I braced myself for a fight. But could never have prepared enough for Gabriel unleashing his full power. I was good at sensing a banshee’s strength, but Gabriel was even better at hiding his. His fist connected with my jaw with such force that it threw me across the room like a rag doll. My knives flew out of reach.
Gabriel pounced, flipping me onto my stomach and pinning my arms behind my back. He dragged me to the huge bed against the wall opposite the fireplace. The only piece of furniture in the room. Suddenly I knew what he had planned for the evening.
Panic blossomed. I felt sick. Taking a breath, I tried to regain my composure. I had to fight. I stomped my foot onto his, crushing his toes. He howled in pain but didn’t loosen his hold. I stomped again until his hands slipped enough for me to break his grasp.
I spun and landed a roundhouse kick to his face. Before he could recover, I charged him slamming his back into the wall next to the fireplace. Without my knives my only hope was to knock him unconscious, so I hit him as much and as hard as I could. I gripped my hands together and brought them down on his skull with all my might.
The blow stunned Gabriel, but not for long. He kneed me in the gut, knocking the air from my lungs. It incapacitated me for only seconds, but it was long enough for him to bring his knee up into my face, breaking my cheekbone. I stumbled back, giving him the chance to grab me around the waist.
He once again dragged me to the bed. This time he tossed me onto it and jumped on top of me, pinning me to the mattress.
He used handcuffs to first lock my wrists then my ankles to the headboard and footboard. Just like they had in the storage unit, Gabriel used faeritonium cuffs, enchanted with an aura-stifling spell. I had no options left but to reason with him. I had to try something.
“Gabriel, come on, think this through. Ian and the rest of my clan are out there. You’ll never get away with this.”
“I don’t care. I don’t care if they kill me, as long as I do what I need to do first. My men will hold them off long enough for me to complete my goal and have fun while I do. Lots and lots of fun.
“You took her away from me. I had plans for her. You ruined my plans and you will pay for it.”
“Come on, Gabriel. Jilda was trying to kill Ian. I couldn’t just let her do that, now could I?”
He tilted his head to the side and looked at me in confusion for a second. “Oh, her. I forgot about her.”
He’d been referring to Juliana, not Jilda. He didn’t seem to care that Jilda was dead. What the hell did he want with Juliana? I cringed thinking of her in Gabriel’s hands. Thankfully, she was now safe.
“You took my queen away and now you will replace her, you stupid mutt-whore! Now you’re mine.”
I was his? That so wouldn’t work for me. I only had one weapon at my disposal: my mouth.
He was close enough that I was able to take his bottom lip into my mouth. I smiled the best I could and bit. Howling in pain, he jerked away tearing off a chunk of his lip. I spat it back at him showering his face in blood.
“You stupid bitch!” He smacked me across the face over and over. So hard I saw stars, so much that everything started to blur.
I choked back my sobs of pain, knowing they were what he wanted. He’d enjoy hearing me suffer. I vowed to myself not to make a peep. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.
“Hmm, you’re a quiet one. We’ll just have to do something about that, won’t we?” he said cheerfully, his lip already healed. He bounded off the bed to remove his shoes and shirt. Bare chested, he moved to where my knives had landed.
He jumped back on the bed to straddle my legs. “You will scream for me. Feel free to take your time though, I’ll enjoy myself until you do.”
He tore off my shirt and pants, leaving me in only my underclothes. He made a deep guttural sound as his eyes took in what he’d uncovered. The thought of him doing more than just torture made me sick. I don’t think I’d get over that. Torture was painful, but I’d recover. Anything more would be devastating.
Gabriel placed the knives on either side of my legs and ran his hands over my thighs, brushing the elastic of my panties. He slipped his thumbs under the waistband and pulled them down as far as he could. He grabbed a knife and cut them off, tossing them into the fire.
His oddly gentle caress moved over my churning stomach to my breasts where he cut off my bra. Taking my breasts in his hands, he massaged tenderly at first, before squeezing so hard the shock of pain made me gasp. He groaned at the sound. I’d let that one slip, but that was all he was getting. I stared at the ceiling and began doing the multiplication tables in my head while trying to pretend this wasn’t happening.
When he stopped touching me, I looked back to him. He was staring at my body, his mouth slightly open. His tongue slipped out to lick his lips. A cold panic slid over me when my suspicions became real. He was going to rape me. I had no way to stop him. A suffocating feeling of hopelessness overcame me.
Ian, where are you? Fear quickened my breath and Gabriel looked encouraged.
I had to try to distract him, maybe it would hold him off until Ian arrived.
“Gabriel, when Ian finds you — and he will — he will make you hurt more than you could ever make me. Think about what you’re doing.”
“Shut up! Just shut up! I don’t care if he tortures me! It will be worth it to see you suffer first. I’d do anything for the mission. Even die. I just need to do my part first,” he said, his voice distant and maniacal.
Before I could respond he ran the blades of my knives along my torso. I sucked in a breath at the sting. I bit my inner cheek to stop any other signs of pain escaping me. Though I couldn’t stop the tears.
He watched the blood bead up before he made two more the opposite way, making a macabre tic-tac-toe grid. I lay back and looked back to the ceiling and felt his fingers moving around near the wounds. I glanced down to see he was making little X’s and O’s in the grid.
“For fuck’s sake, Gabriel! What is wrong with you?”
He was playing with himself. Although, I must admit I was thankful it was a nightmarish version of a child’s game he was playing with and not something else. Because even through his pants, which he still wore, it was obvious just how much he was enjoying his work.
“What?” he whined like an admonished child. “I told you I’d have fun. Wanna play with me? I’ll let you go first.”
“No, you crazy bastard, I don’t want to play with you!”
His gaze narrowed. “I. Am. Not. Crazy. You’re not a nice mutt, are you?”
As punishment he gave me another piece of artwork. This time he zigzagged a line from my sternum to my navel. He wasn’t going deep enough to cause any real damage, just enough to weaken me from blood loss.
Calling him crazy was a huge mistake because he no longer dilly dallied in his “fun”. He cut, hit, and bit me for I don’t know how long. I lost consciousness a few times. Even that didn’t slow him. He found excruciating ways to bring me back to awareness.
I must have been pretty far gone at one point because he had to stab me. When my eyes refocused, he smiled and jumped off the bed. Although, my mind had entered a protectively numb state from the torture, it awakened fast when I saw he was naked.
Helpless and beyond distraught I began to cry silently. I watched him skip to the fireplace. He wrapped his hand around a handle sticking out of the flames.