Page 7 of Blood Moon (La Famiglia De Luca)

Chapter 6

Tinsley

“ Play With Fire”—Sam Tinnesz (feat. Yacht Money)

M y head was pounding, and my mouth felt like I’d been eating cotton balls. As I rolled to my side, my cheek slid on the satin pillowcase.

Wait.

Satin?

My eyes popped open, and I lifted my head to see where the hell I was. The last thing I remembered was stepping into the portal to come home with that coin. Except it was dark as pitch in the room.

Dammit. Had I arrived back here horny as fuck and gone to bed with some stranger?

Feeling down my chest and body, I found I was still dressed in my vintage hot pink Christian Dior suit. My shoes were missing, but I was dressed. Though the insides of my thighs were soaked, I breathed a sigh of relief. The needy ache that was there told me I hadn’t slept with anyone. Not yet, anyway.

But where am I?

When I sat up, bright lights snapped on, and I squeezed my eyes shut at the almost painful invasion of my poor eyes. After they adjusted to the lights seeping through my lids, I cautiously opened them.

My jaw dropped.

Because surely I was seeing things.

Rubbing them and blinking rapidly didn’t change my view.

I was behind bars.

In a giant… gold… cage .

Like an actual giant, golden fucking birdcage! I got to my feet and straightened my clothes as I slowly padded to the bars. In disbelief, I reached out and touched the cold metal. If I thought they would dissolve as figments of my imagination, I was dead wrong.

As panic seeped in, I rushed around to the door. It didn’t budge when I pushed on it, nor when I shook it. My heart hammered, and as my lips and face started to tingle, I knew I was starting to hyperventilate. “Calm down,” I told myself as I took a slow, deep breath, held it as long as I could, and slowly let it out. I did those box-breaths several more times before I trusted myself not to pass out.

There was enough room that I could slide my arm out, but there wasn’t a handle. Of course, there wasn’t. I could feel the old-fashioned opening for a key, but no lever or knob. Pushing the panic down, I dug deep and grabbed onto my fury that someone dared to lock me up in a fucking cage like an animal.

My gaze swept the interior of the cage, looking for something that I could use to escape. I tried under the bed, but it was on a platform that was bolted to the floor. “Ugh!” I groaned in frustration. In my temper, I jerked the sheets from the bed and threw them.

Of course, my phone was nowhere to be found. Nor was my purse. That was the part that had me almost slipping into panic again. My fairy dust was in there.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Supposedly, no one else could use it—but still. I couldn’t just lose it. I’d discovered that it wasn’t so much the fairy dust; it was the black velvet bag. Call it magic, call it whatever, that bag simply replenished itself.

I had no idea how long I’d been there. I couldn’t see more than a few feet outside the cage.

“Argh! Let me out of here, you fucker!” I shouted as I gripped the bars and tried to shake them. There was no response, not that I expected one, nor did the bars budge.

My bottom lip trembled, but I refused to cry. Holding the bars, I slid down, sitting with my legs folded to the side. My shoulders dropped, and I stared blankly out into the darkness.

I thought I heard a faint sound, and my eyes strained to see where it was coming from. With the lights overhead and pitch black around me, it was hard to tell. There was also the very real possibility that I’d imagined it.

“I want to start by saying I’m sorry,” a familiar voice said, startling me.

“Then let me go!” I shouted.

“I can’t,” it sounded almost… forlorn. I was trying to place the voice, but it was eluding me.

“What do you want? Money? My brother will pay. Hell, let me go and I’ll pay my damn self.”

“If only it was that easy,” he murmured. Warning bells were going off in my head, and my body seemed to tingle because I knew I should recognize the voice.

Something strange was happening as well. It was as if there was a strong pull toward that voice. Like a string was attached to the inside of my chest, tugging me toward the man who spoke. Before I realized it, I was on my feet. Like I was a piece of metal and he was a powerful magnet, I was drawn to the other side of the cage.

“Why isn’t it?” I softly asked. Because though instinct would have me screaming and yelling to be set free, this ball of heat in my chest grew. Something deep within my soul wanted to take away that sad tone from his voice. My heart thudded, and my pussy throbbed. My body seemed to be highly in tune with whoever he was.

“I need you to do something for me.”

“Anything,” I blurted out before I could think twice. Shit, that was dumb.

“Take me back in time.”

My jaw dropped, and I took a literal step back. “What?”

“Today… you went back in time approximately thirteen years, didn’t you?”

A chill skated over my skin, radiating to my extremities. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, I think you do. I think you saw a middle school boy today—bumped into him even. His phone went down the sewer grate. You gave him a hundred dollars,” he dropped each word like they were an atomic bomb.

My stomach lurched, and I swallowed the lump that had suddenly formed in my throat. How could he possibly know that?

“I was that boy,” he answered in a tone that screamed “checkmate.”

“What?” I gasped.

“I remembered you for years. I’d go so far as to say I developed an instant crush on you that day. I looked for you every single time a blonde woman crossed my path. It didn’t matter to me at the time that you were a grown woman and I was an adolescent schoolboy. It’s utter insanity, but I think I knew then that you were always supposed to be mine.” There was a muted rustle before the lights slowly brightened the room.

A quick glance around scared me more than anything. The room appeared to be some kind of sex room. I wasn’t an idiot, and I recognized some of the things. It wasn’t like in that book that became a movie. It didn’t seem to be a torture chamber or anything; it was, however, very sensual with lots of sexually entertaining items.

The lump in my throat grew, and I fought down the panic at the thought that I’d possibly been sex trafficked.

That’s when I noticed him.

I sucked in a startled breath at the broad-shouldered man dressed in a black, long-sleeved compression shirt and black cargo pants. He wore a ski mask with a skull printed on it. His eyes were the only thing visible, and I couldn’t look away. I wanted nothing more than to melt into their warm brown depths.

He reached through the bar and brushed the backs of his tanned fingers over my cheek.

Like a cat, I practically purred as I leaned into his touch. A small voice in my head screamed at me to stop—told me this was craziness. I wasn’t in some dark romance book. Nor had I been his captive long enough to be suffering from Stockholm Syndrome. Yet, I was helpless to stop him.

Instead, I wrapped my fingers around his wrist, holding him close to me.

“You feel it too, don’t you?” he whispered.

There was no explanation for the way I ached to be close to him.

He kidnapped me.

Put me in a cage.

Demanded I take him back in time. That shook me out of my stupor.

“I can’t take you back in time.”

“I’m sure you’ll find a way,” he firmly insisted.

“You don’t understand… I’ve never done that. I have no idea what could happen. What if we get separated in the in-between and you end up somewhere else? No. I’m not doing it,” I stubbornly refused as I crossed my arms and scowled at him.

A chunk of hair fell over my eyes, and I blew it out of the way.

“You’re cute when you’re acting all huffy,” he observed, amusement coloring his tone.

For some reason, that only aggravated me further. “You know what? I should take you back. Maybe you’ll get jerked away from me and disappear somewhere in time,” I snapped.

It didn’t matter that I couldn’t see the rest of his face. His eyes spoke volumes, and I could tell his humor vanished like a puff of smoke before he softly said, “Maybe that would be for the best then.”

I refused to feel sorry for him, no matter how much my heart seemed to shatter with his solemn reply.

“I’m not taking you back anywhere or to any time ,” I childishly vowed. Then I spun on my bare feet and stomped back to the bed. My lip curled at the thought of what might’ve taken place on that mattress. I’d already been sleeping on it, though, so I grabbed the sheet and tossed it back on the bed. The slippery black satin slid off at first, and I growled in frustration. I snatched it up, threw it back on there, and spread it out. Then I took one of the pillows and slammed it down. It was highly unsatisfying. Hitting him upside the head with it would’ve made me happier.

For some inexplicable reason, I wasn’t afraid of him.

After curling up on the bed, I grumbled, “I’m hungry!”

He didn’t reply, but a little bit later, I smelled something that had my stomach growling. On principle, I didn’t want to turn to see what it was. Except the rumbling coming from me was a powerful motivator. Reluctantly, I looked over my shoulder to see that a tray sat over by the door. Evidently, there was a big enough gap under the door for him to slide it in. A bottle of water was on its side and there were two covered plates.

How I hadn’t heard him sneak it in, I wasn’t sure. There was also something black folded up next to the tray.

“Hello?” I called out, but there was no reply. The room around the cage was dark again, with the only lights in the room lit being the ones directly above my little prison.

Hunger got the better of me, and I went over to get the tray. Whatever it was, it smelled delicious. The folded pile turned out to be a pair of long-sleeve pajamas. I picked it all up and carried it back to the bed. When I lifted the chrome cover, I sighed at the delicious aroma coming from the plate of steaming pasta with a side of seasoned asparagus. A quick peek under the other lid revealed a slice of coconut cake that looked to die for.

“This better not be poisoned!” I shouted. Against my better judgment, I dug in. The first bite was an explosion of flavor, and I wondered where he’d gotten the food from. I actually caught myself moaning as I took the next bite. As I continued to eat the delectable meal, I inwardly plotted all the diabolical ways I could deal with my captor.

I imagined leaving him in the twelve hundreds. Then I imagined dropping him off on a pirate ship. Each scenario had me gloating with glee. When I imagined him separating into a cloud of molecules during the jump, I paused with the last bite of asparagus halfway to my mouth. That thought made my heart ache and my stomach turn. I set the fork back on the plate.

How was it possible that I had the slightest bit of empathy for my jailer’s well-being? There shouldn’t be a scrap of compassion in me for him. Yet, he hadn’t actually hurt me. Nor had he sexually taken advantage of my unconscious state.

I came to the conclusion that if the only way to be set free was to attempt to take him back in time, then I would do it. Hell, it may not work, and I’d have to act fast to escape. If it did work, I could simply leave him there. He wouldn’t get hurt, but he would need to be quick on his feet to figure out how to fit in and survive without a birth certificate or identification. A wicked grin lifted the corners of my mouth.

Appetite renewed, I lifted the cover off the cake with a flourish and proceeded to consume every crumb.

Then I hid under the flat sheet to change into the luxuriously soft sleeping clothes. I didn’t even give two shits that he hadn’t included a change of underwear. I simply went commando like I did every night.

With a full belly, I searched the area for a way to go to the bathroom. Of course, there wasn’t a secret trapdoor or anything that opened to reveal such a luxury.

“Dammit, you prick! I have to pee!”

Laughter echoed from overhead, and I looked up, startled.

“The door to your cage is open, my pretty little pixie. The bathroom is in the far right corner. You can’t miss it. There’s also a blanket folded on the couch. You can sleep there or on the bed—your choice.”

I jumped up and pushed on the door of my gilded cage, and it effortlessly swung wide.

“You fucker!” I shouted as the lights came on and I rushed toward where he said the bathroom was.

Once I was done, I immediately went to the room’s door. Of course, it was locked from the outside. Still, I banged on it before I flipped the room off, knowing he had cameras somewhere. There was a little scanner that I tried to use, knowing it wouldn’t work. I growled in frustration. Then I stormed to the couch, flopped down, and angrily covered myself. With one last scowl around the room, I covered my head with the blanket.

Surprisingly, I fell asleep easily… and dreamed I was a tiny fairy, trapped in a little cage on a pirate’s ship.