Bound by Flames

“I’ve wanted this for so long,” he said, burying his face into my neck and arching against me with a loud groan.

My eyes clamped shut to keep the tears at bay, but this time, they were of confused hope. Maximus ground his hips into mine in a graphic mime of penetration, but the tape covering both of us made that impossible. All it did was embarrass me to the extreme, and considering what I’d been through the past week, that was worlds better than I had dared to hope for.

“They’re listening,” Maximus whispered so low that I could barely hear him even though his lips were pressed to my ear.

I grunted at the next hard arch against my center, turning my head as if I couldn’t bear to face the camera. In reality, I was trying to press my ear closer to Maximus’s mouth.

“I swear, I didn’t know what Szilagyi was going to do that day.” Whispered in anguish as Maximus groaned again and gripped my hip in feigned lust. “By the time he flew us to the castle, I couldn’t stop the attack. I could only watch him destroy everything.”

I wanted to believe him, but what if this was another lie? If Maximus really had sided with Szilagyi for the reasons he’d given him, he knew he couldn’t rape me without earning my undying hatred—although how he could rationalize that I’d forgive him for killing Vlad, I had no idea. Once again, I pulled at my restraints until I felt blood slick my skin.

In a normal voice, Maximus said, “Stop it, Leila! You’re only hurting yourself.” In that too-soft whisper, he said, “You’re doing it wrong. You can’t pull free that way, but if you use enough force, you can break your bones and then slide your arms from the restraints. Once your hands are free, you can unlock the rest of them.”

I stiffened, finally allowing myself to hope that Maximus was still on our side. Unlike faking a rape so I wouldn’t hate him, he had no ulterior reason to tell me how to free myself unless he really was doing everything he could for Vlad and me, even under these awful circumstances.

My rush of gratitude turned to more severe embarrassment at the rhythmic way he began to move. Then he groaned gutturally and his free hand squeezed its way from my breast to my ass and back again. Instinctively, I jerked hard against my restraints, but he flattened me against the wall before kissing my neck with a hunger that didn’t quite feel feigned.

“Not now,” he growled low. “Later, when Vlad comes. You’ll need to be free to protect yourself from the guards. They’re ordered to kill you at the first sign of attack.”

I froze for a second, hope giving way to a surge of excitement. Had Maximus told Vlad where we were?

My head began to bang against the stone wall as he moved faster, his groans sounding more urgent.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered raggedly. “If I don’t make it look real, Szilagyi will brutalize you himself later. I can’t let that happen, for your sake as well as Vlad’s.”

Relief and gratitude mixed with shame and awkwardness, forming a toxic emotional brew. If my arms were free, I would have hugged Maximus for risking his life to save me from such an awful fate. At the same time, I couldn’t stop myself from thrashing in futile attempts to get away from him. He gripped my free thigh hard enough to hurt, but I realized that the way he had my limb positioned also kept the camera from viewing an angle that would reveal this was all an act.

Then he shattered my new hopes by whispering, “I’m watched too closely to reach Vlad to tell him where we are. You need to link to him and let him know that you’re underneath the old Sukhumi train station in Abkhazia.”

I turned my head to give him a stunned glare. Did he forget something important, like how my abilities were smothered even before he’d made sure that I had been skinned?

“Doesn’t this feel even a little good, baby?” he said loud enough for our eavesdroppers, then began to move faster. This might not be real, but it was so graphic and intimate that I couldn’t even look at him anymore. If I was still human, my pelvic area would need an ice pack after being repeatedly beaten by a certain blunt object, taped down or no.

“Szilagyi doesn’t know it, but he sliced Vlad’s aura off when he took your skin.” A whisper that seemed to sear me when I realized its implications. “And you don’t need to touch anything to link to Vlad. You can reach him through your dreams. He taunted me with that when he held me prisoner.”

I couldn’t stop the tear that slid past my tightly clenched eyelids. I’d thought that Maximus had talked Szilagyi into skinning me to keep me from using my abilities. Instead, he’d done it to reactivate them. Maybe, I didn’t need anything more than what I already had to save myself.

Even as that hope rose, my vicious inner voice tried to quash it. You haven’t been able to link to anyone since you became a vampire, and Vlad can’t hear your thoughts anymore, so how will you tell him where you are even if you do link to him?

I shoved that nasty little voice back down. Twenty minutes ago, I’d thought I was helpless. Right now, Maximus had reminded me that I wasn’t, all while risking his life in order to not rape me. I didn’t need him to explain how pissed Szilagyi would be if he found out that his new video was only R-rated instead of X, and even if Vlad knew that, he still might kill him for what Maximus was doing to me.

I pushed that thought back. I’d link to Vlad and I’d find a way to make him hear me, period. Maximus had given me my location. All I needed to do was relay it. It had to be possible. Vlad had told me that Mencheres, the vampire that Vlad often referred to as his “honorary” sire, could speak directly into other vampire’s minds, and Mencheres didn’t have the sire/offspring connection to Vlad that I did.