room and the happiness she'd felt to be on her own... These were bad visions, bad memories. They reminded her of her old life, of her mother... of her brother.
God, Rehvenge. Rehv had driven her crazy with all his domineering behavior, but he'd been right. If she'd stayed with the family, she never would have met Mary, the human who had lived next door. And she never would have crossed the meadow between their houses that night to make sure everything was okay. And she never would have run into the lesser... so she never would have ended up both dead and breathing.
She wondered how long her brother had looked for her. Had he given up by now? Probably. Not even Rehv could keep going for so long without hope.
She bet he'd looked for her, but she was glad in a way that he hadn't found her. Although he was a highly Page 12
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aggressive male, he was a civilian, and liable to get hurt if he came to rescue her. Those lessers were strong.
Cruel and powerful. No, to get her back it would take something equal to the monster that held her.
An image of Zsadist came to mind, clear as a photograph. She saw his savage black eyes. The scar that ran down his face and distorted his upper lip. The tattooed blood-slave bands around his throat and wrists. She remembered the whip marks on his back. And the piercings that hung from his nipples. And his muscled, too-lean body.
She thought of his vicious, uncompromising will and all of his high-test hatred. He was terrifying, a horror of her species. Ruined, not broken, in the words of his twin. But that was what would have made him such a good savior. He alone was a match for the lesser who'd taken her. Zsadist's kind of brutality was probably the only thing that could have gotten her out, though she knew better than to think that he'd ever try to find her.
She was just some civilian whom he'd met twice.
And the second time, he'd made her swear she would never come near him again.
Fear closed in on her, and she tried to bridle the emotion by telling herself that Rehvenge was still searching for her. And that he would call upon the Brotherhood if he found any clues as to where she was. Then maybe Zsadist would come after her, because he was required to, as part of his job.
"Hello? Hello? Is anyone there?" The shaky male voice was muted, the tone tinny.
It was the newest captive, she thought. They always tried to reach out in the beginning.
Bella cleared her throat. "I am... here."
There was a pause. "Oh, my God... are you the female that was taken? Are you... Bella?"
Hearing her name was a shock. Hell, the lesser had been calling her wife for so long, she'd almost forgotten she'd gone by something else. "Yes... yes, I am."
"You're still alive."
Well, her heart was still beating, at any rate. "Do I know you?"
"I-I went to your funeral. With my parents, Ralstam and Jilling."
Bella started to tremble. Her mother and her brother... had put her to rest. But then, of course they would have.
Her mother was deeply religious, a great believer in the Old Traditions. Once she was convinced her daughter was dead, she would have insisted on the proper ceremony so that Bella could enter the Fade.
Oh... God. Thinking they'd given up and knowing they had were two such different things. No one was coming after her. Ever.
She heard something weird. And realized she was sobbing.
"I'm going to escape," the male said with force. "And I'll take you with me."
Bella let her knees give out, and she slid down the ribbed wall of the pipe until she was lodged at the bottom.
Now she really was dead, wasn't she? Dead and buried.
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How horribly appropriate that she was stuck in the earth.
Chapter Two
Zsadist's shitkickers carried him through an alley off Trade Street, the heavy soles stomping apart frozen slush puddles and crushing through the icy ripples of tire treads. It was pitch-dark, because there were no windows in the brick buildings on either side of him and the clouds had shut out the moon. Yet as he walked alone, his night vision was perfect, penetrating everything. Just like his rage.
Black blood. What he needed was more black blood. He needed it on his hands and kicking up into his face and splattering onto his clothes.