The Alpha Dating Game(39)

Claude didn’t have the first clue of how to do CPR, but he had seen people on TV do it, and so he bent down and prized Kyle’s jaw open with his fingers. Ah, he had to give Kyle the kiss of life. Uck! Claude didn’t take kindly to kissing males, but it still had to be done.

He placed his lips onto Kyle’s and blew hard.

Damn. How long did he have to do this?

He did it again, unsure if his breath was reaching Kyle’s lungs to expand them. Then he felt an awful pain in his tongue. Something had seized his tongue and bitten it.

Claude tried to scream, but the pain became excruciating. He was unable to tear away. Kyle’s blue eyes fluttered open, and there was purpose and determination in them.

“Arrrrrrr!” Claude cried from the bottom of his throat. A blinding pain crushed him, and he could suddenly away. Blood filled his mouth and he suddenly could not feel his tongue.

Kyle had bitten it off.

Before Claude could react, Kyle rose and caught hold of his neck. Claude felt the very air being choked out of him. His vision exploded in starbursts. He knew he had miscalculated, and badly.

The last thing he saw was Kyle’s fist coming down to knock the living daylights of him out.





ESCAPE





It was easy enough for Kyle to strip Claude of his clothes and shoes. Of course, there was the little problem of the retinal scan. It wasn’t easy for Kyle to lug Claude’s inert body up and hold his head up to the door scanner. Then of course, he had to prize Claude’s eye open. But Kyle – for his lean frame – was very strong, thanks to his werebear genes, and he was determined.

That was a very useful art he had learned from his father – the art of hibernation in his human form. It made him appear as if he was in a deep coma, but all the time, his mind was as alert as ever. He knew he could not simply ‘pretend’ to be asleep like so many prisoners did. Claude would cut him down with the merciless prod if he appeared so.

And so he found himself running down the north tower stairway as fast as he could. Claude’s shoes were not a perfect fit, and he almost stumbled a few times. But he had an inkling of where Jessica was.

Damn, it was already deep into the night. The revel had started. As with the previous year, it was a fancy dress ball, with the partiers arriving in gaudy and sexily designed garb – in the costumes of Western style courtesans and hookers and strippers and Arabian dancing girls. They were all laughing as the party went into full swing.

No one knew he was missing.

Yet.

The beat of the music filled the entire house. The bass drums vibrated the walls with their deep bass and caused the frames of paintings to shiver.

Kyle appropriated a mask left behind on a moon table. It was that of a lion and he quickly slipped it on. He half-wondered if it was the mask of an Elder. He had never seen an Elder’s true face at all, and it was a childhood horror story he used to tell his brother that “maybe they don’t even have faces, it’s all a big void behind the mask”.

All around him were sounds of lovemaking above the din of the music. His father and brother were nowhere to be seen. Kyle quickly slipped up the stairs of the main house and headed for the bedroom in which they usually hosted the ‘sacrifices’.

Naturally, it was the only locked door in the wing.

“Jessica?” he called in a low voice.

He hoped he wasn’t too late.

He heard footsteps padding towards the other side of the door.

“Kyle?” Jessica’s anxious voice.

“I’m going to get you out of here.”

There were two bolts outside the door and Kyle shot them both away from their sockets. The door was still locked, nevertheless.

“Oh, thank God!” Jessica cried. “I was thinking . . . uh . . . ”

She faltered.

Kyle knew how to jimmy a lock, but there was no time to find the appropriate tool. He knew what she was going to say. She was thinking that he was one of them too. And why not? In every year but this one, he had gone through the motions and sacrificed those virgins as though he had thrown them into the pit himself. His hands were just as bloodied as his father’s and the Elders’.

“Don’t worry, Jessica,” he said gently. “I’m not going to hurt you. I can’t say the same about my father and brother, though . . . but I want you to know I’m going to bring you away from here.”

He was going to have to use brute strength.

Kyle channeled all his bear strength into his right wrist. He had not completely mastered the art of using his werebear strength without transforming, but he was certainly better at it than his brother. Even Claude. He managed to break the lock in the door.

Jessica tumbled out, disheveled but looking none the worse for the wear. Kyle was so relieved that he immediately hugged her.