Read Online Dead But Not Forgotten by Charlaine Harris - Free Book Online

by roughly inserting a catheter, he clawed her arm purely by accident. He didn’t see that nurse again.
    There were five volunteers—four men and a woman, each of them dead-eyed, stone-faced soldiers whom Quinn wanted to hate. Instead, he marveled at their courage. To put out their arms or bare their shoulders and willingly allow him—half man and half tiger in those moments—to bite into their flesh, knowing that he could have shifted further and snapped his jaws shut, taking the limb or the shoulder completely off . . . that was impressive. Not that he respected them. Those four men and that one woman knew that he was a captive, that whatever he did was done under duress, but they cared nothing for the distinction. He admired their courage and wished them dead, all at the same time.
    For his mother’s sake, he would not harm them any more than Teague wanted them harmed.
    Almost constantly, Quinn pondered the question of how long it would take before his half sister, Frannie, or his girlfriend, Tijgerin, would wonder why they had not heard from him. Frannie had started a new and busy life with her husband in New Mexico and Tij was in seclusion, as was the custom of weretiger women when they had recently given birth. Tij intended to raise their son in secrecy, and though it hurt his heart not to see his child, Quinn had acceded to Tijgerin’s wishes out of love for her and for the sake of the baby.
    His clients would have noticed his absence fairly quickly, but when he did not return their calls or appear for events, they would be more likely to contact the parent company of Extreme(ly Elegant) Events than the police.
    A prisoner, he slept. Sometimes the supply of drugs they were feeding him would run thin and his thoughts would crystallize enough for him to put his will into devising an escape, but he could not conceive of one that did not leave either himself or his mother—or both of them—dead.
    So Quinn obeyed. It killed him to do it, made him strain against his bonds and roar at the ceiling in the middle of the night, but he obeyed. The drugs made it seem almost acceptable, blunted the edges of his hatred enough that submission began to seem a strategy instead of a defeat. Other times he screamed his throat raw demanding to see his mother, but they would never bring her back to visit him.
    He bit the soldiers on Teague’s command and they bled, and then he ate and he slept, trying not to wonder where they would be sent when his bites transformed them. Whom they might kill, these children of his violation.
    The irony was not lost on him. It sickened him. Once, many years before, his mother had been raped by a group of men and she had lost her mind. His mom had never been the same again. Now dementia had crept in to add insult to that injury, and a new group of tormentors had torn down all the reassurances she had built up over the years to persuade herself that those terrible men were not still out there, waiting for her.
    Quinn would endure whatever torture, perform whatever task was asked of him, if only to protect his mother from any further pain or indignity.
    One morning, after he had lost track of the days, the clank of the door latch made him open his eyes. His mind had gone sluggish, just like his limbs. It felt like thoughts and muscles were both trapped deep in thick mud. His mouth hung open and he felt drool on his stubbled cheek and for the first time since his captivity, instead of fury, he felt shame.
    â€œMr. Quinn,” Teague said, “you’ve been holding out on us.”
    Quinn wished he could kill him with a glance. He stared hate at Teague, thinking the man would smile and cajole and make light of that hatred, as he always did. But there were no smiles from Teague today.
    â€œDid you hurt her?” Quinn asked, his voice a rasp, his lips curling back as he thought about how deeply his teeth would bite into Teague’s flesh and bone if he