Imprisoned Read online

  Taking a chance, Ari dived for it. But though Fenrus and Gorn missed her, Tapper, who was up on his feet, grabbed the back of her prison jumpsuit and yanked.

  Ari gasped as she felt the cheap buttons at the front of the jumpsuit give way, popping off the worn fabric as easily as though they’d been cut by a sharp pair of scissors.

  Goddess of Mercy, no!

  She tried to stop her forward momentum but it was too late, she was falling forward, slipping out of the baggy jumpsuit to land half-naked on the cold, dirty metal floor.

  “Lookit here, boys—pretty boy is already half undressed for me,” Tapper crowed. Clearly he had only seen Ari’s bare back as yet. Ari was desperate to keep it that way.

  Scrambling behind her, she tried to get her arms back into the blue and orange striped jumpsuit. But Tapper gave an ugly laugh and yanked on the fabric again, pulling it down past her hips. Then he stripped it all the way off and threw it in a corner, reminding Ari horribly of how she’d been stripped and forced to kneel in his cell, waiting to be raped the last time he’d gotten to her.

  “Mmm, lookit that ass,” he told his henchman. “So curvy and round! As pretty as a girl’s, ‘ent it?”

  “That it is, boss,” Fenrus crowed. “Can me and Gorn have a go at it when you’re done?”

  “Of course boys—didn’t I promise that? Come on, get ‘im up on ‘is hands and knees,” Tapper commanded.

  Ari was still lying face down and she did her best to fold herself into a ball but hard hands were on her, forcing her up on her knees. She kept her arms stubbornly folded over her breasts but though she wiggled and kicked, there was no getting away this time.

  “Spread those legs!” Tapper snarled. “I said spread ‘em!” He slapped Ari’s ass, hard enough to leave a print, she was sure. She kicked back at him but one of them—either Fenrus or Gorn—grabbed her ankle and forced her to bend the way Tapper wanted her to.

  Ari felt sick. Slowly, her thighs were forced apart, the cold metal of the floor scraping against her bare knees. She was still trying to hide her breasts but there was nothing she could do to hide what was—or rather wasn’t—between her legs. Hard hands were forcing her up and prying open her cheeks. A cold breeze caressed her exposed rosebud and outer pussy lips, making Ari gasp and clench in on herself.

  “Hey,” she heard Tapper say from behind her, confusion thick in his voice. “Hey, where’s his shaft?”

  “Lookit that—pretty boy ‘ent got no dick,” Gorn remarked.

  “He ‘ent got no dick! He ‘ent got no dick!” Fenrus chanted in a sing-song tone.

  “Shut up, you idiot,” Tapper commanded. “It’s true he ‘ent got a dick but look what he does have—a pussy!” He flipped Ari over and pried her arms away from her chest. “And tits!”

  Fenrus and Gorn goggled at her as though they’d never seen a naked female before. Well, likely they hadn’t for several years, at least, Ari thought despairingly.

  “Let me go!” she shouted as loudly as she could. “Let me go!”

  “Oh, I don’t think so.” Tapper shook his head wonderingly, as though still taking in the reality of the situation. “Lookit this, boys,” he said to his henchmen. “Pretty boy is a girl!”

  Thirty-Four

  “I ain’t fucked a girl in years,” Gorn said, grinning around the gory remains of his left eye. “So I haven’t.”

  “I fucked a girl once,” Fenrus volunteered. His face fell. “That’s why they sent me here to BleakHall. All ‘cause I wanted to try some pussy.”

  “Well you can try this one as much as you want—after I get through with her.” Tapper was already unbuttoning the bottom of his green and blue striped trustee jumpsuit. “Hold her, boys—I’m gonna have my first taste of gash in fifteen years, so I am.”

  Just then the black metal door to the kitchen rattled on its hinges.

  “Who’s that?” Fenrus’s head snapped up like a canine on point.

  “Doesn’t matter—whoever it is they can’t get in.” Tapper’s voice held a greedy quality and his eyes never left Ari’s naked body. “Just ignore it boys. Our business is here.”

  But as he spoke, the kitchen door rattled again and the thick tongue of metal that held the bolt in place snapped like a brittle stick. The door burst open and Ari saw Lathe standing there, his fangs bared and his eyes narrowed in fury.

  “Get the fuck away from Ari.” His voice was a deep, inhuman growl. “Right…fucking…now. Or you die—all of you.”

  Ari drew in a breath. Lathe had told her about the state of protective berserker fury a Kindred went into when he felt his female was threatened. What had he called it? Oh yes—Rage. She was certain Rage was what she was seeing now. She had never seen Lathe’s fangs look so long and sharp before and his eyes…his eyes were red. Red and glowing with a fury so deep only violence could express it.

  He also seemed to have grown somehow—he looked positively huge looming over the ugly tableau on the dirty kitchen floor. If he was as surprised as Tapper had been by her suddenly female body, he didn’t show it—he only seemed to grow larger and more menacing.

  “I mean it,” he growled again—his voice more of a vibration than a sound. “Ari…is…mine.”

  Gorn and Fenrus drew away from her but Tapper, his dirty root of a shaft already out and in his hand, didn’t look likely to be deterred. He barely spared a glance in Lathe’s direction, so focused was he on Ari’s naked body.

  “Take care of ‘im, boys,” he ordered his henchmen distractedly. “Don’t let Medic bother me—I got a cunt to fuck.”

  Fenrus and Gorn sprang obediently to their feet but Tapper had underestimated the depth of the big Kindred’s fury. With a roar, Lathe sprang on them, his fangs flashing as he bit and bit again—too fast to follow.

  Ari gasped as she saw both men begin to choke and strangle, their skin turning an ugly, dusky color as black foam seethed from between their lips.

  Tapper turned his head and his eyes widened but he still didn’t get off her. Instead, a long silver blade suddenly appeared in his hand. He held it up, showing Lathe and then pressed it to her throat, just under her left ear.

  “Better step back, Medic,” he snarled. “Or this pretty little girl of yours is going to die.”

  “You son of a bitch!” Lathe’s eyes were glowing brighter than ever but despite his state of Rage, he seemed to understand that a false move on his part meant sudden death for Ari. “Let Ari go!” he demanded, his voice still that low, menacing growl.

  “Not until I’ve had my fun with her.” Tapper leered at him as he dragged Ari to her feet, the cold metal of the knife never wavering. Ari felt it prick the skin at the side of her neck and a hot drop of blood welled out against her fear-chilled skin. “This here is no ordinary knife, no it isn’t,” he told Lathe as he pushed Ari in front of him, apparently heading for one of the kitchen counters. “I got it from a poisoner on Chathm Prime, so I did. It’s deadly.”

  “So am I.” Lathe nodded at Gorn and Fenrus, now both dead on the floor, their faces frozen in a rictus of agony. “Let Ari go now and I won’t…won’t kill you.” It seemed to take all of the big Kindred’s willpower to say the words but he ground them out between his teeth, his fangs winking with deadly intent in the harsh kitchen glows as he spoke.

  But Tapper was imperturbable.

  “I told you, Medic—not until I’ve had my fun. Do you know how long it’s been since I had a taste of pussy? Not since I raped my old Mistress and all her friends at their fancy garden party and then killed the whole lot of them.” His piggy eyes glowed with the memory of his crimes. “That was fun but this is going to be even better—so it is. Because you’re going to watch me fuck this sweet little pussy you’ve been keepin’ all to yourself, so you are, old son. I’m going to fuck her ‘till she screams and all you can do is watch while I have what’s yours—what should have been mine in the first place!”

  As he spoke, he started to bend Ari face-first over the dull silver kitchen counte