A Warlord's Lady (7 page)

Cain sighed again, and this time his sweet breath made her hair flutter. Yet he seemed oblivious to her nearness. He closed his eyes, and Sabra barely dared to breathe. His breath caressed her, running down her cheek and neck as his head bowed low. Her nipples puckered underneath her clothes at this respiratory caress. They were so hard and erect, if he moved a centimetre closer he’d brush against them. Her body burned with want at this closeness and all she could do — was hold her breath and wait.

Abruptly, Cain gave a low growl of pure frustration. He whirled away from her, the heel of his boot digging into the soft carpet. Clicking his gun into his hand, and checking it was loaded, he leapt down the stairs and was gone.

Sabra released her breath, her starved lungs screaming and her body tingling with need.

He’d be back, she knew.

***

For what seemed like a long time, Sabra stayed motionless listening somewhat worriedly to another skirmish as it took place below. Guns snapped, men yelled, thuds could be heard.

Lord it sounded worse than a video game down there.

To distract herself, she tried to ponder this new skill of camouflage. What exactly had she done? She didn’t feel particularly different. Was she still invisible? This was definitely a development and a skill she was going to need, as well as hone and practice, in the coming months…or maybe even years.

What on earth am I going to do?

After a while, Sabra’s legs began to ache with the inactivity. She needed to move, and the sounds of fighting seemed to have moved out into the front yard. She really needed to get some of her things and get out of the house while everyone else seemed distracted. Would the government people think she’d gone with Cain and Jürgen? Or would they think she was dead? Was that a good thing or a bad thing?

As silently as she could manage, she crept down the stairs. There was a black-clad special forces man collapsed near the open front door. Blood was pooling around a hole in his chest. She glanced out the front door. Hollis was there, not dead, but groaning. His radio crackled and he lifted a blood-stained hand to touch the speaker button.

‘It’s been carnage…’ he growled, and Sabra didn’t wait to hear more. She skirted close to the wall back into her living room; she had a safe in there, with a fair amount of cash and credit cards. She’d need it to get out of town for a while.

The living room looked like a bomb site. Broken glass and shattered furniture lay everywhere. Something sad pinched her deep inside.

My home, ruined. Why? What for?

She’d bought this house and worked hard to keep it, that is, until the royalties from the book came in. The furniture she’d scoured antique and second-hand shops for was destroyed; splinters of wood lay like toothpicks all over her floor.

Struggling to stem the welling sense of depression, she turned to her left and saw Elka’s twisted corpse; there was blood pooling beneath it on the cool white tiles and soaking into her Persian rug. Sabra suppressed a shudder but couldn’t take her eyes from the gruesome sight. The shattered skull and blood-splattered hair looked like a revolting abstract painting she’d seen once in an art gallery.

Shaking her head to dismiss the bizarre and unwelcome thought, Sabra gingerly stepped over the body to reach the Art Deco credenza which hid her safe. As her right foot stepped over the corpse and landed gently on the squelching blood-soaked rug, she thought she heard something.

She froze, unwilling to move or turn, and she waited. It had sounded like a shuffle, maybe a slight groan. She couldn’t be sure.

Her heart hammered as she willed herself not to completely freak out and run screaming in a circle.

For a long moment there was nothing more, so Sabra took the next step over Elka’s body, her left foot landing shakily beside her right.

Again, she froze; something
was
moving in the room and it sounded close. Spinning around, her eyes scoured the whole room. There were no more sounds, nothing except the wail of sirens in the distance and the gentle autumnal breeze flicking the shredded curtains.

Her body reacted before her mind did — her ankle was suddenly caught in a vice-like grip.

‘What the fuck?’ Sabra screamed, certain she was about lose control of her bowels.

Her heart raced faster than ever, and she clamped her hand over her mouth to stem any further cries. The sirens in the distance got closer. Terrified of what she might see, Sabra looked down at what gripped her ankle with such strength.

The moment she did, she wished she hadn’t. Elka, or what remained of Elka, reared up from the floor, hissing through shattered teeth. She was absolutely monstrous and ruined.

How could she possibly be still alive?

Sabra began to struggle, vomit boiling up to her throat. This was a nightmare. She wailed and in her distress collapsed to the floor, all the while Elka’s grip remaining furiously tight about her ankle.

‘Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!’ Elka hissed, small shards of tooth falling from her bloodied lips. The only feature still recognisable were her eyes, and Sabra stared at them, frantically trying to calm herself. It didn’t work. It was just too horrible, too gruesome. Black spots floated before her vision, and though she struggled against it, she could feel darkness beckoning her.

I will not faint.
Sabra gritted her teeth and struggled some more, but Elka’s grip was like iron and the horror refused to fade.

The black spots turned to little sparkling stars; in her shock, she’d forgotten to breathe.

Belatedly Sabra tried to take an enormous gulping breath, but it was too late. The horror, the shock and hysteria were too much. Blackness came swiftly, easing her mind and taking away her terror.

It was like swimming through thick pea soup — difficult and a little weird. Sabra struggled through the warm cloying thickness of her unconscious mind, trying to reach the surface. At first it seemed like an impossible task. Every time she neared consciousness a horrid memory of Elka’s shattered skull hammered through her mind and she sank back into blackness.

Eventually, the horror of the memory lessened and she broke through, and peeled an eyelid open a crack. She was lying on a bed, at least she presumed it to be a bed, judging from the mildly soft mattress sensation beneath her back. Her head lay on a pillow, and she could see lamps above her.

Sabra heard the inane ring-tone from someone’s telephone. It seemed to echo in the room.

Feeling more than a little worried, Sabra peeled her eyes open wider. She went to brush a strand of hair from her face, but found her right hand was stuck.

Stuck?

She tugged again, then craned her head around to see what gripped her wrist so tightly.

Straps.
Brown leather straps trapped her hands and tied them to the bed. The ever-present panic boiled through her body and, praying silently to whichever god might listen, Sabra tried to lift her feet — but swiftly found that they too were strapped.

‘Help!’ she bellowed, then instantly regretted it. Screaming would probably only attract those who’d captured her in the first place. She twisted her head around wildly, absorbing the room to see if her cry had alerted anyone to her newly-conscious state.

The room was hideous, institutional grey, and the lamps that surrounded her were reminiscent of those you’d find at a dentist, although, instead of just one there were three.

The lamps beamed down on her and they felt warm against her skin. She took a quick and terrified glance at her body, and sighed instantly when she saw the clothes that Cain had conjured were still in place. Again ignoring the over-paced racing of her heart, she looked around the room; the lamps and the sterile-looking metal wheelie-table made the room seem more than a little medicinal. She shuddered. Where was she? Who had her?

Sabra couldn’t help but wonder if this was in fact one of the hideous examination rooms in the feared heart of the Cerebral Management Facility. Had the government got to her before the ruined spectre of Elka managed to kill her?

‘Ahhh, you’re awake.’ A voice oozed to her left. The voice was male, unfamiliar and crawled over her skin like ants. Sabra swallowed and blinked before twisting her head to meet the man’s gaze.

At first, she gasped. He wasn’t what she’d expected — a villain — especially after the oily voice he’d exhibited. Instead, she found an attractive guy, perhaps in his early thirties, tall and finely sculpted with glittering blue eyes.

‘Who are you?’ Sabra whispered, her throat tight. ‘Are you from the government?’

Dressed in a neat blue suit, complete with designer sunglasses hanging from the belt of his expensive-looking pants, he certainly looked the part.

The man let out a round of sharp, hiccuping laughter and Sabra felt herself instantly recoil.

‘The government, no,’ he finally replied once his laughter was spent.

‘Then…’ Sabra felt her brow crumple. Who else wanted her? ‘You’re not one of Cain’s men,’ she said with certainty. Love him or loathe him, Cain had never once tied her up. That is, at least not without her permission, and certainly not outside the privacy of her own bedroom.

The blue-eyed man’s face contorted into a snarl at the mention of Cain’s name.

‘No, the Warlord, Cain Dath, and my family have never seen eye to eye.’

His answer was irritatingly cryptic.

‘Your family?’ Sabra heard herself bite out.

The man’s smile was glacial. ‘Yes, my family…
The Family
. You may have heard of them.’

‘No,’ Sabra whispered, and the man’s smile dropped. ‘I haven’t.’

He glowered at her. ‘The Magical Mafia — perhaps you have heard
that
name before.’

A cold chill corkscrewed its way down Sabra’s body. She had indeed heard of the Magical Mafia. Unlike the traditional human mafia who were somewhat restricted by country and government, the Magical Mafia worked outside human law. There was little that the Magical Mafia couldn’t do, nor an individual they couldn’t touch. They were not bound by the conventions of human rights, and there was no limit to the depths they would descend to achieve their goals. Sabra had a terrible feeling that she may have been safer in Cerebral Management than she would be here.

‘I see you
have
heard of us.’ The man smiled grimly. The inane tune from the mobile phone chimed again, and stopped the man mid-sentence. His hand dove into the pocket of his slick-looking pants and he dug it out angrily.

‘What?’ he growled, sounding pissy. ‘She is?’ What looked like relief melted his icy features; he slammed the phone back into his pocket and spun on the heel of what Sabra could only imagine to be a very expensive shoe.

‘Where are you going?’ Sabra called, feeling her skin flush with a strange agitation. ‘Wait! I want answers. Why am I tied up, for God’s sake?’

The man turned his head and inclined it thoughtfully for a moment, but his look was distracted.

‘I will be back soon.’

Sabra didn’t feel reassured.

‘But what is going on?’ She writhed against the straps that held her to the bed; she could feel the man’s eyes skitter over her bosom as it strained against the sweater, but they didn’t linger long. He locked his sarcastic gaze on hers.

‘You really don’t have a clue, do you?’ he asked softly. His voice sounded vaguely musical and the sweet smell of spring flowers wafted past her.

‘No, I don’t,’ she agreed, feeling suddenly relaxed. She knew instantly that the man was a magician, although one quite different from Cain.

The man looked momentarily torn between vague delight and an intense urge to leave.

‘I will enlighten you,’ he promised with a smirk, ‘but I do have pressing business to attend to first.’

‘Wait!’ Sabra bit back a howl as he disappeared from the room.

***

Cain returned to the Laos compound empty-handed and in a foul temper. He sank into the leather couch in his den, and swilled a vintage whisky around and around in its tumbler.

Jürgen and several other guards stood nervously a few steps away.

Cain was not familiar with failure — although his life as Warlord had not been a charmed one, he had been largely very successful. Sabra, however, was another matter entirely. The strange chubby Chameleon haunted his thoughts. The scent of frangipani on the wind, the fluctuating greys in the rain clouds…everything reminded him of her and, as much as it frustrated him, it enraged him, too. How had she managed to elude him? he wondered.
Again.

He gulped down the bittersweet alcohol and looked up at his guards.

‘Boss?’ Jürgen asked tentatively.

Cain held the blond’s gaze. ‘We have to find her.’

‘But…’

‘There are no buts,’ he snapped, and took another sip of his whisky.

***

For an interminable time, Sabra remained strapped to the table. There was little else she could do. Her skin crept with unease and she fought a vicious itch to the left of her nose that she could not reach.

Every time she closed her eyes she could see Cain in her mind’s eye, his bewildered and angry expression as she’d disappeared from his view. For the millionth time she pondered if she’d done the right thing in refusing to leave with him.

No
, she reminded herself. Whatever the mafia wanted to do with her couldn’t be worse than living a half-life as a mindless, sex-addicted slave. She tried to hold on to the thought, but it crumpled.
Who am I kidding?
Being coveted and cared for, and shagged reliably every day had been bliss. It was this situation that was creepy.

She chewed her lip. As she waited she tried to distract herself by humming songs.

‘Cher,
If I Could Turn Back Time
, right?’ came the oily voice.

Sabra stopped mid hum, her heart leaping into her throat, choking her. Had she been humming that song? She turned her head to meet the man’s gaze.

‘Very apt choice of song, except the Warlord doesn’t love you any more than I do. You’re just a very useful tool. Turning back time would probably only lead him to do what I am just about to do.’