A threat. There, now we’re in familiar territory.
Kincaid smirks wickedly and a strange sensation washes over me. Like fingers tripping over naked flesh. Like warm breath on my neck. A burgeoning heat writhes in my belly, moving lower until my thighs squeeze from the force of it. I gasp, reflexively closing my eyes and bite back a moan.
It helps to keep my eyes tightly shut, but the feeling lingers there, leaving me breathless and aching with need.
It’s a kind of torture unlike any I’ve endured before.
When I open my eyes again, Kincaid is still there, inches from my face, the longer tendrils of his dark hair brushing over my cheek. “So, Na’vazēm, the easy way? Or the hard way?”
“Wh-what do you want to know?”
“Good girl.”
Kincaid pulls back, releasing the chair and me from his strange hold. What remains of the sensations leeches away until I’m left feeling oddly drained and cold.
“Are you an incubus?” I ask, my hands shaking as I tightly grip the moth-eaten sheet still wrapped around my fist.
He looks at me as though I’ve asked him something deeply offensive, and I wish I just kept my damned mouth shut. At least half the times Ford punished me, it was because of things that came out of my mouth. Things I couldn’t seem to keep in.
I could behave. I learned to behave.
But my mouth has a way of betraying even my best intentions.
“No,” Kincaid replies with a lick of distaste and then washes his hand over his jaw. It’s clear he isn’t going to elaborate. I’m surprised at my disappointment.
“Tell me about yourself, Na’vazēm.”
“It’s Paige,” I correct, wanting to ask him what exactly naw-vaw-zeem means and if it’s a demonic language, but I’m not interested in provoking his wrath a second time.
“Tell me about yourself, Paige,” he corrects, spitting my name as though it tastes foul on his tongue. “It seems you were brought across The Hinge four days ago. The transport was arranged, as you said, by an Officer Silva after a diviner determined you were not human. You were deported to Elisium and captured by slavers. Then you were sold at the demon market—to me.”
That about sums it up. I have no idea how he was able to find all of that out, but I’m not about to ask.
“It was all a mistake,” I begin when it’s clear he’s waiting for me to explain. It’s strange how the words don’t ring with as much truth as they did the first time I spoke.
There’s been a mistake…
Has there?
I am beginning to doubt.
“The police, they came to my house. My…Ford was found dead in the Mississippi. They said they needed me to ID his body.”
Everything that happened leading up to my purchase at the slave market tumbled out of me. Kincaid didn’t interrupt. He didn’t ask any questions. He watched me carefully, as though searching for any hint I may be lying. His eyes darken as I go on, his face pinching.
“And then I was sold to you,” I finish, sighing. Feeling like some enormous weight has been lifted from my shoulders only for another new one to take its place.
I know better than to hope Kincaid will let me go, but the unburdening of the information is strangely liberating, even if it won’t help.
“The diviner was right,” Kincaid says after a slight pause. “You aren’t human.”
“But—”
“You aren’t,” he repeats, more forcefully this time. “Over the past four days, I’ve felt your power grow. You’re no more a human than I am a lamb, Na’vazēm. It’s why I bought you. It’s why I thought you were sent here to spy on me.”
“Sent by who?”
His brows lower and I bite my tongue, cursing my inability to shut up.
Ignoring my question, Kincaid draws in a breath. “You said you’re ill?”
I drop my gaze. That is yet another part I’m not certain of anymore, but I answer him anyway. “Yes. I can count on two hands the number of times I’ve gone beyond my backyard. It’s called severe combined immuno—,”
“You do not have this.”
“I do. I take pills every day for it. Ford kept me locked up because—”
“Pills?” Kincaid questions, something sparking in his eyes. “What kind of pills? What did they look like?”
“Purple,” I reply, confused at his change in demeanor. I show him the size with my fingers. “About this big with a little triangle stamped on one side.”
His cat-like eyes widen infinitesimally. “I see.”
“What do you—”
“I’ll make you a deal,” Kincaid interrupts. “If you’ll give me forty days, then I will see to it that you are returned to The Hinge.”
My breath catches. “Forty days for what?”
“To learn what you are.”
“Why?” I ask, careful to keep my voice plaintive and docile even though I want to scream at him that I will not remain captive for forty fucking days. Not without a fight.
“Why does it matter? I’m not what you thought. I’m not a spy. Why can’t you just let me leave?”
“Because you are an anomaly, Na’vazēm, and something tells me you may be a very useful one.”
11
I agreed.
What else could I have done?
With my Diablim captor leering over me, an expectant gleam in his cat-like eyes, it would have been impossible to refuse.
“Through there.” Kincaid jerks his chin toward the room he’s led me to on the second level of the massive house. “Get cleaned up. I’ll be back shortly. I have an errand to run.”
An…errand?
I school my features into obedience and force a demure nod, dutifully entering the room. It’s a bedroom. Or at least, from the shapes covered in thin white sheets, I think it is. A bed is pressed up against the left wall with what looks to be a nightstand next to it. A shape like a vanity stands tall on the wall across from me, next to a square window.
The darkened shape of a doorway is to my right. I assume it leads to the bathroom where Kincaid wants me to get cleaned up.
“You’ll be staying in this room from now on,” he adds gruffly, and I turn just enough to catch the tightening of his jaw from the corner of my eye. “Give no grief, Na’vazēm, and you will get none. Understand?”
Heart thumping wildly, I nod.
A second later the door shuts behind me and the metallic sound of a key scraping a lock into place makes me shudder.
Kincaid’s heavy footfalls fade down the hall, and I make a point of doing exactly as he asked. I go into the bathroom, flinching as I flick on the light, and a row of big round bulbs flare to life above an oval mirror.
I frown as I take in the shower, a vise clamping around my lungs. I don’t do showers.
Haven’t been able to stand one without panicking since I was eight.
But I don’t have to worry about how I’m going to wash myself. I don’t intend to stick around to use the wax-paper wrapped soaps in the dish by the sink.
Kincaid only needs to think I’m doing as he asked.
I reach into the shower and crank the faucet on to full blast, jerking my hand out before any of the water can hit my arm. The sound alone is enough to make my chest constrict and my blood go cold in my veins.