The Law of Nines

17

BETHANY PRESSED HER NAKED THIGHS tight to either side of him as she leaned forward. She tenderly kissed his neck as he stared up into the darkness. He found her tender advances revolting.

He was enraged at being bound up and helpless. He was angry with himself for allowing it to get this far. He didn’t know what else he could have done, but he should have done something. Worse, he didn’t delude himself about what was in store for him when she had finished getting what she wanted. The mental image of the big man licking the blade before delivering his threat was not something Alex could easily put from his mind.

“Are you ready to take our relationship to the next level?” Her intimate whisper in his ear sounded as if she was ready. “Or are you going to need Bethany to help get you in the mood?”

The situation was so absurd that he couldn’t find words. The only thing he was in the mood for was breaking her neck.

His sense of panic had already melted away under the heat of anger.

She leaned forward, pressing herself against him. Her firm breast pushed the steel barb harpooned into the left side of his chest deeper into the muscle. It felt like it was bottoming on rib bone. He gritted his teeth against the sting of pain.

As she nibbled his ear, caught up in what she was doing, Alex tried to pull away, tried to stall. “Bethany, why in the world are you doing this?”

“Why in the world.” She laughed softly in his ear. “That’s funny, Alex. Which world do you mean?”

The magnitude of her words shook him to his core. He wished he had believed Jax. He had thought her story was crazy. Now he wished he had listened to her. He remembered the last thing she had told him: “Trouble will find you.”

It was the last thing his grandfather had told him as well.

Alex struggled to focus. “What I mean is, I don’t know why you are doing this, since you can’t seriously think that you’re worthy of bearing my child.”

That shocked her into sitting up — not what he had wanted.

Her brow tightened. “What?”

“You’re hardly suitable. Let’s face it, considering all of your undesirable traits you’re not really fit to bear a Rahl.”

When the illumination of lightning flared in through the window he could see her indignant glower.

“Is that right?”

“If you weren’t so stupid you’d know it is. My offspring deserves better than the likes of you for a mother.”

“You arrogant bastard,” she hissed. “You’re wrong. You will give me a child — your heir — and I will be the one to guide him, not you. After you do this much of it there will be no further need of you. That child will be devoted to me. Your only part in his life is that you are going to father him.”

He looked up into her eyes. “I’ll see you dead, first. You have my promise on that.”

“How dare you!” When the lightning cracked again he could see that her face had gone scarlet. “How dare you talk to me that way, you little bastard.”

She lifted the Taser in her fist and pulled the trigger.

The shock of the high-voltage arc slammed into him. He couldn’t believe how much it hurt. He flailed helplessly. The zip ties holding his arms ripped into the flesh of his wrists.

With Bethany sitting up, her skin wasn’t touching the probes, so she felt none of it. She glared down at him as he screamed incoherent curses. She wasn’t bothered in the least by his agony. She seemed incapable of empathy.

When it finished and he sagged back on the bed, she gave him a moment to recover before leaning over again to whisper in his ear. “We have all night, Alex. Would you like me to pull the trigger a few more times just to get it through that thick head of yours that I’m going to have my way? I would rather you just give in without all the drama. It really is getting quite tedious, you know.”

In the darkness he could feel her belly pushing against the lower probe and her breast pressed firmly onto the other. When he didn’t argue she writhed a little, rubbing herself against him seductively, as if to show him the benefits of her better side. His sweat from the ordeal made her skin slick. She started nibbling on his ear as she got down to business.

“You’ve got to be pretty stupid, Bethany, if you think that that fat ass of yours is ever going to get a guy hot for you. You’re really making a fool of yourself trying to be sexy, if you want to know the truth of it.”

That had the desired effect. She growled in rage and without bothering to sit up pulled the trigger.

She didn’t realize that with her flesh touching the steel probes the Taser would give her the same paralyzing shock it gave him.

Through his helpless grunts of pain he could hear her cries of terrified torment. He’d known what to expect, at least. He’d known it was coming. The shock of it was far worse for her because she hadn’t been expecting it.

Bethany didn’t know what was happening to her. She screamed not just in pain, but in panic.

Alex didn’t think she was all that familiar with technology.

In the throes of agony, her arms flailed. Alex heard the Taser hit the floor and bounce a few times. When the five seconds passed and the pain ended, she sagged limp atop him.

He decided that whatever her long-range plan was, he wasn’t going to go along willingly. She would just have to pick up the Taser gun and pull the trigger all night long if that was what she wanted to do, but he wasn’t going to cooperate.

As she regained her wits, she pressed a hand against his chest to push herself upright. With her other hand she swept her hair back off her sweaty face.

She looked down into his eyes. “Where I come from, that’s nothing.”

“It’s nothing here, either,” he lied.

A smile stole its way back onto her face. She lay back down against him, her warm breath in his ear again.

“I know what you’re doing, Alex,” she whispered, “but it isn’t going to work. I’m not falling for your little ploy. I’m not going to let you get me angry enough to cut your throat. I came here to accomplish what needs accomplishing and I intend to see it through.

“Be as stubborn as you want, but it won’t do you any good. You’re going to get me pregnant tonight. There isn’t anything you can do about it — it’s just the way men are made.

“Afterwards, I’m going to use a knife on you myself and make sure that you regret every word you said.”

In the darkness of the room lit only occasionally by flashes of lightning filtered through the sheets of rain, Alex felt the gloom of his situation settle back in on him. He had been momentarily euphoric that he had been able to trick her into getting a jolt from the Taser, but what good did it really do him? He wasn’t going to be able to trick her into it again and he wasn’t going to be able to free himself from his bonds.

It might have been satisfying to see her take such a jolt for a change, but it didn’t stop her. He knew she was going to get even and then some.

He turned his gaze off into the darkness as he gave in to despair.