Phantom Warriors: Linx (9 page)

Tabby watched the
recording with growing horror. The dance had ended and now she found herself
performing a different kind of dance. It was like watching a stranger bob up
and down on Linx. There was no doubt what they were doing. What they had done.

At one point in the
video, Linx looked right at the camera and stared for what felt like an
eternity. Almost like he 'knew' it was there. Her face flushed and bile rose in
her throat. Tabby swallowed repeatedly to keep from throwing up. Had the whole
thing been a set up? Had Linx betrayed her? She’d thought for sure there was
something developing between them. She’d felt it or at least Tabby had thought
she’d felt something special. Had she imagined everything?

You’re a fool
, she
told herself.

When the recording
stopped, Sergei began to clap. The slow methodical sound made her flinch. "That
was quite a performance," he said. "Definitely an 'A' for effort. My
only advice is that you might want to lose the underwear. White isn’t very
attractive onstage unless it has sequins."

Tabby’s body flashed
from hot to cold. The one time she’d chosen to shed her inhibitions and just
let go had come back to destroy her. "What do you want?"

Sergei’s hard gaze made
Tabby tremble. "You know what I want."

"I'm not going to
dance for you," Tabby said. She wouldn’t do it. No matter what he
threatened to do to
her.

Sergei snorted.
"Not that.” He
tsked
. “Though I admit it would
bring me a level of satisfaction. No, I want what I've always wanted. I want
you to stop causing trouble for my business."

"What about
Taylor?" Tabby asked.

"What about
her?" Sergei countered. "She's happy with me. Aren't you,
dumpling?"

Fresh tears filled her
twin's eyes and spilled down her cheeks. "Yes.” She sniffed. “I want to
stay."

It was a lie and they
both knew it. Did Taylor finally understand why Tabby had been trying so
desperately to get her away from Sergei? If she did, then the loss of Tabby’s
livelihood would be worth it.

"So what happens
now? Are you going to call the police?" Numbness engulfed Tabby until she
couldn't feel anything at all. He had her where he’d always wanted her—at
his mercy.

Sergei tilted his head
and took a deep breath. "I've never cared for the police. I prefer to
handle my own business."

Tabby wished he'd just
get to the point. They both knew he could do whatever he wanted and there was
nothing she could do about it, as long as the video existed. "What
now?"

Sergei grinned again.
"I'm so glad that you asked. You are going to walk out my club and never
come back. If you even think about interfering with my business again, I am
going to send this recording to your work and of course post it all over the Internet."
He turned to Boris. "How much do you think we could make if we sold this
tape?"

Boris scratched his
head, giving the question serious thought. "I don't know, boss. At least
ten thousand, if we shopped it to the Internet porn sites. Possibly more, if we
can clean it up and bring out the details." He glanced at Tabby's small
breasts.

If that recording hit
the Internet, life as Tabby knew it would be over. There was no doubt the
library would fire her. She'd be hard pressed to ever work in a library again.
Most of her co-workers would stop speaking to her and she'd lose what few
friends that she had.

"I'm sorry,
Tab,"
Taylor
said.

Sergei scowled at her.
"You did nothing wrong. Your sister is the criminal."

"Can I go
now?" Tabby asked, unable to meet Taylor's gaze.

"Da," Sergei
said. "You may leave, but remember, one more wrong move and the world gets
to see your little dance." He threw his head back and laughed, a big
barking sound that sent shards of pain through her.

Tabby’s body shook with
barely suppressed anger as she forced herself to leave. What was she going to
do now? She'd blown her one chance at getting Sergei and all because she
couldn't keep her pants on.

She phoned a taxi to
come pick her up. The driver dropped her off at her car and she drove home,
seething. She thought of Linx. How he'd encouraged her to dance. How he'd
pulled her onto his lap. How he'd stared right at the camera, all but grinning,
as she lay splayed beneath him as he drove himself inside of her.

Oh god, how the
betrayal hurt. Taylor was right. There was sex and there was ruin. And thanks
to last night, Tabby had done a bang-up job of ruining her life.

How many times had she
lectured Taylor about dating men that were bad for her? How many times had she
told her that she was behaving out of character? That she deserved better? And
what does she do the first chance she gets?

Tabby strips and fucks
a total stranger. Some example she turned out to be. No wonder Taylor
could barely
look her in the eye. It wasn’t just fear of
Sergei. It was disappointment. But her twin’s disappointment was nothing
compared to the disappointment Tabby felt in herself. How could she have been
so wrong about Linx?

The thought that he was
somehow involved or connected with Sergei ate at her all the way home. Tabby
couldn't let it go. She had to find out the truth.

She arrived home and
looked around her small house. It had taken years to furnish it and fix it so
it was exactly what she wanted. And now with the click of a button, it would
all disappear. Tabby wasn't naive enough to believe that Sergei wouldn't send
the video out.

He was only toying with
her. Making her believe that she was 'safe'. Soon he'd tire of the game and put
the video up on the Internet and life, as she knew it, would be over.
It was already over.
Only the mirage of
her old life remained. She scanned the room, not really seeing it anymore.

Tabby wasn't surprised by
the knock on the front door. She knew who it was and she was ready to face him.
She walked over and looked through the peephole, though she needn’t have
bothered, since the door was only hanging by one hinge. Linx stood on her porch
with a wide smile on his face.

For a second Tabby's
heart stuttered and she forgot all about being angry. But the second passed
quickly and the anger returned once more. She opened the door.

Linx brightened when he
saw her, then his smile slowly faded. "What's wrong?" he asked.

She stared at him. For
the life of her, Tabby couldn't see through the facade. From all outward
appearances, he looked concerned. The man deserved accolades for his acting
ability. "Come in," she said, not answering him yet. Tabby didn't
trust herself to speak.

Linx stepped through
the door and grabbed her arm.

"Don't touch
me." She jerked away and shut the door behind him.

Linx's sharp blue eyes
narrowed, but he didn't try to touch her again. "What happened? I thought
that we had a good time last night."

Tabby snorted. Good
time was an understatement. Last night had been the best night of her life. She
should've known something was up for that reason alone, but she'd been too busy
enjoying herself.

"Why did you do
it?" Her voice remained strong, without a quaver of emotion to betray her
true feelings. “Was it for money? Did you owe a lot and this was how you
decided to pay up?”

Linx's brow lowered
over his eyes. "I don’t know what you’re talking about."

Unable to contain her
fury any longer, Tabby turned on him. "You knew! Last night, you knew that
we were being taped and you still let me get on stage and make a fool of
myself."

Linx's eyes widened.

Bitterness welled within
her. Tabby was angry.
Angry at him.
Angry
at herself.
Angry that she'd allowed herself to care for this man.
"How much did Sergei pay you?"

"Pay?" His
jaw clamped shut and a muscle flexed as he ground his teeth.

“Pay you to sleep with
me,” she grit out.

His nostrils flared and
white lines bracketed his mouth as his lips thinned over his teeth. "We
exchanged no money. I do not charge for sex."

“So you screwed me for
free. Oh that makes it all better.” Tabby curled her hands into fists and
glared at him. "How could you? You looked right at the camera. You all but
winked at it, when you were..."

"When I was
what?" His voice dropped in warning.

Tabby knew she was
treading on thin ice, but she didn't care. She wanted someone else to hurt as
much as she was hurting. It only seemed fitting that it
be
the man who’d helped ruin her life. "You know what."

* * * * *

Linx felt the beast
inside of him rise. It took every fiber of his being not to shift as Tabby's
accusations flayed him. She’d all but accused him of being dishonorable. "Are
you implying that I somehow coerced you into laying beneath me?"

That was a charge the
Phantom people and the
Atlanteans
took very
seriously. A man found guilty of coercing or forcing a woman to have sex was
executed.

He saw the temptation
in her eyes to lie. Linx also saw the second she decided to go with the truth.

"No, you didn't force
me." She shook her head, sending her long wine-colored hair into her face.
"I was the idiot who convinced herself that last night was different.
Somehow special."

Linx reached for her
again, but she dodged away. "It
was
different." At first, he'd tried to convince himself that last night was
just sex. Amazing sex.
But still just sex.
By the
afternoon, Linx had almost believed it, but seeing Tabby again brought the
truth crushing down. He was no longer in denial.

Tabby laughed
painfully. “I'm such an idiot. I should've known. The night was too perfect to
be real."

This time when Linx
reached out, he didn't allow Tabby to escape. She struggled in his arms, until
he guided her over to the wall and pinned her back against it. She attempted to
squirm away, until he pressed his body into hers. The second hard met soft,
Linx felt the tension in her fade. "Tell me what has happened."

Wetness hit his chest and
Linx stilled, afraid to move, to breathe. Tabby’s shoulders began to shake and
the moisture increased. Oh goddess, he could handle anything, but tears. Linx
wasn't sure what to do. Tabby let out a loud sob and something inside of him
crumbled.

"How could
you?" She sniffed. “I trusted you…with everything.”

"What is it that
you think that I've done?" Linx asked. He needed to know so that he could
fix whatever it was.

She heaved a shuddering
breath. "You let him tape me. Tape us."

"Let who?"
Linx rubbed her arms, his thumbs gently caressing her bare skin.

She sobbed again.
"Sergei."

"He taped
us?" Linx wasn't sure what taping meant, but he knew from the context that
it wasn't anything good. "What was taped?"

"Us," Tabby
cried. "Me! Everything..." She indicated to her body.

Linx rocked her as his
mind raced. He needed to find out exactly what Sergei had done so that he could
take away her tears. "He knows about us breaking in last night?"

She looked at him with
watery eyes. "He knows about
everything.
He's seen everything. Sergei plans to release it onto the Internet."

Linx knew that the Internet
was used for the spread of information. "How do you know this?" This
time when Tabby pulled away, he reluctantly released her.

"He showed me the
tape. You looked right at the camera. I saw you," she said. The accusation
in her voice was still there, but had lost some of its ferocity.

"I knew of no
camera," he said softly.

"But you looked at
it," she said.

Had he seen it and not
known what he was looking at? It was possible. Linx wasn't familiar with all of
the inventions on Earth. Still had he suspected there was something wrong with
the situation last night, beyond the obvious, he would've never allowed Tabby
to be placed in such a vulnerable position.

Of course, she would
never believe him. The only way he’d convince her was if he righted the
situation.

When he didn't answer immediately,
Tabby said, "I'd like you to leave. I have a lot to think about and I
can't do that with you here."

"
Tabby,
let me explain." His chest tightened at the thought of leaving. It went
against every fiber of his being. Warriors didn’t abandon their…mates.

She shook her head. "It
doesn't matter now. The damage is already done." Tabby walked over to the
door and opened it. "Please, leave."

"I can fix this," he
said.

"Don't! You'll only make
things worse for me and for Taylor," she said. "Now go."

The emotions he'd kept carefully
contained rioted inside of him as Linx stepped out onto Tabby's front porch. He
turned back to look at her one last time and found himself staring at her
closed door. How had things gone so right and so very wrong in such a short
period of time?