by Alex Lidell
“And why exactly is a demi packaging up a present for the count?” Quinn asks with a thick condescension that makes it clear he both knows the answer and enjoys rubbing Bernadette’s face in it. I mean, even I know the answer—Bernadette wants to catch the count’s attention. Apparently, however, she couldn’t get past Quinn.
I hope that’s a point in my favor.
“I thought he would find a witch’s blood a pleasant diversion from his everyday. A delicacy.” Bernadette clears her throat as if she’s in a bloody job interview, except that the demi wears her emotions on her sleeve. Desperation. Hope. Just a dash of fear. “It’s a demonstration of the kind of initiative, attention, and loyalty he can expect from me should he consider adopting me into his clan.”
The tree branches shift, the pair now coming into view. My heart starts to hammer. Quinn wears his blue uniform jacket, his black hair combed back neatly from his forehead. For a brief moment, I consider calling out to him for help—but I’m not a dumbass. If the male is going to help me—doubtful, given how openly Bernadette speaks to him, but theoretically possible—he’ll do it because kidnapping is undesirable, not because I asked him nicely. Hell, he’d probably enjoy watching me plead if given half a chance.
Keeping my eyes open just a small crack, I feign ongoing unconsciousness, the effort of keeping my breathing steady over the gag making me dizzy.
Quinn’s cool dark eyes brush along me before he turns to Bernadette and glares down at her. “Let me get this straight, Yalls. You want me to believe you single-handedly kidnapped Devinee from the Academy with no one the wiser?”
“No.” Bernadette flashes a smile. “The witch ran. Got her feelings hurt by Ellis and dashed off to cry herself to sleep in the woods. I simply capitalized on the opportunity.”
“And when she fails to return, the disappearance can be blamed on weres.” Quinn tips his head, considering. “And how many others know of this?”
“That she ran off? Everyone.” I hear more than see the grin filling Bernadette’s words. “And now that she’s secure, we can move her anywhere the count would find convenient. No one need ever find the body.”
“Of course they’ll find her, you idiot half-breed.” Quinn rolls his eyes. “The fae wolves will smell her trail as if you lined it with treats. They might smell yours as well.”
Bernadette swallows, the confidence of her posture breaking as she wrings her hands. “Then perhaps you might offer your wisdom, Commander. Would…would you like a taste, perhaps?”
Quinn licks his lips, suggesting that Bernadette has found the right angle of attack. Then his mouth closes with a hard snap. “If you are to present something to the count, you don’t give him leftovers.”
Bernadette is now nodding enthusiastically. “Yes, you’re right. Of course. Which is why I didn’t try her. Didn’t so much as take a sip.”
“Excellent.” The finality in Quinn’s voice makes my breath hitch. Stepping behind Bernadette, the vampire puts his hand on the demi’s shoulder, the pair of them now looking down at me. “You did good work today, Bernadette Yalls. Count Victor will be highly pleased with his little treat. It is unfortunate you won’t be able to enjoy his gratitude personally.”
The flicker of confusion that passes over Bernadette’s face lives only a moment—which is as long as the girl herself does. With a sharp snap of his hand, Quinn turns her head at a fierce angle, her thick red braid making one last flick as the sound of her snapping neck fills the forest.
“You can stop pretending to be asleep, Samantha.” Tossing Bernadette’s limp body into the woods, Quinn comes to crouch beside my cage, the tip of his tongue running over his teeth longingly as he stares at the blood trickling down my forehead.
Pulling his attention away with a growl, he slings off his pack, pulling pieces of a firearm out of it.
I scream into my gag.
“Easy, witch.” Quinn grins at me, assembling the pieces into a rifle and scope. A strange-looking thing on the barrel completes the monstrosity. “This isn’t for you.”
I glare at him and struggle against my bindings, knowing that my defiance won’t do anything beyond making some of my dried scratches bleed fresh.
“That blood is just going to waste,” Quinn says regretfully, as if the two of us are sharing some kind of camaraderie in the matter. “But alas, the count would know. Especially when it’s his own son taking a mouthful.” He smiles, cocking his head. “You look surprised. Did you not know Victor himself sired me? Did you think my blood ran as bastardly as the idiots who call themselves the cadre? So much to learn. First, though, let’s see if we can’t bait a bigger fish for our stew, shall we? Ellis does so enjoy your company.”
Rising to his feet, Quinn slings his rifle over his shoulder and walks away toward the cliffs, climbing to higher ground and disappearing from view.
The next minutes take hours. Or days. The initial panic over what I just saw is enough to keep my heart racing until I realize that this requires more air than I can pull in through the gag. That my breath must slow if I want to live. With the slowing breaths, however, come flashes of frightening understanding.
Quinn is out there with a sniper rifle, and I am bait. Gagged, but not knocked out. Able to make noise, but not use words. Quinn thinks Ellis will come after me, and he wants me able to draw attention but no more, so that…so that Quinn can kill him.
I struggle against my binds, getting the gag out of my mouth suddenly of the utmost importance. Except my body is too spent to cooperate, each inch of progress taking an eternity. Taking too long. Evening begins to lower through the trees, dappled golden light giving way to purple dusk. When a wolf’s howl breaks the rustling night sounds, I know I’ve lost. Though I go still as a rabbit, the wolf comes anyway.
Prowling out of the brush, his golden eyes shining in the setting sun as his snow-white fur stands on end. Each of the predator’s steps is filled with power, and, as he spots my cage, he stops. His gnashing teeth would have me frantic for my life if I weren’t so frantic for his.
Go away. I glare at the wolf, yelling the words inside my mind. GO AWAY.
The wolf shimmers, the air around him swimming like heat above a boiling kettle. Muscles change and elongate until it is Ellis standing before me, still wearing the same training clothes he had on when he destroyed me on the pitch. I’m surprised to see sweat gleaming on his forehead, his chest heaving and eyes shifting wildly as he takes in me, the cage, my gag, his long fingers white-knuckled around his sword handle.
I shake my head, flinging myself against my binds as I try to motion toward the cliffs and shout into the gag. “It’s a trap!”
Ellis frowns, taking a step toward me before stopping to crouch into a fighting stance, turning in a slow circle.
Hope spikes my blood for the first time since Bernadette captured me. Which only makes the drop to reality that much harder a heartbeat later.
I don’t see or hear the shot until Ellis drops to the ground, a metal dart piercing the side of his neck.
I scream into the gag, quieting only when I see the male’s chest still moving. Unconscious, but alive.
Hiking down from the cliffs ten minutes later, Quinn gives me a mock bow as he opens the padlock on my cage and drags Ellis inside. Grabbing a strange set of chainless shackles from his bag, Quinn starts clipping the thick metal rings around Ellis’s wrists and ankles. The lack of any actual restraint sends a wave of utter confusion through me, right until I see Ellis—still unconscious—arch in agony as the metal touches his skin.
“Iron,” Quinn says levelly, as if he’s instructing class. “The full fae do very poorly with iron. It drains them of their life magic. Another thing you should know by now if you were paying attention in class.”
I swear at him, the string of curses coming out as nonsense through the gag.
“The tranquilizer will wear off,” Quinn continues, clearly enjoying my panic. “There is nothing to be done for that. At the end of the day, there’s si
mply nothing more effective than iron. Iron and time. Like a good stew, draining takes time. But the payoff? A witch and a Talon royal. Delicious.” Finishing snapping everything into place, he excuses himself from the cage and reengages the padlock. Then he bids us a good evening and disappears into the night.
26
Sam
I try to get to Ellis across the eight-foot cage floor, finally managing to poke him in the shoulder with my foot. The male flinches but doesn’t wake.
Come on, Ellis. I poke him again and again and again, until finally, the male’s eyes open. Then widen in realization.
His muscles all bunch together, launching him toward me with Herculean effort. Yanking the gag out of my mouth, he collapses to his hands and knees, pain-filled breaths escaping him as he pulls the dart out of the side of his neck. “Hold on, Devinee.”
I gulp air hungrily as Ellis reaches for my binds, though the movement is plainly painful for him.
“Bernadette,” I start, the words spilling from me before he even asks. The trick. The plan. The murder. The bait. Ellis takes it all in, the lack of emotion on his face as terrifying as the words I’m saying. “Why aren’t you—”
“Surprised?” Ellis asks. “Because I’ve lived enough centuries to hear worse.” He brushes strong hands along my numb body, the contact sending little bits of reassurance through me. “I have the knot undone. It will hurt when I release it and all the blood rushes back.”
“Since when do you notice when I hurt? Arg!” I bite back a yelp in spite of Ellis’s warning, the numbed nerves screaming themselves awake.
“I notice every single time.” His answer to my rhetorical question is so quiet, I’m not sure it’s even meant for me. And right now, I don’t care, not with liquid fire pouring through my limbs.
Getting a hand behind my back, Ellis eases me into a sitting position against the side of the cage, his hand lingering on my shoulder as if afraid I might topple otherwise.
“What happens now?” I ask.
Taking hold of my chin, he examines the gash Bernadette’s rock left on my forehead, his probing fingers pressing into my scalp. “Now Quinn spins a tale for Asher about me having found you so no one comes looking. By morning, the iron will have drained me enough that I’ll barely be able to sit unassisted—and that’s when the bloody bastard will come back. It’s all a game to please Count Victor. Quinn thinks he can gain favor by delivering a witch and a fae on a proverbial platter.” Ellis brushes his thumb over my forehead a final time, the concern in his face too genuine for comfort, too tempting for my aching body. “This could use some stitches, but I don’t think the bone is broken. Let’s see how the rest of your body is holding up.”
I snort softly. The rest of me is one big bruise—in large part courtesy of the male now crouching beside me. Not that I want to bring up the morning training just now. Pushing his hands away, I cross my arms over my chest.
For a moment, Ellis looks like he’s about to argue, but then he gives me a nod of acknowledgment and settles himself against the cage bars opposite me. With one knee bent and his forearms braced over his muscled thigh, he looks like he’s lounging in a common room somewhere without a care in the world. I’d believe the act if not for the pain behind those golden eyes, the slight tightening of his mouth every time he shifts his shackled wrists.
For a few minutes, we sit without saying a word, and I wrap my jacket tightly around myself to ward off the growing chill. Why am I the only one to ever be cold around here? “Why did you come after me?” I ask finally. “If you’re so smart and know the dangers, why even bother tracking down a witch?”
Ellis gives me a grin that doesn’t touch his pale eyes. “You know why, Devinee. Keeping you alive is my punishment. I would get a worse fate yet if I let something happen to you.”
“Worse fate than this?” I gesture around the cage.
“Of course. The worst thing that could happen to me here is death.” He turns away, surveying the cage while the look in his eyes says his mind is somewhere else entirely. For some reason, it’s all I can do to keep from reaching out to him, trying to uncover what it is that he fears. He tracks a large silhouetted owl winging across the twilight sky. “These cages get inspected regularly, so Quinn will need to move us in the morning. When he comes, I need you to play possum. Broken, docile, too spent to fight. Right up until he gets the cage open. Then you run like hell. Get back to the Academy or—even better—to Cassis. Don’t stop. I will keep them distracted. Can you find your way?”
“You don’t think Quinn will chase me?” I say, even though that isn’t the question I really want to ask.
“Oh, he’ll want to. But I will put up enough trouble to buy you time. The last thing Quinn will want to risk is letting me stay alive—and I can be very persistent in that regard.”
“Yeah. No. Come up with a better plan. Gallant as it sounds, you aren’t going to lay down your life to buy me a chance to run.”
“I’m not?” Ellis’s voice is as dry as mine.
“No. And we both know it, so cut the crap.”
The male swallows, his eyes on the forest again. “Yes,” he agrees too easily. “You are right, of course. I’m certain I can best Quinn. He’s young and powerful, though untrained. But run anyway. I don’t need an audience when I fight.”
I stare at him, knowing he’s lying. Telling me whatever I want to hear just so… just so…I run? Save myself?
“Can you stop with the games?” My control over my emotions snaps like a bow string, the rage and fear all spilling into my blood at once. My breaths quicken, becoming ragged. “Tell the bloody truth, Ellis! Why did you come after me? What am I that someone wants me so badly, you won’t back off?”
“I don’t owe you anything, Devinee,” Ellis says, his voice changing. Hardening. “Much less the truth.”
Closing his eyes, he leans his head back against the bars, his beautiful face so strained that I fight the ridiculous urge to crouch beside him and run a cool hand over his forehead where beads of sweat form despite the chill. On his forearms, angry red streaks are starting to creep out from beneath the iron shackles. With his eyes closed and his muscles tight, he looks almost vulnerable. Like a sleeping wolf.
“I didn’t tap, Ellis.” The words spill out of me, though I had no plans to rehash this morning. The words burn as I say them. “But you made it look to everyone like I surrendered.”
“Yes, I’m aware.” Ellis’s eyes stay closed, his words a sleepy Scottish drawl. “You were going to get injured, not just hurt, if I let you indulge in your stubbornness much longer.”
“You could just have stopped.”
“No, I couldn’t have.” Ellis shifts his weight to get more comfortable. “It would have set a bad precedent for us both. And, given that the point of the lesson was to teach you your limits, not very productive. I cut our losses.”
I wait for him to say more, but he doesn’t, the owls in the distance hooting companionably in the silence.
“Was it so very hard?” he asks finally, his eyes now open but too deep in thought to read. “To admit that you were at your limit? Did you think you’d be telling me something I didn’t know?”
I open my mouth to snap something at him, but night has drained the squabble from me. “When you’re small and weak like me, sometimes not begging is the only thing you have left.”
There’s a resigned sigh, and Ellis stops talking again, opening his mouth only once when I shiver, but shutting it without saying a word. The silence hangs heavy between us, and I can tell that though the male is done speaking, he isn’t done thinking. Not at all.
“Does any of this—the training, you being a general asshole, whatever it is you and Cassis have going on—have to do with the mark on my palm?” I ask finally. Maybe this time, I’ll actually get answers. “Or the ginormous ruby you wanted me to steal?”
Ellis’s eyes shift to me, moonlight glancing off his hard jaw and high cheekbones, golden eyes gleaming. For a moment
, he looks more like the animal than the man. “I’ll tell you—for a price. You let me touch you.”
My spine stiffens, every benefit of the doubt I’ve extended to him now spiraling down the drain. Of course. Men, males—especially those who are used to power—are all alike. “Let’s call it what it is. You want to fuck me.”
“Let’s call it what it is,” Ellis agrees evenly. “I said I wanted to touch you. You added the rest. Say yes or don’t. My price stands.”
“No.”
He nods and closes his eyes again, his breath evening as if napping. Accepting no for an answer? Or just bidding his time?
I bite my lip. I’m not a virgin. Though I’ve never had sex for pleasure, it isn’t as though men haven’t taken me before, and the truth is that if Ellis decides to force it, there won’t be a thing I could do to stop him. At least this way, I’ll have something in return. I grit my teeth. What’s a bit more pain and humiliation by now? “Fine,” I say quickly before my courage fails. “You can…you can do what it is you want to do.”
“Prove it.” Ellis’s eyes stay closed. “Take off your jacket.”
Uh-huh. I do it, putting the jacket carefully on the floor of the cage and shivering in the cold. Ellis’s nostrils flare slightly as he inhales, the corners of his lips tugging up.
“Why—”
“I can smell you,” he informs me without moving a muscle. Now the shirt too, please.”
“Don’t you want to open your eyes and watch the show?”
Ellis opens his eyes, his golden gaze gripping mine and staying there while I peel the shirt off my body, my skin heating. My nipples poke through the thin white bra that I should have thrown out years ago, but he doesn’t break my gaze to look at them. Which somehow makes my blood simmer even hotter. Why a chiseled immortal like Ellis, who could have his pick of women, is bothering with a short nobody like me, I have no idea—then again, it isn’t as if there are many females in the cage to choose from.
