CHAPTER 2

The men dragged her across the courtyard and into a two- story manor with a tiled roof as opposed to the thatched roofs she’d always seen in jungle buildings. Icy cold air hit her as the double doors opened onto a lavish interior. The exact details of it all were lost in a blur as the men quickly hauled her up the stairs, not even giving her a chance to make her muscles work. Stabbing pain shot up her legs every time her feet thudded against a wooden step.

She gritted her teeth, determined not to cry out again. A short distance down a corridor, they brought her through double doors into a large, dimly lit bedroom.

“Up, puta,” said one of the men as he kicked at a woman lying on a pallet on the floor.

The woman rolled to her feet, brandishing a knife in her hand. She lashed out at the man who kicked her, but sadly did not come close enough to his crotch to harm him. Her quick agility revealed a youthfulness that couldn’t be seen in her harsh features and scarred visage. At some time point her face had been cut numerous times.

He laughed.

“Someday, Ysalane will cut your heart out.” Her dark eyes and deep voice were filled with hatred.

“You aim too low, bruja.” “No, I aim just right.”

“El jefe wants his bride ready to please him by tonight or you die,” the man said. He then released his hold on Marissa, as did the other man. She stumbled and nearly fell before she gained enough balance to stay upright.

The men left, laughing.

“Bathroom, please,” Angela said to the woman, her words and voice barely discernible.

The woman pointed with the knife to a door across the room.

Angela felt as if it were miles away. Nevertheless, she put one foot in front of the other, managing to latch on to the wall and a dresser to help her navigate the opulent room until her body began to function better. Herrera had to have stolen a great many centavos from her uncle to have built all of this. She wondered exactly where in the Belizean rain forest they were. Were they close to the remains of Corazón de Rojo? Or had Herrera built this compound close to the Guatemalan border, making escape even harder?

Reaching the door, she opened it to find a spalike bathroom meant for many—and considering the manacles installed in the tiled shower and huge tub, not all were willing. She shivered in dread. Somehow she had to get out of the compound, but first she needed to regain her strength and to find out where she was while managing not to get her throat cut by the knife-wielding Ysalane.

Angela washed her hands, took several tentative sips of water from the faucet, then looked at her raw and bleeding wrists. She was sure her ankles were in as bad a shape. Suddenly the door she thought she’d locked swung open.

Ysalane entered with a pile of towels and brightly colored material in her hands. “You will do all that I command you to do or I will call Carlos and Emilio back to force you and theywill have the added pleasure of watching you be groomed for el jefe, bien?”

No, it was not fine, but Angela kept her mouth shut, closely watching the woman set down the bundle she carried. Lighting a candle, she went to dozens of dishes throughout the room, around the tub, upon the tables, along the counters, and set a thin trail of rising smoke from each. Soon a sweet aroma heavily scented the air. She then turned the water on to fill the huge, circular tub and added bubbling salts. Steam puffed up quickly, taking the chill from the room.

Angela braced herself as Ysalane walked toward her. “Let me see your wrists.” Surprised, Angela tentatively held out her arm.

Ysalane shook her head. “It will sting badly in the water, but they need to be cleaned or the infection will come. Many in the jungle die from such stupid things. I have a salve that will help the healing. It is from my Mayan ancestors. You will like it.”

Angela pulled her arm back. “Why do you care?”

Ysalane narrowed her eyes; her upper lip had been cut on the right side in the past, causing her to have a twisted smile. Behind the scarred mask, Marissa could see that the woman had been pretty once. “I care for nothing but myself. The less you hurt now the more you’ll be able to hurt later and the more you’ll be able to please el jefe. Then I will not suffer more from his displeasure.” She gestured to her face. “Whatever you prize most, he will destroy first.”

Angela grabbed her chest as her stomach flipped and her heart thudded to a standstill before racing with horror. In the dead of night at Corazón de Rojo, it was whispered that Herrera used knives on women, but she still found herself gasping. “He...he did that to you?”

“He is a vampire. He likes to drink blood, but he will never bite you to get it, for then you could become a vampire and be just as powerful as he is. You get him to bite you, you will be a very lucky woman.”

Angela shuddered. “You think being damned forever lucky?”

She shrugged. “I live in hell now. What would be the difference, except I would no longer be a slave puta? I could cut off all the penes I want and nobody could touch Ysalane, no?”

Swallowing hard, Angela had no doubt the woman would do just that.

“Enough for now,” Ysalane said. “We’ve much to do and you must have time to rest, as well. I will go fix fruit and cheese for you to eat and you will get in the tub to clean yourself. Otherwise Carlos and Emilio will put you there. They stand guard in the corridor, so do not think to escape. Also, there are many of el jefe’s armed hombres everywhere.” She left, not waiting for an answer.

Angela stood quietly in the steamy, smoke-filled room until she heard the outer door shut. There were no windows in the bathroom, so she raced to the bedroom. All of the windows were thick plate glass, tinted black, with no way to open them except shattering them. Moving quietly, she went to the double doors and set her ear to the crack between.

She didn’t hear anything. Grabbing the handle, she slowly turned it, surprised to find it wasn’t locked. Just before she clicked the door open, she heard a male voice. “Do you think el jefe is really going to marry that woman? She has breasts to bite , to suck, but no ass to squeeze.”

“Silencio. Before he hears and kills us both.” A loud pop followed.

“Ow. M****a! What was that for?”

“Do you not know who she is?” Carlos’s voice lowered to a

hiss.

“She is Vasquez’s puta niece. What makes her so special?”

“She inherited his billions. Oil stock and gold and money. El jefe marries her, he becomes one of the richest men in the world.”

The blood drained from Angela head and she nearly fell forward into the door. Heiress? Billions? Me?

“Carlos, what gives el jefe, who is already rich, the right to become richer? Why can’t you, say, or I marry the puta?”

“Maybe we will. Maybe she will try to escape and we can pretend she got away,” Carlos answered with a laugh.

Instead of opening the door, Angela slowly released the handle and locked it. She headed to the bathroom, not doubting that Ysalane would employ Carlos and Emilio if Angela didn’t bathe herself.

This time she made sure the bathroom door was locked. Steam and incense billowed around her as she quickly undressed and climbed into the bubbly froth in the tub. At first her wrists and ankles stung as if her uncle’s flesh- eating ants were gnawing at her skin, but she gritted her teeth and sank beneath the water. Soon the pain lessened and the warmth of the water soothingly eased into her sore muscles.Guilt descended on her the moment she began to relax, her mind immediately going back to Ramos and her friends in Twilight. Inhaling the sweet air, she tried to ease the heavy tightness in her heart with prayer. She hoped that miracles had found their way to her friends—then pleaded for a miracle for herself.

Fighting tears, she breathed deeper, and the more she did the more a floating sensation crept over her. She felt as if all that had happened weren’t real, that it was an odd dream. When the water reached the level of her neck, she barely realized that she needed to turn it off, for her mind wandered between her bath and flashing images of the black wolf of her dreams.

She ran through a moonlit forest, the black wolf at her side. His sleek coat gleaming. His powerful form emanating majesty and grace. His golden eyes fierce...Ramos' eyes. Then suddenly, she could feel the heat of Ramos' skin beneath her fingers and the rough edge of his jaw as she’d bathed him when ill. His warlike features—strong brow, hooked nose, and square jaw—were too sharply angled for beauty, but so compelling that she couldn’t stop herself from gazing at him. The wonder of his male body made her hands itch to touch more, to know more, to feel everything about him—the silky thickness of his long dark hair, the solid strength of his broad shoulders, and the supple heat of his taut muscles sculpting his chest and arms. He wore a large amulet of iridescent golden bronze that was warm as sunshine and as mysterious as the heavens. She couldn’t stop herself from running her fingers across the soft hair of his chest and following its thin trail down his rippling stomach, but didn’t dare dip below where the sheet covered him—she wanted her frito, though. She wanted to know everything about him. Her body grew hot, practically burning in secret places as she looked at him and touched him. He was a hewn and honed warrior from a place she did not understand, one who had fought hard to save her, a woman he didn’t even know.

She didn’t understand all of the magic surrounding Ramos and his wolf spirit, but she’d known such dark evil from her vampire uncle and men like Herrera that she had very little trouble in believing there were magical men like Ramos who fought against such depravity. There had to be, or all would be lost.

Even now she felt as if she were drowning in the darkness surrounding her, sinking into a deep, bottomless pit. When she thought of Herrera, what he would do to her tonight, she couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t face such violation of her body and heart. She’d rather die—

Pain burned her scalp as her long hair was jerked hard enough to pull her upward. She blinked the water out of her eyes and suddenly found that she could breathe again. Ysalane was there, shaking her, speaking loudly words that Marissa couldn’t seem to understand, but it was all right. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. All Marissa wanted to do was float, so she closed her eyes and dreamed...

The wolf. Ramos. The wolf. Ramos. She was with one, then the other, upon a misty cloud beneath the stars and the moon. With the wolf she ran free. With Ramos she tentatively touched what she’d never before desired—a man.

Suddenly a sharply pungent odor burned her nose. She tried to turn away from it, but someone held her down.

“M****a! Wake up! Wake up!” Ysalane’s voice was sharp and caused Angela's head to ache.“You used too much of the drug. Someday that Magic smoke concoction will kill someone,” said a male voice.

Angela blinked her eyes open to find Ysalane and a balding, leathery-faced man hovering over her. She was no longer in a tub with steam and smoke swirling around her, but on a bed in a dimly lit room. The man held a vial to her nose and Ysalane had a strong grip on Angela's chin and forehead. Her body tingled from head to toe and she immediately realized that she was naked beneath the covers.

“Stop! Let go of me,” Angela demanded, reaching up and pushing the vial from her nose. She struggled to pull her thoughts together. Her mind didn’t want to cooperate. Drug? Magic smoke? Ysalane had drugged her in the bathroom?

“You are lucky, Ysalane,” the old man said, backing away, taking his vial with him. “Very lucky that she wakes. El jefe would have killed you if she died.”

Ysalane let go of Angela and Angela crossed her arms over her chest, anchoring the blanket tightly to her breasts. Dios. What had happened to her?

Ysalane pushed at the old man. “You go now. She has much to learn and little time left.”

“I go. But you may want to say good-bye to Pedro now. My heart cannot take too much more of going up the stairs here and down the stairs to the wine cellar. That is all I have done today. Up and down. Pedro, do this. Pedro, come here. Pedro, go there.”

“Bah. Call that hellhole what it is. A mazmorra, where he tortures at whim. Who does he have down there now? Another man who decided he did not want to work for el jefe anymore?”Dungeon? Herrera had a dungeon? Angela shivered.

“No one Pedro knows. But el hombre es muy grande. El jefe brought him at the same time that he brought her and he needed Pedro’s medicine, too. I go rest before someone calls Pedro again.” The old man put a stopper on the vial he held and stuffed it into a black bag that had been sitting on the end of the bed.

Angela's mind raced. A very large man. Brought at the same time I was. Ramos? Was it possible? She’d last seen him lying in the mud after being stabbed in the back. A monstrous-looking vampire called Cinatas had stepped on Ramos' back in triumph. No. It wasn’t possible. There’d been too much blood gushing from the knife wound. For a man to bleed like that for so long and live was impossible. But her heart wasn’t hearing any of the logic her mind recited. It thumped with hope. Somehow she had to get to the dungeon, which meant finding some clothes and leaving this bed.

She sat up and the room whirled around her before coming to a wavering stop. That all-over tingling feeling had yet to go away. She glared at Ysalane. “What did you do to me?”

“Gave you Magic smoke. It makes things much easier for Ysalane to ready you for el jefe and to assure him of your virginity.”

“You drugged me and...and touched me?” Angela shuddered, sure she would be sick at any moment. She swallowed hard. “You are an evil monster.”

“No. Tonight you will have an evil monster and tomorrow you will beg Ysalane for Magic smoke to make the pain go away. Tomorrow you will beg me to touch you to help you heal. You think el jefe only likes to cut and suck blood from my face? Think again.”

 Angela covered her mouth, fighting the nausea churning in her stomach. “Where are my clothes? I need my clothes.”

“You cannot have clothes yet. Not until el jefe is sure you will not try and escape. It is the first rule for all women he brings for his enjoyment. Now you must prepare yourself for tonight so you will not be too frightened. He will be very angry if you faint and cannot show him how pleasured you are with his touch and the pain he will gift you with. You read first, then Ysalane will answer any questions or show you how to position yourself for el jefe’s enjoyment.”

The woman shoved a book in Angela's lap. Angela looked down at a sickening photograph of a naked woman, spread- eagled with her arms and legs tied upon a stone altar in a dungeon. There were chains on the walls and awful-looking apparatuses nearby that screamed torturous pain. The dark shadow of a man stood at the woman’s feet and he held a whip aloft, ready to lash into her. The title swam in the tears filling Angela’s eyes. The Ecstasy and Agony of Pain and Sex. She threw the book aside as if it were a poisonous snake, her heart beating wildly. She didn’t know much about the physical relationship between a man and a woman, but she knew that pain should have no part in it.

Ysalane picked up the book. Opening to an inside page, she shoved the picture in Angela's face. It showed a woman on her knees. The man in front held her by the hair, his member stuffed into her mouth. “Carlos and Emilio would enjoy holding you still while I show you all these things. Maybe even give you a little taste of what is to come, sí?”

Angela shook her head, choking on the rage inside her. She would not do this. She would not be a part of this, even if she had to die to keep it from happening.Ysalane clearly took Angela's cry as one of surrender because she turned to another page and lovingly caressed the awful image. “I have learned to love pain and you will, too.”