Her suspicion was validated.

Ms. Wickman smiled at the cuffed girl, licked her thin lips, and said, "What a naughty little b.i.t.c.h you are. Killing your boyfriend that way."

She made a tsk-tsk sound and shook her head.

Karen whimpered. "Don't hurt me ... please."

Ms. Wickman threw her head back and laughed heartily. She looked again at Karen and said, "Oh my, I haven't laughed that hard in ..." She pursed her lips, c.o.c.ked an 224.

eyebrow, and appeared to think it over."... oh, since the last time I punished a lying little wh.o.r.e like you."

She pulled the comforter down, cast an appraising glance at Karen's exposed body-nude except for white cotton panties-and opened the nightstand's drawer, from which she extracted a cat-o'-nine-tails. It was black with a braided handle, nine knotted cords with metal tips, and a wrist loop for better handling. Karen shuddered. She'd played with such things before-in controlled situations with partners she trusted.

Ms. Wickman's demeanor was not that of one who wanted to play.

And there was the matter of the woman's devastating accusation...

... killing your boyfriend that way...

Could she see into her mind?

It wasn't possible.

Was it?

Ms. Wickman smiled and flicked the whip at her.

Another room, dark and quiet.

The figure on the bed sleeps fitfully. Tortured dreams abound in this place tonight. They always do. The house is a vast repository for nightmares. The very air is heavy with the trace remains of agonies past. ...

Alicia's eyes snapped open in the darkness. She sensed something in the room with her, an unnatural presence leering at her, and the perception caused her heart to do a pretty good imitation of a jackhammer. She sat up in bed, gasped, and cast her gaze quickly about the dark room.

225.

The terrain of the room was alien, disconcerting, its dark corners impenetrable in the gloom. A ripple of fear made her teeth chatter. She flipped the covers off her body, snapped on the bedside lamp, and saw ...

Nothing.

She was alone in the room.

She put a hand to her breast, breathed deeply, and tried to relax. The perception of a menacing presence faded. More deep breaths. She worked at regulating the out-of-control rhythm of her heart. Her nerves were on edge, a condition she attributed to the creepy surroundings.

G.o.dd.a.m.n you, Dream, she thought.

But Alicia was angrier at herself. She should never have acquiesced to Dream's strange desires to stay in this place. Her friends were distraught. Their judgment wasn't to be trusted. That being the case, she should have been firmer in her resolve.

Alicia breathed a sigh of frustration.

The truth was, there was little she could have done. The Accord was so low on gas it might not have gotten them back to the paved road, much less all the way back to the interstate. And the prospect of sleeping in the Accord after all those cramped hours on the road was only marginally more enticing than an invitation to sleep on a bed of nails. Therefore, they were at King's mercy.

Alicia didn't like that.

Not at all.

This house was a few very small steps removed from being a prison. She was here against her will, and she couldn't leave. The stark reality of it shook her. She wished she'd probed King for personal information when she'd 226.

had the chance. They'd all been too wrapped up in their own problems to give him much thought, but it suddenly seemed very important to know who he was and what he did. Why, for instance, did he live in such isolation? He was a man of obvious wealth, given the size of his home and the fine furnishings in evidence throughout its interior, but how did he generate the money?

But the isolation bothered her more than the mystery of his wealth.

A person with certain inclinations, a fondness for the taboo things civilized society shunned, would find it easy to indulge those appet.i.tes here, far from the prying eyes of law enforcement and media.

A disturbing thought sent a chill through Alicia. He could kill people and get away with it. Take the case of Alicia and her friends, for instance. Days had pa.s.sed since they'd communicated with anyone back home. n.o.body knew where they were, a situation exacerbated by the unplanned detour from the interstate and the subsequent bewildering path they'd taken through the winding back roads. If anything happened to them, how would anyone ever find them?

The answer was obvious.

No one ever would find them.

Fear galvanized Alicia. She got out of bed, pulled on a white robe, and went to the window that overlooked the front yard. Ground lights faintly illumined the driveway and front porch. The burgundy Accord was a rich red in the semidarkness. A black Bentley was parked behind it. The elegant luxury car hadn't been there before, and the sight of it made Alicia frown.

227.

The frown deepened when she realized the night sky was clear and the ground below was drier than Death Valley.

What the h.e.l.l happened to the inclement weather? she wondered.

She was contemplating this when she heard the sound.

Shrill but abrupt, it might have been a scream. A woman's scream. Alicia spun away from the window and went to the bedroom door. She placed an ear to the door, held her breath, and waited to hear the sound again, but the only thing she heard was her heart kicking into overdrive.

Warring factions of her mind debated.

That was a scream.

No, you're imagining things.

She hoped she'd imagined it.

Then the sound was repeated.

Alicia was propelled by instinct, with no regard for her own safety. She cinched the robe shut around her with the sash, pulled the bedroom door open, and stepped into the dimly lit hallway.

Which way?

The next scream, longer in duration and more anguished, provided the answer. She went left, her bare feet scampering across the cold floor. The sound grew louder and was punctuated with sobs. Though there were no words, something in the tonal quality was recognizable. One of her friends was making that sound. She came to a stop outside a room several doors down from her own, grasped the doork.n.o.b, started to turn it- -and hesitated.

Karen was on the other side of this door. Something horrendous was happening to her. Alicia wanted to come 228.

to her friend's rescue, but the mystery of the situation gave her a moment's pause.

She was weaponless.

Karen wailed again.

f.u.c.k it.

Her bare hands would have to suffice.

She turned the k.n.o.b and stepped into the room. She was several feet inside before her mind registered the reality of the insane thing she was seeing.

A previously ordinary wall composed of drywall and paint had been flipped around to reveal manacles set in stone. Karen was suspended above the ground in these, her legs and arms spread apart in a Christ-like pose. A neck bracket kept her head flat against the wall. She saw Alicia and sobbed.

Ms. Wickman's whip hand paused in mid-lash, and she turned around to greet Alicia with a wide-eyed grin of pleasure. "Why, it's your little Negro friend. Come on in, dear. We don't discriminate here."

Alicia wanted desperately to take the old bat's whip and insert it firmly up her tight f.u.c.king a.s.s. She would have done it, too, if not for the specter of the thing crouched at the end of the bed.

Dark, matted fur covered its foul-smelling flesh. The thing looked at her, and the enormous nostrils at the end of its long snout flared. A rumbling snort emanated from somewhere deep within it. Its mouth opened, leathery lips peeling away from gleaming rows of razor-sharp fangs.

It growled at her.

And loped off the bed.

Alicia wilted, the sense of righteous fury spiraling out of 229.

her like dirty water down a storm drain. She backed away, but her shaking legs betrayed her, and she tumbled numbly to the floor. The thing loomed over her, dripping saliva on her face.

Too late, she believed.

Monsters exist, she thought.

They really do.

And I'm just another G.o.dd.a.m.n dead pragmatist.

A spine-sc.r.a.ping sound sputtered out of its hideous mouth.

Lupine laughter.

Alicia fainted.

230.

Dream had somehow known there would be no drawn out process of seduction. The chemistry between them was so powerful, their desire so obvious, that an unspoken conclusion was reached-they would dispense with the niceties, forgoing even the merest pretense of accelerated courtship, and get right to the fun part, the enthusiastic exploration of each other's body.

Even so, she was shocked by just how swiftly this developed. There were a handful of one-night stands in her past, though not nearly as many as other people believed, but she hadn't fallen into bed with any of them quite as hastily.

She supposed she should feel bad about it.

Perhaps feel cheapened, an easy lay.

But she didn't care.

Not now.

And maybe never.

231.

Dream screamed into the mattress.

She moaned. "Oh ... G.o.d ..."

Her face was pressed sideways against the tangled bedsheets. A sheen of sweat covered her sun-brown body. She panted. Strands of blond hair fell into her open mouth, and she spit them out automatically, not thinking about it. Her fists knotted handfuls of bedsheet. She cried out again as another precise thrust pushed her forward. She turned her mouth into the mattress and loosed another m.u.f.fled scream. Her knees wobbled on the edge of the bed, but King's hands were firm at her waist, holding her in place.

He stood poised behind her, rigid behind her upturned a.s.s.

Making her wait again.

"Please ... "she breathed.

So he gave it to her again, one more swift, brutal shove. She felt faint. White light crowded the edges of her vision. She was sure the next thrust of his c.o.c.k would rupture her v.a.g.i.n.al walls, maybe pierce her uterus. He was that endowed. That powerful. It was incredible. No man she'd ever had could compare. It was like being f.u.c.ked by a G.o.d. Each stroke was like an exorcism, banishing forever the ghosts of Dan Bishop and Chad Robbins, rendering them meaningless. He earned her adoration for that feat alone. He looped some of her blond hair in a hand and pulled her head back.

He leaned over and whispered in her ear. "What would you do for me, sweet Dream?"

She struggled to form coherent words. "Any... anything ... you want. ..."

He pulled her straight back and his other hand, so 232.

muscled and strong, roamed over her hanging b.r.e.a.s.t.s, pinching her nipples, squeezing. "Would you kill for me?"

He arched up into her and tears rolled down her face. "Yes."

She meant it as she said it. It was insanity. It was sinful. It was wrong. A part of her even felt an echo of shame. Later, when she was no longer under the spell of Eros, the memory of the exchange would horrify her. That didn't matter now. Nothing mattered. All she cared about was this extraordinary thing he was doing to her.

Because it was extraordinary, of that there was no doubt.

Dream could think of no legitimate comparison with anyone from her past. The whole experience was a series of erotic revelations, exploding epiphanies of carnality. She'd been f.u.c.ked a variety of ways by her former lovers. Gently. Roughly. Pa.s.sionately. She'd had beautiful experiences, indifferent experiences, even some fairly exotic experiences. King was a different species of lover altogether, a man for whom the word "exotic" seemed barely adequate. No word was adequate. He used his organ to manipulate her, punish her, and she loved it. It wasn't like making love, with that term's connotations of intimacy and rhythmic, gentle coupling.

It was just f.u.c.king, proffering herself as an object for his pleasure. And being extravagantly, acutely pleasured in return. It was as if she existed only to perform this act. There was something dehumanizing about that, a depersonalization.

She loved that, too.

Losing herself.

233.

It was raw, animalistic, primal.