Page 32 of Inhuman Nature

Lawrence stopped just before they got to the door that led to the basement. “Anything?”

The prospect of being shut alone in the dark for nights on end, hurt and hungry, had Shaun nodding.

Lawrence gave him a lopsided grin of the type Shaun had once found charming. Now, it just sent shivers down his spine. “What if I asked you to bring that couple here to feast on them?”

Shaun couldn’t deny that his mouth watered at the prospect of tasting Rake and DJ. It’d been hard enough during their scene to rein himself in. The thought of Lawrence getting his hands on them, however, felt wrong right down to his bones.

“You can’t hurt them. Lynette—”

Lawrence pulled Shaun’s face close to his own, his fingers looping around the ring in Shaun’s collar. “Lynette can’t do anything to stop me. She and her blindly devoted creations do not know how to run a successful territory, let alone monitor everything that goes on around them. I intend to prove as much.”

Shaun panicked as he twisted in Lawrence’s hold. It was a futile task; with little effort, Lawrence shoved him up against the wall.

“You will not stand in my way,” Lawrence said, giving in to his propensity for melodrama. “You’re a weak, pathetic little creature. You don’t even appreciate the gift I gave you.” He punctuated each point by slamming Shaun into the wall, his head taking the brunt of it. His vision blacked out as Lawrence rocked him, leaving him unable to hold himself up. Before he could recover, Lawrence pulled him down the basement stairs.

Shaun flailed as he hit each step with a brutal bang. He tried one more time. “Please don’t,” he sobbed, not needing to fake the waterworks.

“It’s too late for that,” Lawrence cooed as he unlocked the basement door. Shaun scrabbled at the bottom of the stairs, trying in vain to run back up them. Once Lawrence got him into the basement, there was no guarantee he’d ever make it out.

He only got as far as the second stair from the bottom before Lawrence had hold of him again, scruffing the back of his neck like a misbehaving kitten. “Submit to me now, and I’ll go easy on you.”

Shaun pressed his eyes shut as he let himself be steeredinto the basement.

“You are far too trusting, pet. I doubt you’ll make that mistake again after I teach you this lesson, however.”

The first hit wasn’t so bad, but the second one had him slipping into unconsciousness. He let the darkness claim him rather than fight for the light. It was, after all, where he belonged.

Shaun forced his eyes open. The stone wall was rough against his bare back as he shifted on the ground, his wrists weighed down by shackles. It took a few seconds to focus his vision. Lawrence was dragging something—someone—behind him as he entered the basement.

Shaun didn’t know what day it was, but given it must be nighttime again, it was likely a couple of days since Lawrence had begun his onslaught. Images flashed through Shaun’s mind like a nightmarish clip show. Flashes of barbed whips and savage bites and sharp knives and—

“Oh, good, you’re awake,” Lawrence said. “I’ve brought you some breakfast.”

Shaun’s stomach dipped as he took in every detail of the unconscious woman Lawrence dumped in front of him like a broken doll. White, in her mid-twenties, and with a familiar enough face that Shaun’s mind searched for where he knew her from.

The scent of fresh blood had his fangs itching. “Why her?” he rasped, voice rusty from having screamed himself hoarse. He covered his modesty with his hands, the links ofthe chains clinking and seeming to echo in the room.

“She’s caught Lynette’s interest,” Lawrence said. “Bitch deserves what’s coming to her.” It was nigh-on unheard of for Lawrence to select a woman to eat. Shaun supposed it made sense that Lawrence would only be interested in one as a form of revenge.

“Master, Lynette will sanction you for this.”

“There will be no evidence for Lynette to find,” Lawrence replied, grinning. They’d be banished for such an infraction, if they weren’t executed for it. The idea of never seeing Rake and DJ again—for either reason—made Shaun desperate.

It had been all that’d got him through the past few nights, thinking about when he came out the other end and could scene with the couple again. He hadn’t quite been able to pretend that Lawrence’s whip was the same as Rake’s crop, but it had helped to quiet his mind to the point that the pain dulled into something manageable.

Shaun looked again at the young woman. She had several cuts and bruises over her exposed arms and a pink, matted bloodstain on her head. “Lynette will notice that we’ve fed from her,” he said.

“Not if her body is at the bottom of the sea.”

“You can’t kill her.”

“I’m not going to.Youare.”

Shaun blinked. He’d never killed anyone before.

“That’s the deal, pet. You drain her to death, I let you out of the basement.”

“You can’t be serious.”