“Jem,” she cried. Her face was covered with bruises and tears. Her shirt had been sliced open, leaving a trail of blood trickling down her body.
Draven was standing next to her with a blade at her throat. He flashed his brown teeth at me and laughed as I lunged at him. His eyes bulged as I grabbed the knife. I spun him around and had him in a chokehold with the blade pointing at his throat before he could take his next breath.
“Jem, watch out!” Tashlyn screamed.
I heard the footsteps behind me. I dragged the knife across Draven’s throat. His blood poured like a river over my hand. I tossed aside his limp body just as a sharp pain exploded in my skull.
In my haze, I heard a chain crank through a pulley. My hands were yanked above my head and metal cuffs ground into my wrists as my feet left the floor. I lifted my throbbing head and looked around. Everything was a blur, everything except the figure standing in the center of the dark hovel.
Tashlyn looked ghost white. She gazed up at me with glassy eyes. My feet were dangling in the air. My wrists and shoulders were bearing all my weight. But Gregor hadn’t tied my legs. They were my only weapon.
He walked out of the shadows, where he’d been locking the pulley chain tight to hold me. He took a nonchalant step over Draven’s dead body. A deep pool of blood covered the ground beneath him. My head was clearing, and it was coming back to me. I’d managed to slit Draven’s throat before Gregor knocked me out.
I looked over at Tashlyn. She was shivering uncontrollably, and it looked as if she’d been hit more than once. “Fuck, baby.” My voice sounded worthless in the dark cavern. “I’m sorry. I should have been there.”
“Very touching words coming from Jem Wolfe,” Landon snarled.
He stood between Tashlyn and me and looked back and forth. “I’m trying to decide which would be more torturous for you.” He lifted a short whip that was studded with shards of glass. “Being beaten yourself or having to watch as I splay the creamy, beautiful skin off her back. I know you well enough to know pain doesn’t really bother you, so I think we’ll start with the girl.”
A sob, a sound that reached in and twisted my heart, erupted from Tashlyn’s lips.
I struggled against the metal shackles, but it was useless. I needed to draw his attention away from Tashlyn and turn all his rage against me. “You sick fuck, you’ve had this torture chamber down here playing out your perverted fantasies with little girls. And all the while, you strutted around town like a big man, like a respectable citizen.” I glanced toward the back of the shelter. “How many girls do you have buried in here?”
He reached up and tapped the chain running across the plank ceiling. “This came with the shelter. The trappers’ used it to hang carcasses and bleed out their kill. Like I’m going to do to the Wolfe I just trapped. And there are no bodies buried here. This was always the first place the police looked.” He chuckled. “Hell, I even had to lead them down here a few times to let them look the place over.” He walked in a circle around me, beaming with sickening pride, apparently at having tricked the police so often. I was just glad to keep his attention off of Tashlyn. “No, I had the expertise that comes from growing up in these woods. It gave me the edge I needed to keep ahead of the investigators. This river is dotted with abandoned beaver habitats, crudely built animal dens that I discovered were the perfect place to hide a body.”
“You are the lowest piece of trash on this earth, Gregor, and I’m going to fucking kill you.”
Landon walked closer and glared up at me. I had to keep his focus on me.
“Still can’t believe that all this time self-important, self-righteous Mayor Gregor was committing the worst crime of all. In prison, they’d kill you for sure. In fact, I would get myself arrested just to get thrown in there with you. Then I could tear you to fucking pieces.”
“Guess you know all about prison. Don’t forget, your dad was part of it all,” he blurted as if that erased his own sins.
“Nope, you fucking deviant, he had nothing to do with the little girls, and you know it. That was you and you alone. You’re all pieces of shit, my dad, Rocky, that scumbag on the floor, even your sister knew what was going on. That’s why she’s sitting in some house with strangers drinking herself into the grave. She’s just as guilty as the rest of you.”
He shook his head and spun around. I worried he was turning his attention back to Tashlyn, but his arm shot out and he snapped the glass covered whip at me. I tightened my fists against the pain. Shards of glass sliced through my shirt and skin, leaving marks that looked as if a tiger had drawn its claws across me.
“You monster!” Tashlyn screamed.
Landon twisted around to face her.
I braced my shoulders and wrists for pain as I lifted my lower body. I got in a solid kick to his back. He stumbled forward and fell to his knees.
Landon hopped back to his feet, and his nostrils flared wide as he turned around with his gnarly whip. It came across my back, slicing through my flesh like butter. Instantly, blood ran in warm rivers down my back. I held my breath to bear some of the pain. I was relieved that he hadn’t touched Tashlyn with the whip. His torture device flew through the cold air again, striking me, leaving my shirt and skin in shreds.
“You always had a smart mouth, Wolfe. But I guess this’ll shut you up for good.” He pulled out the knife I’d used to slit Draven’s throat. It was still coated with his blood.
Gregor shoved it against my throat.
“No, please,” Tashlyn pleaded.
Gregor sneered up at me. “Isn’t that sweet, she’s begging for your life. Bet you never had anyone give a damn if you lived or died before.” He lowered the knife. “I think we’ll see just how much you return that affection, Wolfe.”
He turned back to Tashlyn and made sure to stay out of the circular reach of my legs. I twisted and turned ready to pull the fucking skin off my hands, just to get free. Gregor pushed apart the panels of Tashlyn’s ripped shirt. Tears flowed down her cheeks, and she tried her hardest to squirm out of his reach. He dragged his finger along the scratch on her belly, then pressed his blade against her. She cried weakly as he pulled the tip of the knife along her skin.
“Like ivory silk, young and supple,” Gregor growled.
“I’ll fucking kill you,” I yelled.
He grinned at me over his shoulder and lifted his arm back. The flesh shredding whip dropped back ready to slice the air and Tashlyn’s skin.
Tashlyn closed her eyes. I futilely kicked out, hitting nothing but air.
The hatch was thrown open and daylight poured into the hole. A loud roar followed and a tall figure flew at Gregor, knocking him to the floor. Dane snarled like a wild fucking animal as he grabbed Gregor’s hair and snapped his head back. He pounded Gregor’s face into the floor, splattering blood in every direction. The sickening sound of bones crushing echoed through the shelter. Dane lifted Gregor’s head back and smashed it into the ground again. Gregor was limp but that didn’t stop my brother.
“Dane, it’s done. Let us loose.”
Dane thwacked the asshole’s head a couple more times before finally letting go. He hopped to his feet and looked at both of us. “Shit, good thing I came.”
“Yeah, bro, it’s a damn good thing. The chain running along the pulley is hooked to the wall over there. And there’s a knife under that bastard somewhere to cut Tashlyn’s ropes.”
Dane stared down at the second body on the floor. “Hell, is that Draven?” he asked as he stepped over him.
“Yep, that’s Draven.”
Dane unhooked the chain, and it rattled through the pulley. My hands were numb from being above my head, but my shoulders felt instant relief. My tattered shirt was soaked with blood, and it felt like the skin on my chest and back was on fire. “Right here on the side of the cuffs is a button, Dane. Open these up.”