Page 86 of Dusk Macabre

Soft velvet was beneath me, and I was on some kind of bench. My palms sat on the material, the silky threads tickling my skin. When I went to sit up, I couldn’t. The only thing I could move was my head.

Everyone was gone and the space felt hollow, like there wasn’t any oxygen or something, despite the fact I could breathe. I was still in the club, but there was no one here. Just tables and chairs, empty and half full glasses on the tables, plus a small stream of smoke I assumed came from a discarded cigarette.

There was a noise beside me and I turned my head. “This will have to do, although I must say the quality is abominable.”

Leander was dumping a pile of what looked like plastic tubing on a tabletop. He then set down a large metal tub. “It's not big enough, but it will work for our purposes. As long as we leave nothing behind, that’s the most important part. I will have to transfer the rest through the ether.”

He was about to amateur-surgery me, that was the only thing I could think. “Where is everyone?” I asked him.

“Right beside you,” he said, using some type of tape to connect the hoses together.

Swiveling my neck in the other direction, I peered around the room. “What the fuck did you do? I don’t see anyone.”

Knowing that Kiam and everyone were right there and I couldn’t see them was surreal.

It was a strange feeling, trying to move when your muscles wouldn’t obey simple, every day commands. Straining as hard as I could didn’t force my fingers to go anywhere or do anything. The weight of the knives in my hoodie pocket told me they had somehow remained, but they were frustratingly out of reach.

Leander set the tub on the floor beside me with a clang and tucked his hair behind his ear. “I made a little pocket just for you and I, so we won’t be disturbed,” he smiled and ran two fingers along my cheek. “Your skin is so soft, for a human.”

A shiver ran down my spine at his touch, and I felt goosebumps scatter across my arms. He’d magically separated the two of us from Kiam and Adrian and quieted nearly all stimulus. All I had was the muffled music, the rubbery and metallic noise of the supplies he’d gathered, his creepy touch, and his annoyingly appealing scent. It was disconcerting how pretty he was. It was the perfect camouflage for his black soul.

Leander took my arm and pulled the sleeve of my hoodie up. “We really should be doing this on a table with a drain, but this will have to do, as inconvenient as it is,” he stated. He sounded like we were discussing the weather or some other inane thing.

I wanted to wrench my arm away from him, and I kept telling myself to move. Tears gathered in the corners of my eyes, catching on my lashes and then rolling down my cheeks. Leander swiped one away with a finger.

“You really shouldn’t have interfered with Fae business,” he said, keeping his voice low and soft. “You humans should know better. After all, haven’t you ever read a storybook?”

Punching him in the face was unfortunately an impossibility. My eyes squeezed shut and I yelled in my head for my crow again. Please come free me so I can slice a motherfucker.

Leander tapped his index finger against the inside of my elbow and used his other hand to squeeze. He was searching for a vein. He let go of me for a moment and then came back with a small shiny piece of metal and a plastic tube. He dropped my arm and it flopped off the side of the bench, banging against the side.

The steak knives in my pocket slid to the right and Leander dug his hand inside. “Really?” He asked, arching a brow. He tossed the fistful behind him. They landed on the floor with a dull thud.

Twisting my neck as hard as I could, I searched for where I knew Kiam would be sitting. It was the strangest feeling knowing that there was nothing and no one who could help me. Not a single soul was in sight. However, I could see the fancy dagger that I’d brought along with me, resting idly on the seat.

It must have fallen out of my pocket at some point unless Leander had removed it along with the steak knife I’d had in my hand. Every single blade from the kitchen was now gone, as far as I could tell.

Unsure how it was still here since everything else had either disappeared or been confiscated, I memorized its exact location before I swung my head back to watch the Fae with his jerry-rigged medical device. He was sharpening the piece of metal with a small blade.

“Why can’t you just magically remove Adrian’s blood? Wouldn’t my body have digested and expelled it?” I asked. Maybe if I stalled him, the crow or Kiam could somehow break through the so-called "pocket.”

The same time Leander turned to look at me, he nicked his finger. Quickly, he stuck that finger in his mouth, sucking the blood away. “I could, but what’s the fun in that? You’re a criminal and that requires punishment,” he said.

“Adrian tossed that napkin down like garbage. It was garbage. It was going to go in the wash or garbage or something—how is that stealing?” I was very aware it was more than that. I knew it was because of the nature of the blood, and here I was, an insignificant human, who had ingested it.

Leander lifted my arm again, holding the metal and plastic in his other hand. He caressed the inside of my elbow and glanced down at the path he was tracing before glancing at me. “I can’t decide if I should make this hurt. What do you think?”

He frowned before continuing. “It can feel like nothing, or I can make it pleasurable. There is also the option of excruciating, drawn out agony. I do like the sound of that.” He smiled.

I gritted my teeth. “Someday, someone is going to wipe that stupid smirk off your face and kill you.”

“Guess what?” He leaned in close. “It won’t be you.”

CHAPTER 30

Brittney

If it was the last thing I did, I would kill him. Slicing up his pretty face, taking that damned smirk right off would be my first order of business. I wouldn’t even save it in a jar because I never wanted to see him again.