Kitty and the Dead Man’s Hand

I searched for an unlocked backstage door and found it around the corner from the box office, an emergency exit tucked away from the main thoroughfare. I shoved through it to a darkened corridor and kept going. I didn’t have time to get my bearings, to catch the scent of anything but generic backstage smells, compounded by the reek of lycanthropes in the heart of their territory. My vision was going fuzzy, with the Wolf’s way of seeing in light and shadow that was much better suited for prairie and forest than a Vegas hotel.

Then I stopped. This was ridiculous. I couldn’t take on a pack of lycanthropes by myself. And did I seriously think they would listen to me while I gave them a reasoned argument about why they should let Ben go? That wasn’t going to work. This wasn’t the way to go about doing this. I hadn’t heard back yet from any of my contacts. But that didn’t mean I was on my own. I pulled out my phone and called information to get to the Hanging Gardens casino switchboard, then get a hold of casino security. Much more practical than me charging in there and getting myself killed. This was their job, after all.

But it was already too late. I heard footsteps down the corridor, heavy and barefoot, skin against concrete. The door where I’d come from opened again, and two men came through—members of Balthasar’s pack. Our gazes met, and I could see the hunt in their eyes.

They were behind me. Another one, bare-chested, corded muscles bunching along his chest and arms, appeared in front of me. Inside me, Wolf snarled.

Wasn’t much of a chase. I had nowhere to run. In a heartbeat, one of the lycanthropes was on top of me. The other one closed me in a bear hug, lifting me off the floor, and the third locked my legs together and held tight. I only had a chance to scream once before one of them clamped down on my face, shutting my mouth.

Running almost, they carried me away. I couldn’t see anything but wall passing by.

I had a tough choice. I writhed, kicked, fought as much as I could. But not too much. Wolf was howling, clawing at the inside of my skin, crazy to get out, break free, get us away from here. I hadn’t done such a great job keeping us safe, now it was her turn.

But I couldn’t let that happen, I couldn’t shift. I tried to stay calm, keeping my thoughts in order, keeping my body in its current shape. Keep it together, keep it together. Instinct was one thing, but I wanted to see where they were taking me and if Ben was okay. There’d still be time to break out of here.

Fight. Flee.

Soon. Please, keep still.

My throat rattled with her growl.

We stopped. I kicked, arched my back, trying to get a look, but the men who held me were quick and powerful. Their hands pulled and wrenched me until I gasped. Metal closed over my wrists and I thought, Not silver, please, no —but the bindings didn’t itch or burn. Normal steel manacles secured my wrists now, bound to chains bolted to a cinderblock wall.

Normal ? Oh yeah, right.

They didn’t just lock me in the chains, oh no. They pressed close. They took advantage of their proximity to me and pawed, rubbed, smelled. Their breaths blew through my shirt, caressed my rib cage, teased along my throat. A tongue ran along the edge of my ear; I shook away from it, and someone chuckled. Three sets of hands moved along my body, from throat to breast, across my belly, from thigh to crotch. I swallowed a scream.

“Enough,” said a theatrical voice, echoing.

The bodies of my captors moved away from me, and I could finally look around. I shook my hair out of my face so I could see.

I was in a small, bare room, my feet on a concrete floor, my arms stretched to each side and chained to the wall. It might have been a storage room at one time, but it had been cleared out. Now the place smelled of sweat, sex, and blood. I had a feeling I wasn’t the first person to be brought here and chained to the wall. Arrayed before me were Balthasar and most of his troupe. No Nick. Avi, the young one, stood off to one side, huddled near the wall, arms crossed, looking hungrily at me. I bared my teeth at him and was gratified when he looked away.

Balthasar stood in the middle of it all, only a few feet away from me. Too bad I could move only a few inches—no chance to pull away. And no chance to pounce at him in an attack. He gazed at me, satisfied, like a hunter who had trapped elusive prey. He was relaxed, arms at his sides, a faint smile touching his lips. He didn’t see a person, he didn’t see me.

My vision wavered, Wolf swimming behind my eyes. She was glaring out at them all. I clenched my hands until my nails dug into my palms.

Keep it together.

“You’re all sick fucks, you know that?” I said.

“Oh, shh, now,” Balthasar said to me. “I know this is hard.”

I felt like the jackals were circling. “Where’s Ben?”

Unconcerned, he said, “I don’t know. We don’t have him, but his disappearance seemed like a good way to lure you back here after you ran off. I got his shirt out of your hotel room.”

It’s a trap, Grant had said, and of course he’d been right. I’d known all along. And been stupid enough to think I could outwit it.

The alpha lycanthrope continued. “We’ll get to him soon enough, if we use you as bait.”

Now? Change now? Wolf growled.

No. I wasn’t sure we could break out of the chains, even as a wolf. Wait. Just wait. Balthasar wanted something from me, or I wouldn’t be here. I wanted to find out what.

I faked a laugh. “You really don’t like werewolves, do you?”

“That’s not true,” he said, stepping forward, close enough to reach out and brush his hand on my cheek. I pulled away, as much as I could, which wasn’t much. “I love werewolves.”

I bared my teeth and choked on my own growl. “What do you want?” I said.

“I want to test a theory,” he said, that damned smile touching his lips again. He was used to women falling all over him. Why’d he have to chain me to a wall?

“Theory?” I said, sputtering.

He stood in front of me, his gaze searching mine. I resisted an urge to look away. It was hard. He was stronger than me, I suspected. If I didn’t challenge him, I might get out of this. Wolf logic talking. I didn’t know what was going to get me out of this.

Balthasar said, “Tell me about your pack.”

This wasn’t the time to discuss werewolf social dynamics. I had an irrational fear—he’d go after them next. Go all the way to Denver to take out my people. I didn’t want to say anything. But he kept staring at me.

“I have a very nice pack,” I said, and it was true. “My own little family.”

“And who did you kill to get to be the alpha of your nice little family?”

“How do you know I did?”

“Because that’s how it works. You didn’t start out on top. In fact, if I had to make a guess, I’d say a pretty little thing like you started out damned near the bottom and had to fight her way up.”

I didn’t confirm or deny it. I may not have started out on top, but that didn’t mean I had to admit I’d started out on the bottom of the pecking order. And this was way too much innuendo.

“In fact,” he said, inching closer. I could feel his breath on me now. I couldn’t wriggle away from it. “I think you miss it a little.”

“Miss what?”

“Being the submissive. Letting someone else make the decisions. Not having any responsibility. You just have to lie back and take it. I think you miss showing your throat and belly to a big bad wolf.”

I remembered those days. Not so long ago, really. My alpha said jump, and I jumped, every time, and adored him for it. Abuse was still attention. We all competed for his attention, and sometimes the best way to get it was by showing your belly faster than anyone else. It was all tied up in sex, ego, and control, and when I was first brought into the pack, I was a sheltered suburban kid who’d never been exposed to that kind of world. I didn’t know what else to do but what I was told. I was older now. I’d seen a lot more. I knew a lot more. I didn’t have to lie back and take it if I didn’t want to.

Inside me, Wolf whined. Just a little bit. “That’s awfully presumptuous of you.”

“You don’t deny it.”

“And what do you expect me to do now, show you my throat and beg for it?”

He didn’t wait for me to show it to him. He took it, pitching forward, bracing one arm behind my back, and putting his mouth over my neck while his other hand held my breast. He kissed, sucked, nibbled, while pulling me close to him, like he could swallow me with his body. Pointed canine teeth—thick, like fangs—pressed into my skin. I flushed, heat and anger spreading from my gut through my whole body.

Then I thought: great. He wanted to rape me right here, in front of all his followers, and maybe he’d give them all a go at me. It settled me a little bit. Settled me enough. Because if that was all he did, all they did to me, I’d survive it. I knew I could survive it and get over it. It wouldn’t be the worst that could happen.

Didn’t mean I had to sit back and take it, either. There was a time when I would have. I laughed a little, at how far I had traveled since those days. It wasn’t nice, happy laughter. It was mocking. That made him pause; he must not have understood how I could possibly resist his ministrations. How I could not simply fall back into the role of the submissive, chained to the wall like so much meat, begging for more more more.

I may have been chained up, but when he pulled away, I knew I had a little bit of control. A tiny little bit. I could work with that. He looked at me, studying me, as if he could see what I was thinking. His eyes had turned an inhuman shade of green, glowing almost, slitted, smug like a cat’s.

I smiled. “Actually, I don’t miss it. My alpha always managed to ignore my safe word.”

Then I kicked. Braced against the chains and swung up, as hard as I could, realizing I probably couldn’t do much damage—especially since his followers were arrayed behind him, watching and waiting. The shackles cut into my wrists.

My kick caught Balthasar in the gut. He fell back but quickly regained his balance. I didn’t wait, kicking again, aiming for his face. He scrambled back, batting my foot away, and bared his teeth, which were sharper than they had been. Inside me, Wolf howled, cheering. She was close to punching through my control. My shoulders strained, pulled back at the wrong angle for Wolf’s body. If we changed now, it would hurt, far worse than usual. I hung there, gasping, legs bent and ready to kick again, panting, feeling fur at the surface of my skin.

I didn’t know what to expect. Some men might have hit me, frustrated that I’d slipped out of their control. He might have laughed and kept on with the rape. His face was a mask. Right up until he smiled. Like a Cheshire cat.

He announced to his followers. “She’s ready. It’s time.”

Huh?

The henchmen snapped the chains from their hooks, peeled me off the wall, and trussed me up for another round of dragging. This time, I was mostly upright, mostly face forward, so I could sort of see where we were going. Where we were going was through a doorway, a different one than they’d brought me through, as far as I could tell.

We emerged onto the stage for the Balthasar, King of Beasts show. The ziggurat loomed before us.

This had to be a joke.

The stage was dark except for lit torches. Real ones this time, pitch and flame, not the gaslit ones for the show. This close, they stank of burning tar and filled the air with smoke that made my eyes water. Patterns in the fake stone of the ziggurat emerged, images in relief that seemed to move in the flickering firelight. They were like the pictures from Balthasar’s suite: processions of oxen with the heads of men, stalking lions, bird-people, and nameless demons continued here, but they were more complex, more threatening.

They dragged me to the front of the ziggurat, to the two stone pillars where Balthasar was chained for the show. But that was a show, and this was real, performed in an empty theater for the