Chapter Eighte en

Nila

Not again. Not again. Not the fuck again.

I was trapped in a cage, my worst nightmare. The cage before had suffocated me, but this one here? It was made to torment. And now my own cage, the one I used to break others, was being used on me. Trapped in the darkness, the silence threatened to break me, so I made fucking noise. I screamed and kicked. Banged against the bars with pure rage. Fuck him and men like him.

How was it possible that Jacob was here? Nila Winters was a new start after the trial. Alana Masters no longer existed, and I had no ties to who I used to be. How did he find me? And why did it make my heart skip knowing he went to so much trouble to do so?

Young Jacob had been a sight. Good-looking, Jacob could’ve had any girl he wanted if he would’ve been a normal teenage boy. But grown-up Jacob? He was a whole other breed of man. Handsome, with movie-star looks, a hidden darkness peered out from his eyes when he gazed at me. I lost all sense of reason underneath him. But what he’d said about him being my master and me being his toy filled me with an uncontrollable rage and made me crave his blood on my hands.

I was no longer a toy, and he sure as hell wasn’t my master. I was older, wiser, and much, much darker than he could imagine. He entered dangerous territory when he walked into my killing ground and had the audacity to knock me out as if he had some sort of control over me. Wait until I strangled him with my bare hands and sucked the life out of him. He’d see who was in control then.

“Alana, time to wake up.”

Glaring, I didn’t say a word to him. The bastard wanted something from me, he could damn well work for it. I was no longer that sweet, naïve eighteen-year-old. I was a grown woman who left bodies in her wake. I would not bow down to him so easily.

“Alana. Come on, baby. Noel, tell Mommy to be nice.”

“Jacob! Stop. Stop using Noel against me. That’s a dirty trick and you know it.”

“No, Alana. Someone has to remember him. Remember what we lost.”

“What we lost?”

“He should’ve been mine! You were mine. You were always mine. Father gave you to me. Then he stole you away. He fucking stole you out from underneath me!”

His words took my breath away. My stomach turned to stone.

“I was supposed to be yours?” I scoffed. The bastard had another think coming. “I’ll gut you, I promise.”

“You were promised to me. A sweet blonde. And how sweet you were. Too sweet. Of course, Father had to keep you for himself. But it’s all right. I’m here now. We can finally have the life we were meant to have. It’s okay that you left … if you accept me now.”

He was delusional, absolutely delusional. Sure, we’d always had a bond. We were drawn to one another because of what his father put us through, and yet here, now, he was talking as if we had a future.

We had no future. I was a killer. A woman who lusted for blood and made men pay for their sins. And he was the son of the Devil, the man who took me and made me this way. I should hate him. I should want to see him dead.

And yet … I didn’t.

What the hell is wrong with me?

Jacob shouldn’t have been able to affect me any longer. What we had was support and emotion triggered by immaturity and a need to survive a horrendous situation. It wasn’t real, and it was nothing we could find again. Even now, years later, I was drawn to him, despite his delusions. Despite telling myself there was nothing between us. While we may not have a future, our connection thrummed in the air. This couldn’t be right.

“What are you going to do with me?” Knowledge was power, and killers tended to like to brag.

“What should’ve been done from the start. I’m going to make you mine.”

“Don’t do this, Jacob. You saved me. You saved me. I’m alive because of you. You don’t want to do this to me.”

“I’ve always wanted to do this to you, sweet Alana. I’ve dreamt of this moment. I know you never meant to leave me behind. You were scared. I’ve been waiting for us to be together again. You told me, remember? That if I ever lost the girl, I had to find a way to take her back. I’m here now.”

I ran away back then. I ran and left Jacob behind to pay for our crime. I could’ve looked him up and found him before, but I didn’t. He wasn’t a part of my new life. I did what I could when I didn’t implicate him in my treatment. While Jacob may have played a starring role in my fantasies, I never wanted to go down that path again. My feet were firmly set on the path of darkness, and there was no time for love or relationships. Love was a nuisance. Not that it existed for monsters like me anyway.

“We were children, Jacob.”

“And I loved you, and you left me behind!”

I sucked in a breath, closing my eyes against the anger and pain in his gaze.

“You left me. Alone. I couldn’t find you. My girl, my Alana. The woman I learned to change for. We were together for over a year, we killed my father together. Did that mean nothing to you?”

“We can talk and spend time together. You don’t have to hold me prisoner.”

“I trusted you to come back, and you didn’t,” he whispered.

I couldn’t help but look at him, at the dip in his shoulders, the closed-off way he held himself. I’d hurt him, I could read it plainly on his flesh, the scarring I’d left behind. But he shook and changed, surety replacing confusion in his gaze, along with that cocky grin that took my breath away when we were kids spreading over his face.

“Can you feel it, Alana? Your soul calls to me like a whisper in the dark. We were made for it. We were made for each other.”

“I don’t feel a thing but irritation. You’re bothering me, shoo.”

It was a lie. He scared me. Fucking terrified me in ways I hadn’t known for so long.

He smiled, a brilliant fucking smile that set me afire. Evil can be gorgeous. I’d learned that before. But made for each other? Hell. No.

For a therapist who dealt with some of the worst, most stubborn patients on a daily basis, I couldn’t find the words to respond. Eight years since I last saw him and now he was here, standing before me, wanting to turn me into the same thing his father had years earlier.

Would you be my girlfriend if I learn how?

The memory swirled in my head. We were so lost then. Fucked-up and twisted, looking for something normal to hold on to. But he wanted things I couldn’t give him, wanted to bring out cravings inside of me that once I released I wouldn’t have any strength left. I couldn’t let that happen. I couldn’t be that broken girl again.

This time I was prepared to fight, but Jacob did not make it easy. While he may have spoken nonsense, he was right about one thing: the connection was still there, stretching between us as if no time had passed at all. Torn, half of me wondered how he had spent the last eight years after getting out from underneath his father’s rule. The other half of me, though, was too nervous to know. Too angry that after all this time, this was how he came back into my life. By taking me against my will and locking me in a cage, knowing everything his father had done to me.

He truly was his father’s son.

“Jacob, it’s been eight years. I’m not that girl anymore.”

“You’ll always be Alana to me no matter what your name is. No matter who you are. You can try to escape, but you’ll fail.”

Coming closer, he stroked my cheek with his palm. Gazing into my eyes, he whispered, “This time there is no running. You’re mine. You’ve always been mine.”

You’re mine.

Spoken once before. Then, it had been from his father. Now Jacob. The apple hadn’t fallen far from the tree. No matter what we did, no matter that we had broken free, Jacob turned into the man we despised.

But then again, so had I.

Our mutual hatred for one man led to his downfall, but in killing him, we gave ourselves over to the darkness. Thus, leading to our own.

In the corner of my subconscious, I had been waiting for it.

I had been waiting for him to strike. To kill me. To be like his father.

I never expected him to want me, not after I’d left him behind.

“It’s time for some fun, Alana.”

Unlocking my cage, he grabbed me by the wrist. My eyes locking on his hand, a quick glimpse of his other caused me to shiver. In his hand he held a neck device I’d used to tether victims before—a pole leading to a collar of sharp spikes on the inside.

I jerked my head forward, striking him in the mouth.

“How’s that for meant to be?” I taunted.

He spat blood, but he didn’t get angry. No, he gave me that same smile that twisted my stomach.

“Now, now. This is for your own good. We can’t have you running off, can we?”

Turning me so my back was to him, he pulled the collar around my neck. Before clasping it shut, he pulled tightly until my breath was almost lost. The sharp spikes digging into my throat, I winced in pain.

With one hand gripping the pole, he turned me once more, his other hand pressed to the middle of my back as he led me around the warehouse. Back where he had gotten the jump on me, my tools were there, shiny and bright, calling out to me like a beacon. Oh, how I wished I could grab my blade and hold it to his neck. How I wished I could make him bleed for me.

“Turn around.”

Doing as he said, I waited as he turned the collar around my neck before pushing me down into a chair resembling something a prison would use for executions. I feared what he could do to me, but my black heart pitter-pattered with something resembling lust and my insides grew wet. Wondering if he could smell the arousal coming off of me like waves, I pushed my thighs more firmly together.

“Alana, Alana, Alana. Do you know how long I have searched for you? Waited for you? And now you are here in front of me. A succulent feast all laid out for me. Utter perfection.”

His gaze roamed over me from head to toe. From my blonde locks to my perky breasts and down to my core, everything was bared to him, and there was no mistaking the lust in his eyes. The desperation. Rubbing my thighs together, I refused to get lost in his brown eyes. He was my enemy. Nothing more.

It was hard not to be captivated by Jacob though. For so long he had starred in my fantasies, the only thing that could bring me to orgasm time after time. And now he was here, and while the rest of me was an inferno of rage, I desperately craved for him to make me come.

Here, captive once more, I was a sick, sick woman thinking of the things Jacob’s wicked tongue could do to my body. Having found my release last night thinking of him, the reality of him standing before me made me even wetter.

That damn connection still confused me. My body, traitor that it was, reacted to him, even when my mind screamed for me to kill him. Every inch of my body was consumed while a mental battle raged inside of me between fear and lust. The excitement wanted to beg for it, beg for Jacob to make me come. The fear of him left me silent. I was afraid he was more like his father than I could imagine, especially after the blow that knocked me out earlier.

I knew darkness. I lived darkness. But when my kidnapper could make me want to spread my legs and beg for him to eat me, I knew I was completely fucked.

“I told Noel we had to get you back. We had to have you with us so we could finally be a family like we were always meant to be. Don’t you want that, Alana?”

“What I want is for you to quit fucking mentioning my son. Noel was my son. What gives you the right to casually throw his name around?”

Pulling on the pole, the collar dug deeper into my neck.

“I’ll tell you what gives me the right. You. Are. Mine. Noel was meant to be ours. He may have been my brother, but he was always meant to be my son. I remembered him. While you were living your life as Nila Winters and fooling every fucking person around you, I was carrying Noel with me. Not abandoning him like you did.”

“You think I don’t think about my son? My child? I think about him all the time. All the damn time. That first year I couldn’t even breathe without remembering him. Even after I was freed, all I could think about was him. Every fucking month he would’ve been born I think about him. Every fucking anniversary of his death I think of him. That monster deliberately told me the date of his death so it would stay with me. But Noel has always stayed with me no matter what, so don’t you dare ever use him against me again, you bastard!”

Spitting in his face, I couldn’t control the rage that had come over me. I’d trained myself to be calm, cool and collected through every situation, but with a few casual mentions of my son, the darkness in me came flying out.

Jacob backhanded me, and my head jerked to the side. But he didn’t let me go for long. He was there, grabbing my cheek and forcing me to look at him.

“How dare you fucking hit me!” I yelled.

“You need to learn how to speak to me with respect. I am your Master now. You are the toy. Remember your training now or remember it after I’m putting you through the same paces dear ol’ Dad did. Is that what you want? You want me to train you? Is that what it’s going to take to get it through your head that this is it, baby. The big picture. You and me. And the darkness.”

His words sent my heart stuttering.

I wanted to keep fighting. I wanted to hurt him. Claw his eyes out, make his blood pour onto my hands and suck the life out of him with my kiss, but this was still Jacob. My heart may be black as the dead of night now, but somewhere there remained a speck of the girl I used to be, and she was screaming to be let out. To hear Jacob’s story. To soothe his pain.

Stupid girl, he has you captive. He’s trying to break you. Make you weak. And once your guard is down, he’ll kill you.

Not saying a word to him, I simply stared, trying to see into his mind. I wondered what made him tick. I had so many questions I wanted answers to, but I knew if I even showed the slightest hint of curiosity he would think he won. He could never win. I would not be his puppet, his toy. Things were different now. It was time to figure out a plan.

“I thought you would be ready, but I guess I was wrong. You’ve really disappointed me, Alana. Truly. I hate to punish you and mar that beautiful skin before I’m ready to take you, but you need to learn. Until you can treat me with respect, you won’t be leaving your cage.”

With a rough grip on my arm, Jacob grabbed me from my chair and pulled on the pole, leading me around as if I were a dog. Taking me back to my cage, my own personal brand of hell. Oh, he was punishing me all right. Knowing my only weakness was this cage, he knew he would start to break me. Or at least he figured he would.

Oh, Jacob. Silly, beautiful Jacob. Don’t you know I’m much stronger now?