Dawn of Eve Read online

  I bent over the cardboard tray and finished off the fish and water with a sickening sense of dread, knowing my next meal depended on the whim of my captors. “If they want us alive, maybe they won’t starve us.”

  “Unless this is a test to see how much we can endure, what we can survive. No doubt they’ve heard rumors about the prophesied daughter. Maybe they want to learn your secrets, see if you have any powers they can use before they kill you.”

  The fish soured in my gut. Unable to look at the greasy, blood-stained cardboard any longer, I carried it into the bathroom and added it to the pile beneath the sink.

  A toothbrush and baking soda sat on the vanity, along with a bar of handmade soap that looked creamy like goat’s milk. I sniffed it, and the aroma of pine tinged my nose. “If they’re going to kill us, why on Earth would they provide soap?”

  “Maybe,” Salem said from the other room, “the last prisoner brought it in.”

  I shivered. There was no mirror or anything sharp or breakable that could be fashioned into a weapon. I returned to the room, sat on the thin pallet of furs, and glared at my pants. I needed to make the legs the same length, for no reason than to busy my hands.

  “When the door opens again,” I said, pulling at the seam on my ankle, “we should try to have a civil conversation with them. Maybe they’ll explain what they want.”

  Salem nodded, his shiny black hair falling across his brow. He watched me from across the room as I fought the stitching in an attempt to remove the remaining leg of my pants.

  “If that doesn’t work…” I lowered my voice to barely a whisper. “I can pretend I’m dying or something. Maybe that’ll lure them in here.”

  “I like that idea.” He shifted to his knees. “I can pretend I’m fucking you to near-death.” His pupils dilated. “Or not pretend.”

  My blood heated. “That’s not what I—”

  He moved, and in a flash, he was crouched a breath away with his hands over mine on my ankle. The heat from his body filled me with equal parts shock and arousal. I tried to jerk free, but he countered my retreat, his fingers shackling my leg.

  “Relax.” He stared at me with the intensity of a hungry hunter. “I’m just going to fix your pants.”

  My breath fled slowly, raggedly. I pulled my hands away and rested against the wall, letting the concrete support my back and cool my skin.

  Locking his eyes on mine, he dipped his head and bit through the stubborn threads around my ankle. His exhales seared across my flesh, making me shiver. He didn’t look away as his hands ripped the suede upward, opening the seam along my calf, the inside of my knee, my thigh, and—

  “Whoa.” I gripped his fingers. “That’s high enough.”

  He inched closer, smoothly maneuvering into a kneeling position between my legs. “Here?”

  I pried my gaze from his voltaic eyes and stared at the hand on my thigh, the placement of his fingers aligning with the shearing job he’d done on the other pants leg. At my nod, he tore the soft leather away and set it aside, leaving me dressed in an acceptable pair of suede shorts.

  Acceptable if I weren’t imprisoned in arctic Canada.

  “We can use the scraps,” he said, “to dry off with after our showers.”

  I was hoping we’d escape before that doorless, wide-open shower was mentioned. Not that I’d ever had the luxury of modesty. I’d bathed in lakes and communal showers with my soldiers, washing and watching each other’s backs in the interest of time and safety. But I had a sneaking suspicion Salem would turn shower time into an opportunity to watch my back and my front, up and down and side to side.

  Thankfully, the toilet sat around the corner, but sound traveled. After a day or two of digested food, our intimate situation would become a whole lot more intimate.

  Until then… I blew out a breath. “So we wait.”

  He settled on the furs next to me, stretched his legs alongside mine, and looked at the door. “We wait.”

  And so began my time in Purgatory.

  We passed the hours with easy conversation. I explained what I saw in his veins and my speculations about what we might’ve been injected with. He remained convinced that my x-ray vision had nothing to do with our captors and everything to do with the prophecy.

  My eyes grew itchy with fatigue as I talked, sticking to safe topics like my fathers. Every man, woman, and hybrid knew of the legendary guardians. Stories reveling how they’d protected my mother and killed the Drone had spread from camp to camp for twenty years. As Salem asked questions, I separated the embellishments from the facts, sharing what my fathers had told me growing up—the accounts of their lives in the old world and their adventures with my mother after the virus.

  Salem and I skirted around sensitive subjects, such as his mother, the Resistance, and the hybrid war against humanity. He spoke a lot about his utopia, how it was built underground and out of view, and how dozens of hybrid males lived there harmoniously, keeping to themselves without violence or mayhem, reaping what little scraps of happiness they could find.

  “I’d have to see it to believe it.” I covered my bare legs with a fold of the fur bedding to ward off the chill in the air.

  “When we break out of here, you should come visit.”

  My stomach hardened. “I don’t think so, Salem.”

  “Why not?”

  “A lone woman among hybrids?” I laughed, mirthlessly.

  He turned to face me, his shoulder resting against the wall and eyes fierce. “You would be under my protection.”

  His protection needed a good test drive before I would ever consider his offer. What I wanted to do was bring him to my fathers and let Michio prod and poke him with needles.

  Michio had studied me like a scientific specimen my entire life, trying and failing to derive a cure for the hybrid infection from my genetics. But something had changed since I arrived here. I felt…different. Definitely more sexually aware. Damn Salem and the audacious impact he had on me. Was this a sparks-flying-in-lust kind of thing? I didn’t know, so I chalked up my strange feelings to sexual inexperience.

  It was the other stuff that was breaking my brain, like how the hybrid children had seemed to only attack Salem because he was in the way in their attempts to get to me. If Salem were human like my fathers, they would’ve gone for his throat. More importantly, there was my reaction to his veins, his blood. Why had I felt such a visceral desire to bite him? That was just…no. Way too ugh-ish to comprehend.

  I needed Michio to analyze my reactions with his medical mind. And I needed Jesse and Roark to tell me everything was going to be okay. I needed to get the fuck out of here.

  As the hours ticked by, I grew less chatty, withdrawing inside my head and battling my coiling edginess. I’d never been this inert for this long. I’d never been imprisoned.

  Salem must’ve been imperceptibly bridging the space between us, because when I turned my head, he was right there, his breath on my face and his gaze overly bright, so damn overwhelming.

  “You need a distraction.” Devious insinuation glimmered in his eyes.

  I groaned. “Don’t say it.”

  He leaned in so close his mouth brushed my ear. “Nothing is more distracting than a cock tearing through your hymen.”

  An appalled wheeze crawled up my throat and burst past my lips in a snorting cackle that quickly transformed into full, unrestrained belly laughter.

  He laughed with me, not quite as hysterically, but the sound of his levity was euphoric, infectious, and straight-up sensual. It was then that I knew, without a doubt, he would seduce me. It was already happening—the tingle in my chest, the hitch in my breaths, and the wet throb between my legs.

  Should I push him away? Hide my reactions? Wedge a wall between us? I didn’t trust him, but beyond that, there was no reason I couldn’t just straddle his lap and fuck him to exhaustion. My nipples tightened at the thought, my entire body painfully aware of every inch of his.

  I would probably fumbl
e through my first time, but how complicated could it be? After listening to my soldiers drone on about positions and techniques, I understood the mechanics. Then there were all the awkward conversations with my fathers. Michio, instructing me on the importance of safe sex. Roark, explaining the emotional connection that should come when two or more bodies are joined. And Jesse, carrying on as if I were asexual, declaring, You are not having sex. Ever.

  My takeaway? A level of trust was needed for such an intimate act.

  Trust. That slimy little sentiment wormed its way into my softer parts, but I was nowhere near ready to accept it. Hell, I didn’t even feel safe enough to fall asleep with Salem in the same room. I’d been nodding off for hours, fighting it, unwilling to put myself in such a vulnerable position.

  How long had I been in here? There were no windows, no visible skyline to mark the passing of time. I’d arrived here at night, right? My internal clock told me it was nearing dawn.

  Beside me, Salem launched into a conversation about the scarcity of good hunting knives, his timbre flowing through me like my dad’s Irish whiskey, smooth and drugging, lulling me into a stupor.

  I hummed and grunted at the right parts, but my mind was slipping. I straightened my spine against the wall, wriggled my feet, rubbed my gritty eyes, but my body refused to work with me. My eyelids weighed a thousand pounds. Falling. Blurring. Blink, blink, blink…

  I woke to a galloping sound. Lub-dub. Lub-dub. Lub-dub. It echoed through my head as I lay on my side, my cheek pressed against a hard, warm surface. What the hell was that noise?

  Lifting my head, I realized I’d been sleeping on Salem’s chest. I no longer heard the unnaturally loud lub-dub, but I could guess the source.

  Veins spread down his neck, growing thicker, brighter around his heart, and teeming with silver ribbon-like organisms. My gums tingled, and greedy warmth gripped my core.

  My gaze flew to his, and when I found him watching me, my hunger for him compounded.

  “What’s wrong?” He raised up slightly, his elbows braced on the floor behind him.

  An electric buzz snapped my attention to the door. With a mechanical groan, the steel barrier slid open.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Heart racing, I scrambled to my feet and darted for the door. By the time I reached it, the solid steel had slid halfway open, revealing the closed gate that barred the opening. Beyond the rungs waited an empty corridor. Flames swayed on the wall torches, the air disturbed by whatever had just fled. Dammit!

  “Come back!” I gripped the gate, pressing my face in the narrow gap between two bars.

  The door sank into the groove in the wall and shuddered to silence. A cardboard tray waited inches from my feet, the scent of grilled oysters and chili peppers flooding my senses.

  I held my breath and listened. For a fleeting moment, I swore I heard the faint retreat of footsteps.

  “I just want to talk.” My voice boomed through the stillness. I couldn’t see around the corner, couldn’t see shit from this angle. “Please. Just tell me what you want.”

  Salem slipped around me, bending to drag the food and water beneath the gate and into the room.

  The veins beneath his skin became evanescent before my eyes, vanishing like wisps of vapor. The phenomenon had to be correlated to the retreating footsteps. Whatever or whoever had just been here was linked to him. It was the simplest explanation.

  I returned my attention to the hall, determination girding my tone. “Hello? Do you know who I am? You don’t have to show your face. Just talk to me. We can work something out. I have resources, people at my disposable who can give you whatever you need.”

  Within reason. My fathers would probably sacrifice a village of human women in exchange for my life, but I would never offer that.

  Warm skin skimmed against my back, and my heart sputtered. Salem rested a hand on my hip, his other on the rung above mine. As he pressed forward, his brick-hard body forced me closer to the gate, caging me in.

  “Hey, out there.” His breath rustled my hair. “Can you bring a flask next time? I’m not picky. Just fill it with the hardest stuff you got.”

  “Unbelievable,” I muttered. “Why not request a mint for your pillow, too? Oh, wait. We don’t have pillows.”

  “You don’t need a pillow.” He dipped his head and nuzzled my neck, spreading goosebumps down my spine. “You slept like a log on my chest. A drooling, snoring log.”

  “I did not sn—”

  The gears overhead buzzed, and the door shimmied into motion. No, no, no! I grabbed the steel edge and tried to shove it back, but it powered toward me with mechanical force.

  “You’re wasting your time.” He grasped my hips. “I’ve already tried that.”

  I swatted his hands away. “We have to do something.”

  My lungs seethed, every cell in my body raging for freedom. Desperation drove me to fight, my arms burning and my feet slipping along the concrete in my useless attempt to overpower the door. As the view of the corridor shrank, the air grew thinner, my hope crushing beneath the weight of steel.

  Despair crept in, and on its heels came an explosion of fury. My gut simmered, my heart pounded, and a guttural roar barreled from my throat. I fucking lost it.

  “You dickless motherfucker! Are you afraid of a human girl?” I wedged into the crack of the closing door and pounded on the gate, shaking with full-body tremors. “I know you can hear me. Are you so despicable you’re ashamed to show yourself?” I frantically slapped at the steel, the pain only further enraging me. “I bet your face is covered in boils and your fangs are so rotten your entire body is rancid. Do hybrid children cover their eyes when they see you?”

  “That’s enough.” Salem hooked an arm around my waist and yanked me back just as the door sealed shut.

  Red bled through my vision, my temper plunging somewhere between delirious and spastic. In a fit of swinging arms, I jerked in Salem’s hold until my feet no longer touched the floor.

  “You have nothing to say?” I bellowed at the door, kicking wildly with my back pinned to Salem’s chest. “That’s bullshit! If the world decides to give itself an enema you better take cover, you son of a bitch, because you’re the lowest hanging excrement. The dirtiest, most parasitic ass-clinger. To call you an infection would be offensive to all the honest diseases. You’re worse than a hybrid, because a hybrid doesn’t pretend to be what it’s not. You’re a fake. A lousy wannabe scourge that cowers in a hole. A toxic, dead asshole! You aren’t even—”

  “All right, stop.” Salem covered my mouth with a hand, his chest heaving against my back. “So much for civil conversation.”

  Was he laughing at me? I slammed an elbow against his stomach, and he coughed out a runaway chuckle.

  How would I break out of here? What the fuck was I going to do? I wrenched his hand from my mouth, bucking and wheezing in his constrictive hold, suffocating, and powerless to stop the moisture burning my eyes.

  Eddie would arrive back at camp any time now, and my fathers… Sweet unmerciful hell, I couldn’t even think about the looks on my fathers’ faces when they realized I wasn’t with him. Their retaliation against my captors would be a slaughter of hellsblood and damnation, but they would have to locate me first. That was the bitch of it. I’d run off into the arctic nothingness, where it snowed hourly, where my tracks would be buried, where they would never find me.

  I was on my own. With Salem.

  Turning in the steel bands of his arms, I let my gaze flit up his chiseled torso and linger on the smooth, vein-less column of his neck. “We’re not getting out of here.”

  “We will.” He touched a knuckle to my chin and lifted my eyes to the startling silver of his. “We just have to give them what they want.”

  He stroked his thumb along my bottom lip, and my skin heated beneath his hungry gaze.

  “Is sex the only thing you think about?” My voice was tight, my emotions stretched on a live wire, seconds from spilling down my face.
/>   “I’m thinking about the clues, Dawn. The toothbrush, the soap… Why would they concern themselves with our hygiene?”

  “Maybe they plan to sell us to the highest bidder.”

  “They put us in here with one bed,” he rasped, his timbre low and gravelly.

  Awakening pulsed between my legs. “Maybe there’s a shortage of furs.”

  “Tonight’s dinner…” He slid his fingers across my cheek and into my hair. “Oysters, chili peppers, and pine nuts. All aphrodisiacs.”

  “Oh.” My heart rate sped up, and my insides liquidized.

  No edible sexual stimulants needed here. I was already a trembling heap of weak knees, heart palpitations, and boob sweat. Maybe it was the lingering adrenaline from my tantrum or the realization I might never escape this place.

  Why would our captors want us to have sex? Was this some kind of breeding experiment? I wasn’t convinced there was some grand, premeditated plan. They couldn’t have known I would be in this area, stumbling upon an abandoned mansion alone.

  But I wasn’t alone.

  The raw desire darkening Salem’s face twisted my desperation into a different kind of need. I wanted him to ease my torment, devour my fears, and make all this go away. If he let go of me, I might just fall on my back with my legs open. My fathers would be so proud.

  Salem didn’t release me and instead spun us around until my back met the wall. The hand in my hair held tight, and his lips lowered, hovering a kiss away.

  “Your eyes are addictive.” His voice whispered through me, licking my nerve endings. “Sometimes I see sparks of emerald, but the gold dominates, the color so blinding and painful it’s like staring into a lost sunrise after twenty years of darkness.”

  My heart swooned and dipped, and I mentally smacked it back where it belonged. My emotions were all over the damn place. Two seconds ago, I was spitting and roaring. Now he was all sweet-talky and seductive. I didn’t know how to respond to his compliment, so I said nothing.