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". . . know how beautiful you are? It doesn't have to be like this," the man said.
More silence, as if he was waiting for someone to respond.
"I'm talking to you, bitch. Answer me. "
More silence.
Slap-slap-slap.
A series of violent blows rang out, and a low moan sounded. My eyes narrowed, even as my heart lifted. Because the moaner was a woman. And it sure sounded like Roslyn Phillips to me.
I eased closer to the door and put my eye up against the crack. The door was only slightly open, showing me a narrow strip of what lay inside.
A bed dominated the room-the biggest bed that I'd ever seen. The sucker had to be at least twenty-five feet square and was covered with an ivory comforter. Thick wooden posts rose up from the four corners of the bed, and I could see some sort of heavy, hemp rope tied to them. The rope creaked, as though someone was tied down by it. A man also stood before the bed, but
it wasn't Elliot Slater. His hair was a bright red, instead of the blond wisps of the other pale, chalky giant.
This giant was also naked, with an ass that was so fat, dimpled, and hairy that I would happily have killed him just for inflicting the sight on me.
"Like I told you, Slater's busy right now. Besides, he doesn't know a good thing when he has it anyway. Smashing up that pretty face of yours, beating on that soft body of yours, what a fucking waste. If you were mine, I would have found something much better for us to do together. Something we're going to do right now," the man drawled in a soft voice, as though he wasn't casually talking about raping someone.
"He'll. . . kill you. . . for this. "
The voice was low and weak and raspy, but I still recognized the person it belonged to-Roslyn Phillips. She was still alive-and she was damn well going to stay that way.
I couldn't see the man's face, but I got the impression that he smiled.
"No, he won't because you're not going to live long enough to tell him about it," he replied.
The man moved forward to the edge of the bed. He held a rag in his hand. The bits of rope I could see jerked and spasmed. Roslyn, trying desperately to get free before the bastard gagged and raped her. A cold, calm, familiar sort of determination filled me, and my hands tightened around my bloody knives.
While the naked giant wrestled with Roslyn, trying to get the gag into her mouth, I opened the door and stepped inside the room. The man was too busy with the vampire to hear my soft footsteps on the carpet. I came at him at an angle, so I could see what kind of shape Roslyn was in.
The sight on the bed sickened me.
I'd been right on one count. Elliot Slater had wanted to hurt Roslyn before he killed her. The vampire lay spread-eagled on the bed, her arms and legs tied to each of the four posts. Blood and cuts and bruises covered her body-every single inch I could see of it.
If I hadn't known it was Roslyn, I wouldn't have recognized her. That's how bad she looked, her features all mushed and mashed together, like she'd been run over by a car. Roslyn's skin looked like it had been rubbed raw with sandpaper. Her beautiful face was a mess of pulpy, purple, swollen flesh, and the vamp's blood had long ago turned the ivory comforter a dark crimson. There was so much blood on her that it took me a second to realize that Roslyn was still wearing clothes underneath all the gore. Her pants and shirt were torn in places, and blue-black bruises peeked out from the rips like dark eyes.
I didn't often feel rage, but cold fire burned in my veins at what had been done to the other woman-and what sort of torture Elliot Slater had in store for Finn if I didn't save him. For a moment, I felt almost crazed with this burning need to kill the giant and everyone else here, everyone who had hurt Roslyn and Finn.
The giant put one hairy knee on Roslyn's stomach. The vampire thrashed weakly against him, but he would have been much too heavy for her to dislodge, even if she'd been free of the ropes and at full strength. I gathered my own will and waited until the giant leaned over Roslyn, trying to force the gag into her bloody mouth before I spoke.
"Having fun yet, you sick bastard?" I growled.
The giant's head whipped around to me. His mouth fell open, and he started to sputter out some excuse about what he was doing. But it was too late for that. Much, much too late.
I threw myself at him. My knives flashed like liquid silver in the light. And someone else's blood besides Roslyn's spattered onto the ivory comforter.
Less than a minute later, the dead giant thumped to the floor. I wiped my bloody knives off on the comforter, then used them to saw through the ropes that bound Roslyn to the bed. The vamp turned her head to look at me. I didn't know if she could see me through her battered, black eyes, so I reached forward and gently squeezed her hand.
"It's Gin," I said in a low voice.
"Gin?" Roslyn whispered through her bloody, swollen lips. "You. . . came. . . for me? After. . . I left. . . Jo-Jo's. . . Why. . . would you. . . do that?"
I stared at the vampire's body, at all the horrible things that had been done to her on the outside, and all the other horrible things that I couldn't see on the inside. All the things that might never, ever heal. All the things that I'd brought down upon her when I'd asked her to help me get into Mab Monroe's party. The guilt from it made me sick, and I knew that it always would. I was Roslyn's now, and I always would be. Whatever she needed, I would freely give to her, anytime, anyplace.
Still, I made my voice as gentle as I could, given the cold rage and sharp guilt still burning and twisting through my veins.
