Last Kiss Goodnight

the side, staring at him. A giant cubby stretched over the driver and passenger seats, and the belly was almost too fat for the road.

He would have preferred something smaller, faster, sleeker, but there were no other trailers blocking the front of this one, so evacuation would be easy. He could carry Kitten and Vika away, no problem.

Yeah. He had a new plan.

Obstacle one still hadn’t changed: getting out of this cage.

Most times Jecis entered or left the area, he paid Solo no attention. Every so often, he would stop and stare, saying things like, “I’m lord and master here and I’ll break you yet. Just you wait.”

Audra stayed in the motor home every night. The two would call each other names, fight, have sex, then fight some more. Jecis was never afraid to use physical force, but he must have avoided the girl’s face, because she never emerged with visible bruises.

He wasn’t sure what he would have done if he’d heard Jecis beating Vika.

Vika, the contradiction. She’d sprung from the loins of the heartless Jecis, and yet she was kind. She’d helped Solo even though he’d heard Jecis order her to stay away, placing herself in danger.

Danger. From her own father. That wasn’t supposed to be the way of things. Especially with a female like her, handicapped by deafness, unable to hear her destruction coming, and as tiny as a fairy princess, unable to withstand very much abuse before breaking.

Even the thought of a single strike to any part of her body filled Solo with one of the darkest rages he’d ever experienced.

He wanted, needed, to talk with her. He could help her, and she could help him. She could be his biggest ally—he wanted her to be his biggest ally. But though she visited him three times a day, she never looked at him to read his lips.

Every morning she appeared mere minutes after Jecis’s departure, as if she was hiding somewhere close, watching and waiting. She returned in the afternoon, though never at the same time, and then again in the evening. She would give Solo food and water, and even rags and enzyme spray to clean himself, but she wouldn’t speak a word.

So many times Solo had almost grabbed her arm. If she wouldn’t talk to him, he couldn’t get her to help him. If he couldn’t get her to help him, he would have to force her. He would have to remove her thumb with his fangs or his claws, as he’d planned the first time he’d met her. Then he could hijack the trailer and drive her to a hospital, where the thumb could be reattached. But . . . he could never get past the image of her blood running down her arm as she clutched the wound to her chest. Could never get past the horror of hearing her scream from the pain. Could never get past the idea that she would cry.

Oh, if she cried, he would be a goner.

He was disgusted with himself. Freedom should come before anything, especially a woman partly responsible for his circumstances. Yet he’d come to accept two startling facts. With or without the vow, he wouldn’t be able to so much as scratch her and he had to include “keeping Vika safe from everyone else” in his plans.

“Feeling better, I see,” a female voice said, jerking him out of his head. “You’re even sitting up like a big boy. You must be so proud.”

He focused on the here and now. Audra was propped against the corner of his cage. She wore a black, bra- like top, with multicolored sequins sewn along the edges, a mix of yellow, blue, green, and red. Those same sequins were pasted to her bare shoulders and down her arms, along her—

One of the spider tattoos had moved from the inside of her elbow to her wrist.

Temporary tattoos, then. Though he’d never seen any that looked so real. He finished his study of her. Her middle was utterly bare. A pair of black panties covered her essentials, and a pair of fishnet stockings clung to her legs, though they were only visible to her knees. High-heeled boots looked painted to her lower calves and feet. A peacock tail rose from behind her, fanning up and out.

Her slick of dark, pink-striped hair was pinned into a bun, and her makeup was so thick and wild she almost appeared inhuman. Her eyes did appear inhuman. Contacts dusted the green with glitter. Her lashes were the color of the feathers, blue and green and black, fanning out over her brows and temples.

“Still have nothing to say to me?” she asked, and sucked a lollipop into her mouth.

One of the spiders popped its legs from her skin and walked down her arm.

No way. Just no way. Had to be the drugs, messing with his mind. He had to be hallucinating. “What would you like me to say?”

Lick. A slow, sensuous grin curled the corners of her lips, and she hummed her approval. “Why don’t you start with how beautiful I am?” Liiick.

She was beautiful, there was no denying that, but Solo knew better than most how deceptive appearances could be. He’d never been one to judge by exterior.

The one and only girl he’d dated had lived on the farm next door to his. Plain but sweet Abigail, whom X had liked but hadn’t wanted him to date and whom Dr. E had despised and had wanted him to bury in his backyard. Abigail was the first and only girl to ever want the man and not the monster. He’d picked her up every time she’d had too much to drink, protected her any time she traveled into the city at night, and helped her climb through her bedroom window whenever she’d snuck out. She’d kissed him a thousand times, said a thousand thank-yous, but had never given him anything more. Despite that, she had genuinely seemed to care for him—but only ever when they were alone.

One day, indignation had gotten the better of him and he’d given her a choice. Take all of him, all the time, in front of everyone, or have none of him. She had cried, she had begged him to remain in her life, but in the end she had been unwilling to change and so he had walked away.

He had never looked back.

Vika, he would think about forever, he suspected. His attraction to her scorched deeply, inexorably, and not just because she was exquisite, the loveliest female he’d ever beheld. Again, looks mattered little to him and he would have liked her if she’d been as ugly as, well, an Allorian. It was the way she’d treated him. As if he mattered.

What was he going to do with that girl?

He couldn’t troubleshoot with Dr. E and X—not that he was on speaking terms with either. Both males had abandoned him during the whipping and had only returned in quick snatches, vanishing the moment he opened his mouth.

“Well?” Audra demanded.

“I will not say any such thing,” he announced.

She straightened, her grin morphing into a scowl. “I have seen you transform into the ugliest beast alive, and yet you think you’re better than me. Well, I’ll put you in your place,” she said softly, fiercely, “right underneath me.”

She held out her arm, and the spider actually leapt from her skin and onto one of the bars of the cage. Okay, there was no way that was a hallucination. Eight legs crawled across the metal, tap, tap, tapping as the spider—

Hinges squeaked as the door to Jecis’s trailer opened. The male stepped into the light of day. Audra inhaled sharply, and the spider jumped back onto her arm.

Some kind of dark power was at work within the girl. Now that he concentrated, Solo could feel the crackle of it in the air. It was the same crackle Jecis and Matas emitted, only at a slighter degree. He would have to remain on guard around her.

Frowning, Jecis scanned the area. He spied Audra, and his frown intensified. He stomped toward the cage.

“What you are doing?” he demanded.

As Audra pasted a seductive smile on her face and wove a lie about Solo calling her over and asking her for food, Solo performed a scan of the area himself. Tent after tent, other trailers, but no hint of Vika.

A rock slammed into his left shoulder, and he glanced down, watching as jagged silver rolled to the floor of his cage.

“Are you listening to me? I said do not dare to speak to my woman again,” Jecis snarled. He curled his fingers around the bars and shook the entire wagon. “You got me? Otherwise I will kill you and send whatever’s left