CLAIRE


    Where the hell was I?


    I flinched from piercing whiteness as I pushed back linen sheets and raised myself on an elbow. Iy in a massive bed. A ck-and-white painting faced me, disying a beautiful man asleep on a bed, his wings stretched out behind him as a woman stood over him, holding an oilmp.


    I blinked.


    My mind reeled as I drank in the gilded trim, gold hardware on the built-in drawers, and gray curtains rolled halfway down a bright sky. The tiny, evenly spaced windows looked like those in an airne, but that couldn’t be right. My head was too foggy to take in the strange details. I shoved off the plushforter and gaped at my naked waist, instantly wide awake.


    Did I go home with Cainan?


    My throat tightened as a sigh dragged my attention to the male body heating the bed. Cainany beside me, on his stomach, a pillow wedged between his head and arm. Heart pounding, I lifted the sheet. My gaze dipped from his peaceful face, to the seductive line of his back, following it to his steel glutes and the shadow under his hip.


    I let the sheet drop, my pulse racing.


    Did I have sex with himst night?


    My mind was foggy. I scanned my body for clues, but felt none of the soreness I’d expect. And yet something had happened. Otherwise I wouldn’t be here, without any clothes.


    I slid my legs from the bed. rm bells ringing, I padded into the adjoining bathroom. It was too small. A shower with ck ss sat in the corner, crammed beside a vanity with ck doors and a gilded mirror. An outrageous, gold-ted sink reflected my face. Cainan seemed to have a ir for the dramatic.


    I took care of business in the bathroom and grabbed a white robe tucked in a cubby. As I wrapped it around my waist, my ears popped. A loud roar reverberated through the walls. I can’t be on a ne. Rattled, I chewed my lower lip as I returned to the bedroom.


    As I rejoined Cainan in bed, he stirred. Charcoal slits opened as he rolled over and settled inches away. A sleepy smile staggered across his lips when he took me in.


    “Hello there.”


    “M-morning.” My insides ckened at the fact I couldn’t recall anything. I wanted to ask him point nk, but starting off the conversation with admitting that I didn’t remember the sex seemed tactless. Did we even have sex?


    Cainan pushed himself upright with a yawn. Theforter fell off his shoulders, revealing a powerful frame that no woman could ever forget. He raked his mussed hair and spoke in a voice deep with exhaustion.


    “How are you feeling?”


    I crushed my involuntary reaction to his affectionate look. “Okay, I guess.”


    He gestured toward the nightstand. “There’s water if you’re thirsty.”


    Darkness flickered in the back of my brain as I searched my surroundings for empty condom wrappers, lube, anything that might jog my memory.


    Cainan slipped from bed. Corded muscle rippled down his arms as he pulled on boxers. He shed me a smile so disarming, I fisted the sheets. “You’re quiet.”


    “I-I’m trying to be polite, but I remember nothing fromst night. I don’t know w-where we are or how I got in your bed, and it’s freaking me out.”


    His hand roved over the bedsheets, gliding over my ankle. He squeezed. “That’ll pass.”


    “I just don’t understand-”


    “Starling, drink.”


    My body froze from the barked order, but maybe Cainan wasn’t a morning person. My mouth was dry. I reached for the tall ss and gulped it down.


    Cainan unzipped a suitcase and piled folded clothing onto the bed. He dressed in blue chinos and a loose-fitting polo. His cial eyes dove into me. “You really don’t remember.”


    Emptiness gnawed at my stomach. “No.”


    He snorted. “That’s probably best.”


    My mind spun with bewilderment. “I’m sorry, but where am I?”


    “On a ne over the Antic Ocean, on a ne, headed for a tropical paradise.”


    “What?”


    He parted the curtains on a window, and it reflected light so blinding that my eyes watered. I fought through it and peered through the burning sun. An airne wing peeked through the tumbling clouds.


    Oh my God.


    Images suddenly arranged themselves. Zip ties burned at the forefront of my brain. The violent struggle in the van swam to my memory, and the syringe seemed to pierce my flesh again. I checked my shoulder, but all that remained was a red dot.


    I shoved myself to the other end of the bed.


    “It came back to you?” Cainan shot me a look so chilling it could’ve cracked marble. “Good.”


    I inhaled a sharp breath, panic rioting within me. “Where are we going?”Content from N?velDr(a)ma.Org.


    “I’m taking you on vacation, just like I promised.”


    My mind whirled at the dry response. “This isn’t funny.”


    “You said that yesterday, too.” He rose fluidly, hands in his pockets.


    I scrambled to push together my wild thoughts. “So you brought me here. You put me on a ne. Tucked me in this bed.”


    “Yes.”


    My pulse galloped ahead, the knot in my throat pulsing with a raging question: Did you fuck me?  No. Nothing felt sore. It couldn’t have happened, but if he’d raped me while I was drugged, it might’ve been painless. Hell, I might’ve encouraged him.


    I don’t believe this.


    I swung my legs out of bed. A sheer ck fright swept through me as I approached where he stood, his abdominal muscles tensing as though I’d charge him.


    “Move,” I growled. “I’m leaving.”


    He smirked. “You’re thousands of feet in the air. You’re not going anywhere.”


    “T-then I’ll scream at the top of my lungs. The crew will rush in here. The captain will turn the ne around and you’ll be arrested for kidnapping as soon as wend.” Swallowing, I continued, hoping his sanity would lock back into ce. “Y-you don’t want to go to prison.”


    The corner of his mouth twisted.


    “You can get up to twenty-five years, Cainan-”


    “Shut up and listen. You’re my captive. You are no longer a free woman. You are my property, myfort woman, my pretty little bird. I will use your body for my pleasure, and I don’t care how you feel about it. You may have strong opinions about that, but I don’t want to hear them. I am not going to soften. I will not realize the error of my ways. Your only purpose is to please me sexually.”


    My thoughts raced. rm rippled down my spine. “What?”


    “You heard me.”


    I wetted my lips. I’d heard, but I didn’t believe him. This couldn’t be real. Couldn’t be. Why take me away? Why drug me when I was perfectly willing? Why pretend to be a good person for weeks if all he wanted was to fuck me? Was he crazy?


    “Please,” I whispered, my heart lodged in my throat. “I-I need to go home. I have to see my sister.”


    “You’re not going home for a long time,” he said, and I flinched. “I mean to y with you for a while.”


    A warning spasm erupted inside me as that sank in, shock siphoning the blood from my face. “Don’t talk to me like that!”


    “You need to drop this fantasy you’re holding onto. It’s making me pity you. You don’t want that. There’s nothing more boring than pity.” Cainan moved behind me, stroking my hair and shoulders, his gentle touch contrasting his ugly words.


    I breathed in shallow gasps. “I’m just supposed to ept that you’re a monster?”


    “Yes,” he said, his thumbs digging into my back muscles. “You’re here to be used, and I have very particr tastes when ites to ves. You’ll follow my rules. You’ll wear the clothing I pick out. You’ll eat the food I give you. You must do everything I ask, without question. And you’ll obey, or you’ll get punished.”


    My breath burned in my throat. “Where are you taking me?”


    “To my vi.”


    And once I was there, what would he do? Make me his ve? What did that even mean? I pictured a cold cell with a bucket, chains, and manacles. If I agreed to be his ve, would he hurt me? Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad. If I didn’t fight, we would just be two people having sex. Did I want to fight? Submitting to him had to be better than receiving his wrath.


    As soon as I got the opportunity, I’d contact someone. Interpol-my sister-they would find me. Did he take my phone? Fuck, he probably did, but no matter. He didn’t have a hope of keeping me silent at the airport. Provided he didn’t drug me again.


    “And how long are we staying?”


    “I don’t know. A few weeks, at least.”


    My breathing went ragged as he untied the sash at my waist, letting my robe swing open. His finger brushed my naked belly, showering my skin with sparks. What the fuck was wrong with me? I closed my robe, my throat tightening.


    “Settle down,” he murmured, cupping my cheek with an affectionate pat that razed a line down my body. “You’re making this a bigger deal than it needs to be.”


    He seized a lock of hair and tucked it behind my ear, sparking my skin with warmth. My body’s reaction to his touch felt so wrong.


    “Cainan, you’re not going to get away with this.”


    “Not in Boston, but Leda is a special ce. It’s a paradise for heathens. Nobody will help you escape. No one will lift a finger if you scream yourself hoarse that you’ve been kidnapped. The entire ind is filled with arms dealers like me, traffickers, drug lords flying abroad for a vacation, and they all have their own private security.”


    “You’re an arms dealer?”


    He nodded.


    He sold weapons for a living? That stabbed my iling heart. My lower lip trembled. I’d been thoroughly duped. He stood there, tall, powerful, emotionless. Who the fuck was he? Not Cainan, the businessman who’d stolen my affections. Someone else…a stranger who’d kidnapped me. My pulse beat erratically as the silence loomed between us like a heavy mist.


    “This is your captain speaking,” the speaker overhead barked. “We’re about thirty minutes away from Leda. The weather is a humid eighty-three degrees. We’re beginning our descent, so please head back to your seats and buckle up.”


    Even the pilot was in on it. He had to have seen Cainan dragging me through the main cabin, unconscious. Shock wedged the words in my throat as Cainan strolled to the suitcase and opened it, rifling through its contents until he pulled out a dark pink cocktail dress. He held it up and tossed it on the bed.


    “Get dressed. I’ll give you a few minutes to savor thest of your privacy. When I return, I expect to find you alert and ready to leave.”


    He wasn’t going to drug me. Maybe I could escape. My heart thumped madly. A red tide pulsed from my belly, joining the blood flowing to my hands, my feet, every avable part that screamed to run.


    He caught my gaze. “Do as I say.”


    The quietmand stole all the fight from my body. A sense of inevitability slid down my throat as I curled my fingers around the fabric. His eyes were like bits of stone, drinking in mypliance.


    “Good girl.”


    A perverse heat flushed my skin at his praise. Then he left the room. Beads of sweat broke out on my neck.


    What the fuck just happened?