’s middle and knocking him backward. The guard propelled into another, the one with the whip. The two fell to the floor. Nicolai slashed into the whipper’s neck and shook, a wolf with his first meal in months. Screams…silence…death…