Chapter 20
“He’s all I remember. No parents, no home, no happiness. Just Odium.” She knew that Odium wasn’t the he Bellis had been talking about, but Odium was the only he that she was willing to discuss.
Her eyes took on a far-off look. “Mom died and I forgot her face in what felt like days. She’d been gone so much, it felt like she’d already been dead. Most of my memories are of him keeping me in a cage.”
A shudder tore through Bellis at her admission.
“He treated me like a dog. Fed me and gave me water twice a day. Let me out to use the bathroom three times a day. Pulled me out for exercise.” She chuffed a humorless sound. “Exercise,” she muttered under her breath before amending, “beatings. He thought the pain would make me strong, and that I’d eventually learn how to fight. As I got older, I was so starved for the world that I grew bolder and bolder, and was willing to endure more and more for the chance at a glance out the window or a break for the door. That’s when he started threatening me. His threats were worse than his fists ever were. He always told me how one day he was going to peel my skin off while I was still alive so we could both see if beneath it all my heart was black like a Megalya or red like a human. He always called me that. Human. Like it was a slur.
When he took me to witness him kill for the first time, his victim was a Skin Walker.” She smiled sadly at the memory. “He nearly lost, nearly died.” The smile faded. “I’d been so damn hopeful.” She shook her head sadly. “I was praying that Skin Walker would gut him. But Odium and the six other Megalya with him killed the Walker and his Angel. He told me that it’s what we did. What I would do. I was Megalya and so my life would be hunting Walkers.
The next time we encountered Skin Walkers it was a larger group. Dr. Chambers wanted to keep the Walkers to start his work on biomimicry. It was Dr. Chambers’ belief that there was a biological solution to why individuals were born Skin Walkers, and that if he could replicate that cell propagation he could create his own Walkers, or worse…a hybrid Walker/Megalya. Odium couldn’t wait. He wanted to attempt to capture mated pairs and breed them for a permanent food source. Odium and the other monsters were convinced that if they drank enough Walker blood, they’d be able to see, hear, and use their noses like Walkers. He wanted the ability to shift like Walkers. It didn’t work, not even close, but Odium and the other Megalya kept at it. It was like they believed that, if they found and drank from the “right” Skin Walker, something would click and they’d have shifting abilities. Odium was unaware though, that Dr. Chambers’ intentions went much further than hunting Walkers as a food source for Megalya. The two were secretly at war with one another. It was the break I needed.
They started taking captives. Odium had to let the Walkers live to breed. While the Megalya slept, and the scientists and Doctors were busy in their labs, I listened to the Skin Walkers in the cells. They spoke of a man, Monroe StoneCrow, coming for them. There was such reverence in their tones.” She blinked, staring over Bellis’ shoulder. “They talked about him like he was a God. I decided then and there that he was a God I wanted to believe in. So, I started praying, and eventually I helped one of the males escape with a message for Monroe that I’d be here, on the inside, with an offer of aid in exchange for salvation. And so, it began.”
“You asked for rescue and he left you there to spy?” Rage colored his tone as Bellis bit out the words.
Sam shook her head. “He didn’t have a choice. Neither did I. Things had gone too far. Dr. Chambers took over. Odium played his sick, twisted games, forcing Walkers to breed other Walker women, and humans too, but all the while Dr. Chambers kept trying to convince Odium that with biomimicry, science could gift him with what he sought. Odium didn’t understand the sophistication of it all, so I had to explain it to him. Over and over, days and days, months and months. All the while I changed, grew like him, hardened my heart. Over time, Odium grew to trust me and would seek my counsel. I played the villainess so well. It’s easy to do when all you have to do is tell the devil exactly what it is he wants to hear. Odium used to say I was more sinister than he could ever be. Funny, I always just thought on what was the worst possible choice of action, the decisions Odium himself would make, and regurgitated those back to him. He grew to like me, because I was a mirror. In me, he saw himself.” She shook her head and muttered, “Psychotic fucking narcissist.”
“He could have pulled you out,” Bellis accused. “Monroe should have pulled you out. How long, Sam? How long did he leave you there?”
She shrugged. “A minute, a day, a year…a decade. It doesn’t matter.” She turned to face him with emotion shining in her eyes. “Every second was worth it.” She swallowed hard, a true smile finally claiming her lips, and it stole his breath. “We saved hundreds.” She whispered the words as if they were a great secret, a tremble in her voice. “Hundreds of Walkers. Men, women, children. And all it took was…”
When words failed her, he supplied angrily, “All it took was you sacrificing your life to save theirs!”
Sam let her head fall back onto the bed. “I’m no one, Skin Walker. No one loves me, no one knows me. I have no family to go back to. Those Walkers belonged to someone, even if it was only each other!”
She tried to look away, but his eyes stalked hers. “So, you gave up your life under some misguided belief that their lives were somehow worth more than your own?”
She lifted her chin and looked him right in the eye. “It’s not misguided. They were. They are.”
Bellis grabbed her then, a strong hand gripping her chin and pulling her face closer to his as he peered down at her. “NO. They. Are. Not,” he snarled. “How long, Sam? How long have you been working for Monroe?”
A sad smile touched her lips, and her eyes drifted to his chest. “Since I was seventeen.”
His lips parted and all the air left Bellis in a whoosh. His grip on her loosened and he pulled back, quietly asking again, “How…” He swallowed hard. “How long, Samantha?”
“Nine years.”
***
Nine years? Nine FUCKING years! Oh, that was it. Monroe StoneCrow was a dead motherfucker! Right now, it was literally taking every ounce of Bellis’ strength to keep from rocketing off his mountaintop and flying to StoneCrow to pound seven shades of shit out of Monroe, but Sam came first. She spoke so flippantly of her time, her wasted years. It gutted him. He wished he could go back in time, find her sooner, save her sooner. But, he couldn’t. All he could do was deal with the here and now, and as interesting as her story had genuinely been, it’d been a deflection.
“Thank you for your honesty.” He struggled to keep his beasts from polluting his voice. He failed. “That’s not the him I meant though, and you know it.”
Sam shrugged. “That him is a monster just like Odium. No,” she quickly amended. “He’s worse.”
“Megalya?”
“No.” She snorted a soft sound. “He was the darkest creature I’d ever met. A devil, a real live, honest to god demon. A fucking evil beast. I’d lived among Odium and his creatures for years, but him… He hurt me worse than any of them ever had or could.” She blinked once. “I lived a life among all these creatures. Skin Walkers, Megalya, Keepers, evil scientists, power hungry officials. Yet, he was more sinister than them all, and he was one hundred percent human.”
Bellis’ brow furrowed. He wanted to hear more.
“I’m hungry.” Sam’s soft words tugged at something in him. The need to feed her overrode everything else. His eyes dipped to her mouth.
“It’ll put you out,” he warned.
She blinked up at him. “Better that than this fucking migraine that’s splitting my head from that damn drug. I’ll only take a little,” she promised.
He’d feed her. He wanted to reward her for all she’d shared with him. That and he felt compelled to take care of her, see to her needs. “Take all you need.” Angling his head, Bellis exposed his throat, and when he peeked down at Sam she was staring up at him in shock.
“You…you sure? Like this?”
“I’m sure, Princess.” He leaned closer, and when her lips touched his skin he couldn’t help the shiver that coursed through him. Part of him wanted to pull back to see her with her canines elongated. He bet she looked sexy as fuck. She felt sexy as fuck when her hands slid down his biceps and one hand lifted to curl around his nape. He felt her smile against his throat a split second before her teeth sank into him and his already hard cock nearly erupted as his balls drew up. Beneath him, a feminine moan left Sam’s throat and when her lips tugged on him, he stopped trying to control the growl that rattled his chest. Her hips rolled against the hard bar of his erection, and he had to pinch his eyes closed to keep from bucking against her. Holy fuck, don’t come! His breathing was labored, his arms starting to shake from the need to grab Sam and rip that fucking suit off her, bury his cock so deep in her tight pussy that she wouldn’t know where she ended and he began.
Her soft body writhed against him as she drank deeply, the scent of her arousal perfuming the air. Don’t come, don’t come, don’t come. But he was rocking his hips against her now, and he could feel the heat of her even through her suit as she rolled her hips hard against him, releasing his neck quickly as she cried out, this helpless little sound, her body tensing against his as an orgasm claimed her. The sight of her open mouth, swollen lips, and heaving chest, coupled with that sound, was his undoing. Since he’d met her, she hadn’t ever acted, looked, felt, or sounded helpless, but that sound that had just left her…that goddamn sound. With a snarl, he came in his BDU’s like a teenager watching his first porn.
Sam’s body convulsed as he continued to rub against her, drawing out her pleasure, and when her head fell back and she exposed her neck, he wanted to lean forward and bite her so damn bad. Her breathing evened out, her eyes opening slowly as she lowered her head to look at him. Two more long blinks, and on the third, her eyes didn’t open back up. Good. Quietly, he whispered the threat he’d made to her several times since meeting her, only this time it didn’t feel like a threat. It felt like a promise. “Sleep, Princess. Know that when you wake, I’m gonna be right here.”
He settled Sam back on the bed, pulling a blanket over her before he gave her one last look. He was going to change his damn boxers and pants, and then he was hauling ass to StoneCrow while Sam recovered. That motherfucker, Monroe, had some explaining to do.