Cold hands touched her, and white-blonde hair caught the light, the taste of blood bitter in her mouth. She cried out in terrified protest, pushing Lucian away.
“Shh,” Raiden caught her wrists, his skin hot against hers. “It is me, my mate. It is me. Look at me Lia,” he said with alpha command, and she forced her eyes open, panting. “There,” he murmured, releasing his grip. “There. It is okay, Lia. You are here with me.”
“Hurts,” she whimpered it, tears falling.
Her body ached and her ribs were too tight for her to breathe. She bit down on her teeth and arched up as her muscles spasmed, feeling the touch of Lucian across her skin although she knew it was not possible as she was looking at Raiden, but, for a moment, she doubted her sanity. Perhaps, she thought, this was some new torturous trick of Lucian’s, to make her think herself safe and with her mate, when she was still a blood slave.
“William,” Raiden said urgently his eyes holding hers, as the alpha command battled against the blood bond. “I cannot hold her for long, the blood bond is strong, and I,” he grimaced. “Am not.”
“Okay, okay. I need her still,” William was harried as he knelt beside the bed. Tara leaned over, holding aloft a bag of murky looking liquid. “Wade, I might need a hand.”
Wade joined them. “Lia,” he said, the alpha tone commanding. “Look at Raiden and stay still for us.”
“Argh,” Lia thrashed, but her eyes remained locked to Raiden’s.
“Lia, look at me,” Raiden’s voice repeated and reinforced alpha command, the power a golden leash on her limbs, holding her eyes to his. She didn’t fight against the command, as it overrode the Other that pulled at her but melted into it, let it take some of the weight from her. “That is better,” he said with relief. “It is okay, Lia. You have started withdrawing from Lucian’s blood.”
“He is calling,” she said it through clenched teeth.
“Just look at me,” Raiden said, his voice soothing, the magic of alpha command strong and resonant. “Keep looking at me.”
“Good work, Rai,” Wade murmured. He held her wrist against the mattress.
She felt a spike of pain and her eyes jerked away.
“No,” Raiden commanded, pulling her eyes back to his with his command. “Look at me, Lia. Will is just putting an IV line in. You must not pull it out.”
“Raiden,” she felt as if Lucian’s hands crawled over her skin, and she wanted to tear them from her flesh. “My skin is crawling.” She could not bring herself to tell him that it was as if Lucian touched her still, it was too raw, and too real, and too exposing with Wade, Williams and Tara looking at her.
Raiden stroked his hand over her cheek, holding her eyes. “I would say that is due to the withdrawals. I might need something to bind her with,” he said, and although his eyes remained on hers, she realised that he wasn’t speaking to her. “To stop her harming herself when I am asleep.”
“Are you alright?” Wade asked Will.
“Yeah. She has stopped fighting.”
Wade stood. “I will get some rope,” he said to Raiden.
She felt a release that seemed to run through her from her scalp to the soles of her feet and sagged as a tension she had not realised bunched her muscles let go. Her breath sighed out as the tightness of her ribcage relaxed.
“He has let go,” she told them. A tear tracked a lonely path down her face.
She saw a muscle in Raiden’s jaw work as he turned to see what William was doing. She followed his gaze and saw that the other werewolf had taped a needle into the back of her hand that was attached by a tube to the plastic sack of murky liquid that Tara held.
Tara smiled as their eyes met. She looked tired. “Hey, Lia.”
“Hi Tara.”
They were underground, in a basement, but it had been finished off, the walls and ceiling insulated and clad, painted a neutral cream, and they lay on a futon in a cell, a cage really, she thought, set against a wall. There were two cages, each with its own partially enclosed shower and toilet cubicle, but the other cage was vacant.
A small window set high in the roof showed the sun rising in a sky streaked with pink and orange.
“Where are we?” She wondered. She vaguely thought she had asked before, but she could not recall the answer. If she had been given one, it had been lost in the feverish pain between.
“One of our country properties,” Raiden answered but his attention was on Wade, who was retrieving rope from a cupboard set against a wall outside of the cages. There were wine racks, and couches, and another futon bed set in the generous space beyond the bars. “Where the pack runs.”
“Why are there cages?”
“There are a lot of reasons,” Tara said reassuringly. “When werewolves are made it can take a while for them to learn control, and sometimes injury or illness will necessitate restraint, as if Raiden’s case. Every pack has several properties with cages.”
Lia swallowed. “I am thirsty.”
“I have got it,” Will took the bag from Tara and hung it to a metal pole on wheels.
Tara went into the bathroom and returned with a glass of water. Lia sat up with a groan in order to drink it. She still wore the awful black mini-dress and the feel of the fabric against her made her want to recoil.
“I need to get out of this,” she decided. “I don’t want this on me.”
“We will have a shower,” Raiden sat up, the blanket falling away, and Lia sucked in a breath seeing the bruises in daylight. “It is fine,” he told her. “The bones are mended, and the bruising is healing. A few more days, and they will be gone. Werewolves heal fast.”
“I just got the line connected,” William complained. “I will have to disconnect her if she showers.” Raiden muttered something under his breath and William nodded. “That is fair enough,” he said, his sharper hearing picking up the words that Lia had not heard.
“What did you say?” Lia wondered.
“It doesn’t matter,” Raiden replied watching as William disconnected the tube from the line in her hand. He stood, revealing that he wore a pair of loose tracksuit pants, and stretched with a grimace and one hand to his injured side before reaching out to her.
“Carefully,” Wade said, dropping the restraints onto the bed. “You are still a fair way off healed, Rai.”
Lia recoiled, seeing the restraints. There were cuffs, like those that Lucian had used on her. “No.”
“Not the cuffs, dad,” Raiden said softly, his eyes on the red, raw weeping mark around her wrist left from her fight for freedom from the same type of bindings.
“No,” Wade looked at her expression and then followed Raiden’s eyes to her wrist and picked them up quickly. “No, not the cuffs,” he said, his tone grim. He took them from the cage and returned them to the cupboard.
“Alright, Lia,” Raiden stroked his hands down her arms soothingly. “Let’s shower.”
“I don’t want to hurt you,” she said to him under her breath when he made as if to lift her. “I can walk.”
“Carefully,” he cautioned and his concession, she thought, was evidence of how bad his injury was.
They made their way slowly to the en suite. He started the shower and held her elbows, supporting her, as Tara, Wade and William went up the stairs. Once the door closed behind them, he lifted the mini-dress off her and threw it out the cage door.
For a moment he stood looking down at her, assessing her injuries, the bruises and nail marks like a roadmap of Lucian’s cruelty across her skin, and she crossed her arms over her chest and turned from him defensively.
“Don’t look,” she whispered, ashamed.
“Lia,” he turned her around to face him. “Don’t hide from me.” There was no alpha command in his voice, it was the request of a mate, her lover, the man who loved her, not the alpha werewolf. She closed her eyes and lowered her arms.
He brushed a kiss over her forehead. “You are beautiful,” he murmured. “And Lucian is a dead man.” The tone of his voice opened her eyes, for she had never heard him speak so coldly before. He met her eyes, the Other golden and fierce in his. “I will tear his head from his shoulders,” he told her before shoving his tracksuit pants off his hips. “Let’s shower.”
He was hard. Their eyes met, and he cursed under his breath. “Just ignore it, Lia,” he said gently and pulled her into the spray. “It is… Instinct, nothing more.”
He made sure that she was under most the spray and once her hair was wet through, began to soap her down. He was thorough, soaping and rinsing her three times before she realised that he was trying to wash Lucian’s scent from her, and she began to cry.
He caught her up against him and rocked her under the shower spray. “I am sorry,” he whispered. “I am sorry. I know you are sore and tired. I just can’t stand his scent on you. It is driving me insane.”
She nodded, trying to control her sobs. “It is alright.”
He released her in order to give himself a perfunctory wash before turning off the water and wrapping them both in towels. There was a bag of clothing hanging off a hook and he retrieved a clean pair of track suit pants before retrieving a sleeveless singlet and pulling it over her. It was barely decent, but better than what she had been wearing.
“Do you have a brush?” She asked him. She was starting to tire but she didn’t want to lie down with her hair wet or it would be a mess of knots by the time she woke. He dug into the bag and came out with a comb.
“Will this do?”
She smiled and nodded. “A toothbrush would be great.”
“I am sure there is a spare, I will ask Tara to look,” he began to ease her out of the en suite area toward the futon. She sat heavily onto the mattress, and he combed through her hair for her. She was shaking, quite unable to stop the tremors of her body.
“You are cold again,” he said, drawing her into the bed and wrapping the blanket over them, and himself around her. He pressed his nose against her neck. “You smell better.”
“Thank you.”
“Purely selfish of me,” his voice was drowsy, as wearied by showering as she was. “They will bring food soon.”
“You need to tie my hands,” she said. Her skin was starting to crawl, and she felt her chest constricting. “It is starting again.”
He sat up feeling around for the ropes and cloths his father had left on the bed, and bound her wrists together, with the cloth to cushion her raw skin against the binding. “Roll onto your side.” He threaded the rope through the bedframe, securing her facing towards the bars.
She felt him sink back down behind her.
“I can’t lie on the other side yet,” he explained the position with a sigh. “Too sore.”
“I am sorry Raiden,” her eyelids were too heavy to keep open. “I seem to be a lot of trouble.”
He kissed the back of her shoulder. “No, Lia.”
The shaking was getting worse, and her breath unsteady. He stroked his hand under the edge of the singlet top, across her stomach.
“Breathe with me Lia,” he murmured, his voice soft but the alpha command present.
She focused on his breathing and the warmth of his hand against her stomach, but she could feel Lucian on the edges of her mind, his grip tight, summoning her, and with it, flashes of him, his wrist to her mouth, his body above her, his lips on hers. She writhed, trying to escape the shade of him.
She was aware of William returning and reconnecting the IV line and heard him close and lock the door behind him.
“He has locked us in,” she whispered, fear picking up the beat of her heart.
“They are going to cook breakfast, I imagine,” Raiden replied, his voice soothing. “Shower, and all that. They can relax if we are secured.”
“He raped me,” it burst from her, a confession, vivid with the memory of Lucian above her, his hands on her skin, and his tongue in her mouth. “Lucian. Many times. I don’t… I don’t know how many,” she added, as if having a number would make it better.
“I know,” his grip around her tightened. “It is what they do to blood slaves, Lia. I am very sorry.”
She nodded, tears sliding down her face, and dragged in a breath on a sob.
“Lia,” he leaned over and kissed her cheek. “My mate. Focus on my breath.”
They lay, breathing together, and she drifted on the edge of sleep, but fought against it, as every time she slipped under, she could see Lucian against the darkness. She was keeping Raiden awake with her restlessness, but he did not complain, just murmured comfortingly.
She could feel the throb of him against her. “You are hard.”
“Lia,” he murmured with a hint of shame. “You are my mate, in my arms. Yes, I am hard, but I am not a threat to you.”
“I want you,” she whispered it and heard him draw in his breath sharply. “I can’t think past the memory of his touch, and him… Every time I close my eyes he is there. I want you to make him go away.”
“Lia,” it was a broken sigh. “I don’t know if anything can do that.” She felt him rest his forehead between her shoulder blades and breathe in, and then he lifted his face, kissing her shoulder. “But I will try.”
He reached over and released the rope that held her wrists to the bed frame and guided them up over her head. His mouth came down on hers, his lips gentle, tentative, testing her response before he groaned and deepened the kiss, his tongue stroking against hers as he lifted himself over her.
She lowered her tied wrists over his head, to rest around his neck and lifted her mouth into his as she wrapped her legs around his hips, keeping her grip loose, mindful of the bruises along his side. He reached between them, and she took an unsteady breath as he entered her.
“Lia,” he murmured, anxiously.
“Please.”
His sigh as he sank into her made her heart release, and she began crying again as he rocked into her, his motion gentle, and his kisses capturing her tears, so that she could taste the salt of them on his lips.
“I love you,” she sobbed it out against his cheek.
“Oh, Lia,” his voice broke. “I love you, too. Look at me.”
She lifted her eyes to his, and he rested his forehead against hers, the golden-brown pulling her in, a different coercion to that used by Lucian, this one used to comfort, and not to take.
“Ah, there,” he whispered as the pleasure of him against her rose, and he cried out as she came, pushing deep as he followed her. He kissed her as he sank over her, resting his weight on her body. “Am I too heavy?”
His lips were against the pressure point of her neck, and she recalled hours of Lucian lying in such a way with his lips grazing her skin there in between biting her. Raiden was not Lucian, however, and his lips and breath were hot against her skin, and his chest rose and fell heavily against hers as he regained his breath. The scent of lavender and citrus replaced the metallic bite of blood. She tightened her grip around Raiden’s neck and pressed her face into his shoulder.
“Don’t move.”
“Are you okay, Lia?” He murmured.
“Yes, I am,” she was. The ache in her had faded, and the pressure on her ribs and heart had eased. “You make it better.”
“Perhaps it is the plasma,” he suggested.
“No,” she was certain of it. “It is you. Lucian and Elior said the wolf bond might be interfering with the blood bond. When I was there, it was like my mind was wrapped in cotton wool. I could not think straight, but the one thing I could think clearly of was your name. I think if I hadn’t had you, I would have just… surrendered.”
He drew in a deep breath and released it heavily. “I hope that’s right, Lia. I would like to think that I could be able to help you heal.”
She turned her head until she could kiss his lips. “You are mine. My wolf.”
“Always.”
She could tell from his breathing when he drifted into sleep, his body becoming heavy over hers as his muscles relaxed and stopped holding his weight. She breathed him in and savoured the feel of him against her. She closed her eyes hoping her mind might now be full of Raiden, and empty of Lucian.
The door at the top of the stairs opened and Tara and Wade came down quietly, carrying a tray. Lia bit her lip as she watched their approach, embarrassed to be found with Raiden over her and still in her, their position evidence of their activity, although the blanket covered them decently.
She felt Raiden inhale, and wake, his instincts triggered by the entry of his father and sister. He lifted his head from the cradle of her neck, the Other flashing in his eyes as Wade unlocked the cage. Tara smiled at them, as she slid the tray onto the ground.
“Thanks,” Raiden said, his voice thick with sleep.
“You are welcome,” Wade locked the door again. “Be careful of Lia’s j line, Rai.”
“I will.”
“Thank you,” Lia whispered and watched them withdraw. “That was embarrassing.”
Raiden lowered his face back into the curve of her neck with a sigh. “We are werewolves, Lia,” he said. “Don’t worry about it. We aren’t as reserved about sex as humans are. It is part of life, part of taking a mate, part of starting a family. Natural. If they think anything of it, they will be happy that we are healing together enough to have sex.”
“You should eat,” she stroked her fingers through his hair, and then cried out as her body jerked, the pain shooting through her like an electric shot. She clung to his shoulders, sweat beading across her forehead. She saw quite clearly Lucian’s face, his bright blue eyes reflecting a red inner glow. “Lucian.”
Raiden caught her chin in his hands, the golden flare of the Other luminescent in his eyes. “Mine, Lia. Not his. Mine.”