The Beast

Bad news? he wondered with a smile. Perhaps a long-lost relation had just come into a windfall in the will?

He jumped back into the study and closed the door most of the way just as she burst out into the foyer and stomped her way toward the stairs. Throe was on her, though, taking her elbow in a rough grip and wheeling her around.

Jutting himself forward, the male said in a low tone, “You must listen to the rest of the provisions. Yes, I realize this is a shock, but we can’t fight what we don’t know the full story of. You will go back in there. You will stop yelling. And you will let Saxton finish the presentation. When he has concluded, we shall ask him what your rights may be and who will adjudicate your contesting of the will. Then we shall engage a solicitor of our own. But you will not run out of there half-cocked and hysterical. Not if you want to get the money you’re due. Do you understand what I am saying to you.”

The voice that came out of the female’s well-greased throat was nasty as a growling dog’s. “It’s supposed to be mine. I spent the last twenty years listening to him complain. I have earned every penny of that money.”

“And I shall help you get what is yours. But that shall not happen if you do not control yourself. Emotion is not welcome here.”

There was a little more back-and-forth. And then Naasha squared those padded shoulders of hers and stalked back into the meeting.

One had to feel sorry for Saxton.

Although there was no dwelling on that now.

Assail wasted no time when they closed that door. He popped out of the study, re-shut things, and hit the stairs at a dead run. As he got to the second floor, he went down the hall farther than he had before, to a grand bedroom suite, the door of which was open. The moment he smelled astringent in the air, he knew he was in her hellren’s room—and what did one know, but the bed had been stripped, the pillows stacked in the center of the mattress, the whole of it looking well-worn.

He took out his camera phone and started snapping pictures. He had no idea what might or might not have been out of place, but that was for later perusal.

Stains. On the mattress.

High up on the mattress, not where one would expect them from a loss of bladder control.

The pillows were likewise marked.

A quick whiff told him it was not blood, nor urine. But what was the substance?

Into the bathroom. Medications everywhere, bottles with caps on cockeyed or not at all. A walker. A cane. Depends.

He was in and out of the suite in under seven minutes, and he paused at the head of the stairs. Two ways to get to the basement. The back fashion, which he had traveled the previous night . . .

No, he would use the other set of steps this time.

Closing his eyes, he dematerialized to the first floor and ghosted under doorways until he presented his physical form at the top of the front stairs to the cellar.

His ears gave him no reason to be worried, so he opened the way and stole into the darkness. Using his phone’s flashlight to navigate, he stuck to the sides of the rough-cut steps, the damp, cold air stinging his sinuses.

Down at the bottom, he continued on apace, passing by Naasha’s playroom. He did not like the amount of noise his leather-soled shoes made on the stone floor, but there was naught to be done about that—and presently, he came up to the door with the Master Lock on it.

That smell was still in the air, he thought, as he took out Vishous’s tool and inserted it where the proper key would go. Manipulating the slice of metal around, the lock went loose, and he sloughed the thing off its perch.

Without checking to see what precisely he was getting into, he slipped inside and shut himself in.

In the utter blackness, there was a shuffling sound in the corner. And a rattle of . . .

Chains?

Breathing. Something was breathing over there.

Assail pointed his phone in that direction, but the little beam reached no farther than a couple of feet. Putting the cell away, he palmed one of his guns and patted around the exposed beams next to the door.

When he found the light switch, he flipped it—

And recoiled in horror.

A naked male was chained on the bare stone floor in the corner. Chained and trembling as he curled in upon himself, ducking his head and holding onto his skeletal legs, his long hair the only covering he had.

The smell . . . the smell was of an old meal that had been left on a tray just within reach of him. Facilities, such as they were, were beside him, a mere hole that opened into the earth. There was also a hose, as one might find in a garden, hanging on a peg. And a bucket.

As long as Assail would live, he would ne’er forget the soft chiming sounds that rose up from the male’s tethers as that scrawny body shook.

Assail took a step forward.

The whimpering was of that of an animal.

“I shall not hurt you,” Assail said roughly. “Please know . . . I . . . whate’er are you imprisoned herein for?”

Even though he knew.

This was a blood slave. He was staring at a blood slave—there were even . . . yes, there were the tattoos: one around the throat, and a pair on the wrists.

“How may I be of help?”

There was no reply, the male merely tightening himself even further, the bones of his elbows seeming to break through his skin, his ribs like claw marks down the sides of his torso, his thighs so small that his knees seemed as great swollen knots.

Assail looked around, although that was daft. What was in the room was there and unchanged.

“I need to get you out of here.”

Wrenching around, he pictured the way out. “I’m getting you . . .”