CHAPTER 4

“THERE, YOU make a beautiful bride. El jefe should be pleased and will show Ysalane good favor.”

“You will pay for your part in Herrera’s evil,” Angela said through clenched teeth. “There is a God and you will pay.” She kept her gaze directed at Ysalane rather than at the mirror she stood before. She wanted to shred the white satin and lace gown from her body on principle alone. But since she didn’t know when or where she’d find any clothing, she bore the humiliating finery, hating every second that she was once again forced to do, say, and be what she despised in order to survive.

The pictures of the twisted sex, blood, and death she’d seen made her feel violated, ugly, and so sick that she would rather die than be subjected to such a hell. Yet hope still beat inside her, urging her to hold on, to believe that freedom would once again be hers and that Ramos might be the large prisoner of which the old man spoke.

She had to find a way to the dungeon before tonight. She had to find a way to escape, because she knew her courage had gone as far as it could go. She didn’t have the strength to survive the rape of her body and her spirit that Herrera had planned. She shut her eyes against the travesty of the wedding gown, her heart crying out in protest.

Suddenly a sense of warmth washed over her, a gentle balm to her aching spirit. Ysalane screamed and Angela opened her eyes. The woman had her knife out, thrusting it into the air as if she were trying to frighten or ward off an invisible attack. A quick glance revealed they were still alone in the bedroom suite. Ysalane cried out again and ran from the room like a woman running from death.

Hernan Cortes Herrera hung up the phone, satisfaction and anticipation pumping up his already thrumming libido. Dusk would fall shortly and everything would be his. The necessary witnesses had now arrived. The music played and the guests chatted, excited no doubt by their method of travel to his compound—blindfolded and driven an hour in the wrong direction before being brought here. The priest had arrived. His marriage to Angela Valdez would be an indisputable fact and he’d have the controlling shares of SINCO. Nothing would be able to stop him then. Guatemala was a ripe plum just waiting to be plucked in a smooth coup d’état.

He’d taken every measure to assure h O | find ais compound remained secret from Cinatas and the other Vladarians, as well as from any humans besides the men he had stationed here. There’d be no interruptions of his wedding plans.

Nor of his wedding night. A virgin’s blood would be spilled— and drunk—willingly, because he had the one thing that would insure her full cooperation. He picked up the phone. “Is Rafael Valdez ready yet? I think his sister should have a chance to see her family before she marries.”

“Sí, jefe, he is ready for visitors.”

“Excelente.” Herrera disconnected and made his way to where Ysalane was preparing his bride. A night of pleasure for him, pain for her. He could already hear her cries, taste her blood, and feel the euphoria of having absolute sovereignty over the life and death of lesser beings.

He was destined for greatness, and nothing or no one would deny him. The power and wealth he had now were a step above the abuse, insignificance, and poverty he’d suffered as an orphan on the streets, but were nowhere close to the supremacy and riches that a descendant of Hernan Cortes de Monroy y Pizarro, the marques del Valle de Oaxaca, deserved. His ancestor had conquered, then left, but Hernan Cortes Herrera would conquer and rule.

Reaching the top of the stairs, he headed to the play suite, his lips tugging into a tight smile over his pulsing fangs. Besides his Heaven Room in the dungeon, it was his favorite arena for entertainment. He’d enjoyed many orgies with climactic bloodbaths in the spacious bath adjoining the suite. Perhaps later, he’d let his soon-to-be wife watch such a moving event. Everyone orgasming and dying at the same time. Once he’d taken her virginity on the altar in the Heaven Room, the playing field for his enjoyment of her would be wide open. He wouldn’t want another man to touch her, or impregnate her, of course, but seeing multiple women devour her treasures would be nice. By now, she should be dressed in the wedding finery he’d sent up a short time ago. He’d deliberated over what she should wear, but in the end the traditional white was the best choice—blood stood out against it in such a marvelous contrast.

Three steps from the double doors to the suite a scream sounded and Ysalane came barreling out. She held a knife in her hand, poised to attack anything in her path. Her eyes were wild with fear, more so than whenever he’d sliced her to drink her Elan blood. He stiffened his spine, outraged that she could possibly find something more frightening than him. He was the one with the life-or-death power over her.

“A terrible wolf god will come and we are doomed!” she cried as she rushed at him like a child seeking protection.

He stepped aside when she reached him and planted his fist against her back, shoving her to the floor. “What is this madness, puta?”

She scrambled to her knees and kept crawling away, desperate to escape.

Moving toward her, he grabbed her hair and jerked her head around to look him in the eye. “Answer me!”

“Ysalane has seen the future. You must send that woman away immediately or we will all die. Ysalane saw the god. Ysalane knows.”

For a moment he just stared at her in disbelief. What could Angela have said to have frightened this Mayan bruja? Ysalane had seen or been a party to practically every delicious depravity he’d committed at the compound since gaining power under Luis Vasquez. Drinking large quantities of her precious Elan blood was what had given him the strength to fight Samir and Cinatas for Angela and control of SINCO.

She could ruin it all with her prediction of an avenging god. He had to be the only all-powerful one, or he’d lose his choke hold on everyone.

“Silencio! There is no god. You tell anyone of this madness in your mind and I will kill you, Elan blood or not. Nothing is to interfere with my wedding, do you understand?”

“You will see. The god will come.”

He grabbed the knife from her hand and put it to her throat, nicking the skin just enough to draw blood. Then he leaned down and licked the sweetness, feeling it tingle warmly upon his tongue. “Go to my suite and wait for me. I will energize my body with your blood before the wedding. Nothing will defeat me, Ysalane, including your madness.” He would decide later whether to drain her of her blood completely or not. If he had another source of Elan blood, he wouldn’t hesitate, but until he did, he’d better keep her alive...barely.

First a little family reunion so that his blushing bride would know exactly what was at stake tonight and every night— literally—for her brother. It was one of his most gratifying tortures yet—the bed of sharp points piercing the flesh a millimeter at a time as heavy stones were added one by one. With a satisfied smile, he walked into the suite where Angela waited. It was going to be one hell of a night.

For a stunned moment, Angela just stood there, staring at the door Ysalane had slammed. Then it hit her. Her moment to escape had come. She rushed to the door and yanked it open, crying out at the sight of Herrera standing in the doorway, fanged grin and knife flashing.

Madre de Dios. Surely it wasn’t time yet? She wanted to throw herself on the knife he held or rip off an electrical plate and thrust her hand inside. Do anything, even if it was cowardly and damning, just to escape his plans.

“What’s this? An eager bride? So you liked the pictures of Herrera playing in his dungeon.”

Angela couldn’t hold back the shudder that gripped her as the chill of his undead being and the pure evil of him tightened like a hangman’s noose around her neck.

Herrara brought the knife to her throat. “Or perhaps you thought to escape?”

She pushed a little until she felt the knife prick her skin and warm blood ran down her neck. “Go ahead and kill me.”

He leaned down and licked the blood on her throat, making her feel as if a thousand rats were crawling over her soul. Jerking back, she glared at him. “Death would be preferable to being with you. Touch me and I will kill myself.”

His nostrils flared with anger as he narrowed his gaze. “You think to have power over me, puta? You think you can escape me? I will show you who has the power. There is someone in my dungeon whom you need to see. Then you will understand what exactly the consequences will be Eb znt,if you don’t willingly cooperate with everything I wish.” He grabbed her arm and pulled her from the room and down the hallway.

His icy touch burned into her skin, but no matter the price, Angela wasn’t about to turn down a chance to see Ramos. It had to be him in the dungeon.

She carefully memorized the way, taking note of everything in the rooms she passed. One interesting display in a long corridor was of ancient Spanish armor such as the conquistadors wore. Several hefty swords and long deadly spears were in a cabinet with two full suits of armor at each end. Opposite the cabinet was an enormous tapestry depicting the Spanish defeating the native Aztecs in a battle that had rivers of blood running through the stone streets. It wasn’t until she was even with the weaving that she realized the Spaniards all had vampire fangs.

In the dark of the night, her grandmother had whispered of bloodthirsty vampires descending and whole villages disappearing before dawn. Though Angela had suffered greatly at her vampire uncle’s hand and had lost five members of her family to the bastard, she hadn’t believed her grandmother’s stories about mass annihilation. Now she had to ask herself if whole civilizations had suffered such a fate.

“That is the Flying Nun,” he said, moving over to caress the contraption. “You lie on the straps facedown so that you are suspended horizontally, legs and arms wide like you’re flying. You’re naked, of course. There are no clothes permitted in Heaven. When you fly in this, Herrera then has access to every part of your body, your lovely breasts, your ass, your cuchara, everything. There is nothing I cannot do to you then. You will love the Flying Nun like I do, sí?”

Angela locked her knees and released the leather, sure that any second she’d faint. He went on to other apparatuses in the room, but she tuned him out to focus entirely on taking one breath at a time. She would not cave in to the horror. She would find a way out of this nightmare. She had to.

“You are speechless? Perhaps you will find your voice when I show you why you will be Herrera’s little La Chingada, eager to enjoy all of my heavenly treasures as often as I please,” he said, motioning her from the room. She fled the horror of the room as fast as she could. Back in the corridor, she saw the wrinkled old man whom Ysalane had called to help her exit the last red door on the left.

“Jefe,” he said, as if speaking to God, then made a bow so deep that Angela was sure she heard his bones crack. “There has been no change yet. Do you want for Pedro to bring el doctor?”

“Mañana,” Herrera replied. “What is it that you carry behind your back?”

The old man held up a fistful of long strands of black hair and grinned. “Hair for Pedro.”

Herrera laughed good-naturedly, the almost human sound and response only making the vampire seem that much more wicked. “You need a verga, old man, not hair. A pene muy grande, like Herrera.”Angela stared at the long black hair. Ramos had long black hair. No change? Doctor? Ramos had to be here.

Herrera grabbed a lock of her hair and gave it a tug. “Perhaps I will let him have yours, too. But then what would I hold on to when...”

Angela shut out his voice and cried out to Ramos with her mind. He’d come to her that way before, in her dreams when she was in Twilight and then at dusk when his wolf spirit had appeared. This time all she could feel was the deathly chill of the air. All she could hear was the pitiful moaning from down the hall. All she could see was the horrendous fanged monster standing before her.

He released her hair and shoved her in front of him. “Time for a little reunion,” he said.

She moved down the corridor, sure that whatever lay at the end was worse than anything Herrera planned to do to her.

She first saw the bottom half of a man lying upon a bed of what looked like sharp iron stakes. There were heavy weights on his feet, forcing the stakes to pierce his flesh. Blood dripped from his heels and ankles.

Madre de Dios. She couldn’t look. She couldn’t look away. As she entered the room, she saw more weights across the man’s hips and holding down his arms. A black cloth covered his face. He moaned in agony. His every movement, his every breath, dug the dagger points deeper into his skin. She was devastated for him, even as relief that it wasn’t Ramos flooded through her.

“What?” asked Herrera. “Do you not recognize your own brother, my bride?”

A black-robed thing—nothing that could do what it did could be human—pulled off the cloth covering the man’s head and Marissa saw the weary and defeated face of her younger brother Rafael. The brother whom she’d been told had died when trying to escape her uncle’s compound months ago.

“Rafael!” she screamed and clutched her chest. “Kill me,” her brother whispered. “Kill me.”

“Now you see why you will do all that Herrera wants, novia. Every time you do not, your beloved brother will suffer this and worse.”

“Stop this. I will,” Angela cried, falling to her knees. “Dios mio, I will. Please just stop!”

Herrera motioned and the black-robed thing pushed a button. The stakes retracted in a flash and her brother, screaming horribly, fell to the bed of checkered steel, then passed out.

“Rafe! Rafe. I’m so sorry,” Angela sobbed; the horror and the hatred and the anger raging in her consumed her.

Through her tears, Angela saw the robed thing go over to the wall and push a button. She choked on a scream, thinking he meant to send the spikes back up, but instead doors opened. Inside was a rolling cart with metal buckets on it. The robed thing took one of the buckets and threw it on Rafe’s face. He turned his face, but didn’t completely revive.

“The wedding ceremony will begin shortly. Perhaps if all goes well, he will be in a better position to speak to you for a few moments next time.” Herrera grabbed her arm, pulling her to her feet. Once standing, she jerked away from him and moved closer to her brother.

“Rafe!”

“Defiant so soon?” Herrera purred, from just behind her. “Do you need to see again what price your brother pays for it?”

Angela stiffened her shoulders and tried to suck air into lungs that couldn’t seem to breathe. “No,” she whispered. “I will come.” She had no choice.

Angela! Ramos snapped his eyes open and this time the medicine Aragon’s mortal woman had given him didn’t steal him away. The burning pain from the fire strike seared through his mind, trying to rip away his consciousness. But by Logos, he could hear Angela’s call to him, feel her over the pain, and he latched on to her need, determined to stay with her.

So strong was her presence that he expected her body to be resting firmly upon his as it had before when he’d first arrived upon the mortal ground. She’d fainted at the sight of him and had lain with the silk of her hair brushing his chest and the thunder of her heart pounding against his. He could still feel the soothing touch of her palm over his heated skin.

As it was then, he could only see darkness.

Another plea from Angela’s spirit slammed into him. This time he heard the dire horror of her cry. His body jerked in response, his head and back rising from the hard, cold surface beneath him. But that was as far as he could go. His hips, wrists, and ankles were chained down. The metal links scraped and clanked as he strained against them. He felt the pull and ache of the knife wound in his back, an insignificant injury that would have healed by now, were his warrior’s strength what it should be. That it hadn’t let him know just how weakened he’d become from the Pyrathian’s fire. He was also blind, but other parts of his senses seemed stronger than ever. He could feel the presence of Angela and the wicked malevolence surrounding them both so vividly it was almost like a picture in his mind.

Angela! He cried out with his spirit, but couldn’t seem to reach her through the horror pulsing from her. He tried to conjure his wolf spirit, but nothing happened.

Sucking in air, he pulled against the binding chains with all of his might. He strained until the metal cut into his flesh, until it seemed as if the very blood in his veins dripped from the pores of his skin. Spent, he lay back gasping as frustration ate a deeper hole of uselessness in his warrior’s spirit.

A warrior who could not fight, a being who could not serve, was less than the depraved, was less than nothing. His spirit screamed to the heavens, praying that Logos would strike him into nonexistence.

With Herrera’s firm grip on her arm, Angela walked into the crowded great room screaming so loudly on the inside that it was impossible no one could hear her. Since leaving her unconscious brother in the dungeon, she’d run dozens of escape scenarios through her mind—even contemplating appealing to the people gathered to witness her marriage to Herrera, for surely there had to be one among them who might help her.

Herrera had nixed that the moment they’d left the dungeon by telling her that if she tried to escape, not only would Rafe go immediately back into torture, but Herrera would have his men gun down the guests, bury them in the jungle, and there’d be a different set of guests the next night. All of that would be taking place while she spent the night as his flying nun.

She couldn’t manage to smile as Herrera led her past the guests, but she did keep her mouth shut. Still, she desperately searched the gazes of the unnaturally euphoric men and women, hoping and praying that she’d find someone smart enough to question Herrera’s farce, hoping that she could somehow find help. Not one of them gave her more than a moment’s glance from glazed eyes, and she realized they had to be drugged, most likely through the punch or the hors d’oeuvres.

She wondered how she was even able to stand upright while every fiber of her being raged so violently against the overwhelming, undefeatable evil surrounding her. Were Stefanie, Dr. Nette, Erin, and little Megan facing the same thing? Were they dead or wishing they were? As she would be by tomorrow—Angela turned to look at Herrera, suddenly recalling what he’d said to Stefanie last night when the vampires had descended into the ranger camp. I have missed my putica.

Stefanie had wanted to die. Had practically starved herself to death. And now Angela knew why. She also deeply understood why Stefanie never spoke of it. Angela had only heard about what Herrera wanted and had seen pictures of what he would do and she felt shamed. How much greater would that shame be afterward?

Knowing what Stefanie had suffered, yet bore silently, reached deeply into Angela, giving her strength amid the seeming hopelessness of her situation. Evil had to fear something and God was all she had at the moment. She leaned closer to Herrera and whispered, “My abuela knew things, saw things. You heard the rumors in Tío Luis’s compound. So you know she was always right. She said Stefanie was a saint, for one day she would be a god who devours her enemies with fire. You abused her. Hurt her. You raped Stefanie, didn’t you?”

An odd look that almost had an edge of fear to it flickered in Herrera’s black eyes, then he blinked and shrugged. “Jealous, mi novia? No need. She whored as often for your tío as she did for me.”

Angela finally found a reason to smile. “And now he’s dead.”

Herrera paled, his eyes widened in fear. She’d found a crack, a tiny crevice in the vampire’s invincibility.

Clearly agitated, Herrera grabbed her arm and moved her more quickly to the opposite end of the large room. A priest, robed in rich purple and gold and wearing a jeweled biretta on his head, stood with his back to the room. Head bowed and hands clasped, he actually appeared to be praying. Then sudden hope flared in her heart when the priest turned around. She knew him.

It had been at least twenty years ago, before evil had killed her family and reshaped her life. She’d been a child then with only a handful of birthdays, but not too young to remember this priest. Father Dom had visited her grandmother many times.

She met his gaze directly, unable to stop the silent plea that surely had to be written all over her face. Was it her imagination that the priest recognized who she was? That he understood what was really happening? He’d blinked at her in a deliberate fashion twice, then nodded his head. Did she finally have an ally here after all?

Herrera tensed at her side and she lowered her gaze from the priest’s.

“Let’s see this done now,” Herrera said. “Heaven awaits.”

Father Dom nodded and gathered everyone’s attention for the ceremony. He stated her full name, Angela Isabella Valdez, Herrera’s, and their intention to marry. Then the priest began speaking in Latin.

Herrera interrupted, telling the priest to speak Spanish.

Father Dom shook his head. “Canon law demands that marriage ceremonies outside the church must be performed in Holy Latin or they will not be legal.”

“I’ve never heard of such m****a,” Herrera said.

Father Dom lifted a brow. “When was the last time you saw

a Catholic wedding ceremony outside of a sanctuary?”

Herrera waved his hand as if swatting a fly. “Just do what you have to do and hurry.”

Father Dom then proceeded to marry her to Herrera. Angela wasn’t sure at what point her mind snapped, overloaded by all that had happened, and a surrealistic detachment took over. This just wasn’t happening.

But it was. And how much more would come before someone, or something, could stop it?