Christine Feehan

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Riordan lay on the cement floor in a pool of blood, dispassionately watching as it seeped toward the built in drain. His blood looked like a thin pale gray trail of liquid pooling in an ever-widening puddle. It was unthinkable that he had been trapped like this, that one of his kind could be shamed and dying at the hands of his enemies. He was an immortal, a Carpathian male, no fledging, but a man of honor and skill. He lay in a pitiful heap, unable to gather the strength needed to move. Unable to summon help from his own kind.

His brothers would be seeking him now, wondering why his mind was closed to them. He dared not draw another into the trap as he had been drawn. He would not be bait to kill more of his kind. The enemy had found a way to poison the blood of their people, to immobilize them long enough to drain their blood and keep them weak. He had thought he was skilled enough to push the poison from his body. In the past he had done so on numerous occasions, but the new poison held him helpless and weak and paralyzed against the continual torture.

There was no way to transmit the news to his Prince, no way to warn of this new, even more lethal drug their enemies had devised. Riordan lay very still, propped against the wall, examining the compounds racing through his system. They had used some sort of an electrical charge to stimulate the cell deterioration in his blood. Riordan allowed his breath to escape in a long slow hiss of deadly promise. Of deadly despair.

Riordan lay chained to the wall, drained of his massive strength, weak and exhausted with the drugs they continually injected into his system. He would not die easily, his body would continually regenerate, but without the necessary blood, without the healing earth, it would happen, slowly and painfully. It was the last death for himself he had ever envisioned.

The drug was crawling through his body, a chemical monster nearly as lethal as the dark demon lurking deep within him. Before he died, he intended to transmit as much information on the poisonous compound as he could to his brothers. He would issue a warning, but he would not do so until his death was imminent. He would not betray his kin. He would not be used as bait to draw in the others. His Prince needed to know that a master vampire was using the humans, playing puppet master. Riordan had to find a way to escape, there was no other option. He could not allow his life to end until he carried the vital information of treachery to his people. He could not let pain and despair, his ever-present companions, weaken his resolve.

Riordan closed his eyes and crawled deep into his mind. Almost at once he heard the soft snick of the lock at the heavy metal door. Fearing his immense power, his captors never came to him at night. They had drained his blood, injected a strange compound into his system and continually subjected him to electric shock, yet they still feared him. He did a cursory scanning to touch the mind of the human entering the laboratory, his prison, but to his shock, he could not read the thoughts. He had the impression of a human female.

He sat very still, his mind working at a furious rate. Had his captors managed to find a way to shield their thoughts? They were protected most of the time by his own weakness. During the daylight hours he was helpless and vulnerable, but at night, they had been cunning enough to stay away. Although they had drained his blood and his strength, he was mentally strong enough to command one of them should they venture near at night. This was his chance to escape or seek a way to end his life before they could use him against his own species.

He studied the mind of the single person entering his prison. She was a young female. He kept his eyes closed, conserving his strength, waiting for that one moment he knew would come. He would reach past the strange barriers in her mind, rip past each strange compartment until he had total control. He would force the human female to do his bidding. Escape or death, whichever it took to win this battle. He could smell her now, a clean fresh fragrance suggesting the outdoors, the rainforest after a cleansing downpour. A hint of exotic flowers, and something else. Something wild. Something not quite human. Riordan felt his muscles tense at the unfamiliar odor, a strange quickening, a heat spreading throughout his body, but he held himself under control.

Nothing could prevent his attack. It was the first mistake any of them had made and he would use it, capitalize on it. The demon in him was struggling to break free, listening to the steady heartbeat, the steady ebb and flow of blood in her veins. Hunger gnawed at him endlessly, mindlessly, brutally. He waited, unmoving, listening to the soft padding of her steps. There was only a whisper of sound to mark her footfalls, yet he smelled her excitement, the edge of fear and adrenaline. She was moving closer.

All at once the soft footfall ceased, her breath exploding out of her in a soft hiss of shock. "Oh no!" There was a rush of movement toward him, the rustle of clothes. Riordan clearly heard the shocked horror in her voice. She had not been expecting him.

Juliette couldn't believe the terrible sight, the man pale beyond imagining, his blood draining away on the floor. The heavy chains wrapped around his chest seemed burned into his very flesh. His hands were manacled and blood seeped from a multitude of wounds. She couldn't believe he could suffer so much and still live. She knelt beside him and felt for his pulse.

Riordan opened his eyes to stare into her face as she squatted beside him, heedless of the blood smearing her clothing as she leaned in close. Her fingers settled gently against his neck. Her large strangely turquoise eyes filled with compassion. "Who did this to you?" Even as she whispered the questioned, she was pulling out a small instrument from a tool belt hooked around her waist, to work at the lock on the heavy cuffs. She carefully avoided looking at the cameras she knew were locked on him.

"We don't have too long. Can you walk? They'll send security after us and we'll have to run." He was a big man and Juliette didn't think she had a prayer of packing him out in a fireman's carry. She would try it though. She had come to this place thinking it was a poacher's lock up for exotic jungle cats. She had never expected to find a half dead, obviously tortured man imprisoned within the walls. She had never seen so much blood, such a ravaged face, such intense eyes. The cuff dropped off of his left hand and she stretched around him to work at the second one.

Her hair fell across her face in a silky fall of blue-black strands. Faintly shocked that he could see the individual colors, Riordan could only stare at her hair. For one moment he couldn't think, couldn't even breathe, drag air into his lungs. It was impossible, yet the hand he raised to the black colored fall of hair was smeared red with blood. Red. Not a muddy gray. His fingers brushed her hair back over her shoulder with exquisite gentleness, an instinct bred into his bones, exposing the line of her neck to him. She didn't seem to notice, working meticulously on the lock of the thick steel cuff. Her skin was soft and inviting. Like satin. He bent his head forward, slowly, steadily, the fangs lengthening, the demon roaring, his body clenching. His breath was warm against her skin. His teeth almost touched her pulse, that vulnerable pinpoint beckoning seductively.

Her blouse gaped open revealing exquisite breasts, lush and full and soft enough to pillow his head. He wanted to slip his hand inside her shirt and hold warm flesh as he bent to her neck.

She made a sound, frowning, still absorbed in her work. Riordan inhaled, taking the scent of her deep into his body. He didn't have control of her mind, and he was too weak to waste what was left of his strength on working out the intricate puzzle. The moment the heavy steel dropped from his wrist, he whipped up his arms, locking her body to his as his teeth sank deep into her neck.

White-hot pain lashed through Juliette's body, danced like a whip of lightning through her bloodstream, heating her body so that every nerve ending was alive and pulsing with fire. The pain gave way to a dark erotic slumberous ecstasy she was helpless to resist. Juliette was certain she struggled, but he was like iron, her softer body battering itself against his hard one, and he didn't seem to notice. She felt the strength growing in him, spreading through him, even as her own strength seemed to slide away from her. There was a part of her that seemed to be separate, standing apart, watching and feeling in a kind of horror. Feeling things so intensely seductive, she was shocked. There was fire in her blood, moving through her body, muscles clenching, tightening, going boneless, pliant in his iron-like grip.

Riordan glanced up at the camera trained on him, his mouth twisting in a humorless smile, a flash of his white teeth. With his eyes staring straight at the lens, he lowered his head and stroked a caress across the pinpricks on her neck with his tongue. That look would tell them everything. He knew each of them, knew their scent, he knew his enemies. Their stench was in his very lungs and he was a hunter. He had gone from the prey to the predator with one small infusion of blood. It wasn't enough to completely heal him, but it was enough to allow his escape.

He lifted the woman's limp body easily to his shoulder, moving with a graceful show of strength. He had every intention of drawing his enemies to him and away from his family. But first he would destroy everything they had built out in the jungle. They hid their laboratory away from prying eyes. They hid their hideous torture chamber deep within the jungle, thinking they were far from the law, far from justice, but he would show them who owned this part of the world, who had owned it for a long, long time.

The woman erupted into a wild struggle, attempting to squirm away from him.

Riordan tightened his hold on her. "Stop it," he ordered. "You have no way to escape. It is impossible. Lie still." His voice was a soft menacing command.

Juliette lay quietly, feeling the enormous strength in his arms. She fought down her panic, trying desperately to think. Her body had become lead. It was an effort to lift her arm, make a fist, pound on his back. She was dizzy and sick. His emotions were swamping her, a wild swirling of dark danger beating at her. She had never come close to feeling such overwhelming emotions. She had never even encountered anyone able to feel such intensity of emotions. They welled up like a volcano, explosive, violent, very intense. She sensed something wild and untamed, a predator without equal. Her neck throbbed and burned and she wondered what manner of demon she had unleashed.

She actually felt the strength gathering in him. Felt it. A spinning cauldron of enormous power. It built in him and seemed to spill out of him, out of his pores, bursting from his masculine body so that the building frame shook and creaked ominously, until the very air was so filled, the walls actually bulged outward in an attempt to contain such power. Juliette clutched at the tattered remains of his shirt, her fist bunching the material in her palm, needing something, anything to hang onto.

"My sister might be in here," she managed to whisper the words, terrified Jasmine would be caught in the massive destruction of cement and mortar.

"No one is in the building but us," he assured. He moved then, his speed so incredible, everything around her blurred. Juliette squeezed her eyes shut tightly to prevent the dizziness from overcoming her. Her stomach lurched and she clung grimly. She could feel the powerful muscles bunching beneath her, she could feel the rush of air over her body. She swore at one point they left the ground, moving through space so quickly they were flying.