The Sweet Series Box Set: Books 1-4

by Bailey Ardisone

  I screamed and sat up, trying desperately to run away. I slowly started to realize I was back in captivity, only instead of the white room where I had been completely restrained from head to toe, I was now in a dark stone room and free to move about.

  I ran to the nearest wall and felt every inch of it, looking for a way out. After taking in my surroundings, there seemed to be no door in sight. No bars, no windows—nothing. It was a small dirty square room, made entirely out of stone. I kept feeling each wall, praying there was a seam or hinge of some sort.

  But there was nothing.

  I let out a scream as loud as I could make it, begging for help. But there was no response or answer made in return—just the deafening silence of being completely alone.

  After what seemed like hours, eventually the spot where a stone door existed appeared as it slowly opened with a grinding announcement. Armed men rushed in, wearing full head-to-toe body suits, resembling a bomb squad.

  They all pointed huge machine guns at me like if I made one single movement they’d blow me away without hesitating for a second. The man I’d come to call my captor slowly strutted in, giving off an air of dominance and demanding obedience without having to utter a word.

  “Good. You are awake. Now maybe we can get some answers.” He signaled for the door to be closed behind him.

  “I’m not going to tell you anything, you sick freak. Now let me go!” I growled.

  “Now now, do not be a brat. You will tell us. I promise you that.” He licked his lips and slightly smiled. The whole thing made me want to vomit.

  “Try your best and you’ll find out,” I challenged, anger creeping up on me. This was ridiculous; I didn’t know anything, so all of this was completely pointless!

  “That can be arranged.” He snapped his fingers, and one of the men I didn’t notice before stepped around him and walked toward me. He was a huge burly man, with muscles bigger than my head. Lovely.

  “Every time you do not give me a truthful answer, you will pay a price.” He put his arms behind his back and started slowly pacing around the room. “Where is the Sindora?”

  “I have no idea what that is,” I answered honestly, but he didn’t believe me. He signaled to the beefy man, and he immediately stepped over and smacked me across the face.

  “I told you the truth!” I shouted, reaching up to hold my swelling cheek.

  “Where is Mr. Nightly?” he ignored me and tried another question.

  “Go fly a kite,” I spit at his feet, determined more than ever to not give him the satisfaction of answering him.

  “You will regret that.” He gave me a sinister smile and nodded to the man. “Teach our guest some manners, please.”

  I closed my eyes and crawled into a ball, readying myself for the worst. I faintly heard my captor tell someone that I should be taken back to the white room and to induce the truth serum. Then, the man began beating me so hard I ended up passing out.

  Loud, feral screaming and crashing abruptly woke me out of another deep sleep. There were no windows in the white room either, giving me no idea how much time had passed or how long I’d been sleeping, but it felt like days.

  Curse those dang drugs. Seriously? Was it really necessary to go back to that? I still did not get the point of sedating me and returning me to shackles if they were trying to get answers. Answers to questions I didn’t even understand in the first place.

  I fought against slipping back asleep and tried to focus as the sound of gunshots followed by more screaming echoed outside the walls of my captivity.

  I tried to sit up but was quickly reminded that I couldn’t. That despicable man came barging through the large, heavy steel door to my "room" (more like "prison cell") just then. He looked toward the door he had just run through, fear written all over his face. He had slammed it shut and just as quickly locked it, but never once did he take his eyes off it while pulling a silver handgun from his belt. He held it out, ready to shoot whoever came through the door. He was afraid. I was afraid too.

  My scalp prickled from fear as my heart pounded against my chest. I swear my arms and legs no longer needed to be restrained; it was now my heart that needed to be kept in its place instead. If this bulky man with a gun was frightened, then what chance did I have against whatever it was that was coming? Was it more monster than even my vicious captor that he was now the one afraid? And here I was, a sitting duck just waiting to be eaten. Or killed. Sacrificed. Who even knew what! What was coming?! I couldn’t take it anymore!

  The door, the one I once thought was extremely large and heavy just a few seconds ago, flew off its hinges and crashed into the wall behind it, just barely missing my captor as he quickly stepped out of the way. Whatever this thing was, I knew we were both dead. My heart no longer could stay in its rightful place as it dropped into my stomach, as I thought about never having the chance to say goodbye to Rydan or Zaylie and Desmond, or even dumb Liam. A tear escaped and ran down my cheek as Mycah’s mischievous blue eyes flashed into my mind.

  But fear was instantly replaced by intense longing as my eyes lay upon him bursting through the doorway. I was already shaking from the shock, but seeing Mycah racked my body with tremors, barely able to contain the anticipation or belief that he was really here.

  “Bleiben Sie, wo Sie sind, Nightly! Sie nicht näher kommen!” the man snarled in a foreign language. I almost forgot about him during my own fear and anxiety of what was coming. But Mycah wasn’t even looking at him. He was looking at me, and in his deep ocean eyes I saw his relief that I was alive but also despair for what I may have gone through.

  “Sie und ich wissen, dass wird nicht passieren,” Mycah replied in that same language as he turned toward the man. The look of concern he had for me disappeared into anger and menace. Mycah took a step toward him but to my horror made the man shoot his gun, aimed right at Mycah’s heart.

  “NO!!” I wailed at the top of my lungs, pulling and fighting against the shackles. But Mycah stood there, completely unharmed. He had his left arm stretched out, and without any comprehension from me, the bullet stayed hanging in mid-air. The man shot some more, but they too were halted to a stop. The man backed away until he hit the white wall behind him, and all three bullets then fell to the floor.

  I was sure my mouth hung open from shock, but I didn’t notice. Mycah stalked toward the man like he was prey. The man looked petrified, and I could tell he knew exactly what was coming as he dropped his useless gun to the ground.

  However, the man was skilled; that was suddenly clear as soon as he took a swing at Mycah. The man took the offensive approach and desperately tried to fight off Mycah, but Mycah was just as skilled, if not more. Mycah blocked and deflected each punch and assault the man made, not once letting the man touch him. He kept trying to disarm Mycah in some way, whether it were leg kicks, strangle holds, or whatever other techniques skilled fighters used. But Mycah easily dodged each attack, and I was pretty sure he was just waiting for the guy to wear himself out, barely bothered by the man’s attempts at all.

  To my dismay, it actually looked like Mycah was enjoying this. Then, the tables turned and Mycah switched from defensive to offensive, and the skills and techniques Mycah possessed were even more shocking than anything I had seen so far. Okay, maybe not anything, given the whole supernatural powers like healing and putting people to sleep with glowing hands were pretty high up there.

  The way Mycah moved was beautiful but powerful. He moved so fast and smoothly, he almost looked like he was dancing. Was he a CIA agent or something? His skills were not normal, and I couldn’t help but think I got myself mixed up with a real-life Jason Bourne.

  The man was all bloody and beaten from Mycah unleashing his mad skills, and I kind of began to feel bad for the guy. I wished I could cover my ears, because the sound of bones breaking and bloody flesh being pounded started to make me sick.

  The man didn’t give up though and looked to try very hard to get the upper hand on Mycah. I had no sk
ills in fighting, but even I could see this guy had absolutely no chance. Mycah was on a whole other level, and as I watched, it dawned on me that not even Jason Bourne would be able to stop Mycah.

  Mycah started choking the badly wounded man, and I could see he was going to kill him.

  “Mycah, don’t! Please don’t!” I couldn’t take it anymore, and I definitely couldn’t stand the thought of watching someone die right in front of me, even if it was a bad person—even if he was my captor.

  At the sound of my plea, Mycah turned toward me, concern written all over his face. He stood there contemplating what to do. Before I could say anything else, three more men ran into the room and started firing their guns at Mycah.

  “Let him go!” one of the men growled in the same foreign accent I couldn’t quite distinguish. He had midnight skin with a shaved head and dressed exactly like my captor. In fact, all the men were dressed the same way and clearly muscular and bulky underneath their black suit jackets.

  Mycah stopped all of the bullets just like he did before and sent the men flying back out of the room with a burst of some strange force I didn’t understand. He then put one hand over my captor’s head and closed his eyes. A few minutes later, the man slumped to the floor.

  To my instant horror, Mycah ran out of the room. Panic that he was just going to leave me here washed over me, and I began to hyperventilate. I wanted to call out to him, to apologize for ever being rude to him and beg with everything I had in me to come back and let me free. But no words would come out of my mouth as my head began to swim and my vision started to cloud. I was losing it, and the thought of being left here to die was quickly becoming too much.

  Just then, Mycah came running to me, then quickly and easily ripped the restraints out—another sign he possessed uncanny strength. He gently took out the IV and scooped me up into his arms, holding me to his muscular chest. He smelt so delicious.

  “Are you alright?” His languid accent tickled my senses, making me blush as he sweetly wiped away the tears that were streaming down my face. Boy, I never knew I could be so emotional.

  “I am now.” I couldn’t begin to describe how happy and relieved I was with him here. “You came for me.” I could barely believe this was real. I thought for sure he left me.

  “I will always come for you. I would walk through fire if I had to.” Despite my foggy brain, the raw emotion he let show in his voice made me believe his words to my core, although I didn’t actually understand why or how he could say something like that. He barely knew me.

  “How did you know where I was?” The idea that I must be dreaming entered into my thoughts, and my pulse began to race in panic again. Surely, this was too good to be true. Everything about Mycah was too good to be true.

  “Shhh, it’s okay, it’s okay. Don’t worry about that right now.” I didn’t have the strength to ask further or argue with him. The sedation that was still in my system was quickly becoming too much as my adrenaline started wearing off. He began healing all my wounds I had forgotten about, with me not even being able to feel them from the drugs.

  “I’m going to get you out of here. We have to hurry. We don’t have much time.” His voice was strained, and more tears began stinging my eyes with the hope of escape. This couldn’t be a dream. It felt too real. He ran to the door, and at the same time held my head to his neck.

  “Don’t look,” he whispered to me. I closed my eyes, wondering what was out there that I shouldn’t be seeing. I decided I would ask later, adding the question to my increasingly long list of things to ask Mycah. If I could somehow remember them all.

  Sleep began to overtake me as I stayed in Mycah’s arms with my eyes closed. The drugs mixed with the overwhelming emotions and shock of everything made it incredibly hard to stay conscious.

  Mycah didn’t seem bothered by my weight at all as he gracefully made his way to some place safe. He would run in spurts, stopping and taking cover when needed. I could hear his heart beating next to my ear, and I was surprised to find it sounded calm and steady. If I wasn’t so heavily sedated, I was sure my heart would practically be beating out of my chest. Whether it would be from fear or the close proximity to Mycah, I wouldn’t know.

  Either way, I knew I was in good hands with this being the second time Mycah had saved my life. I felt his lips on the top of my head just before I could no longer resist blacking out. And at the same time, a stronger flicker of that same unfamiliar feeling I had felt the other day seemed to ignite into a tiny flame deep inside me.

  Chapter Seventeen

  ~Naminé~

  I moaned as I yet again spilled the Uile stew. I unintentionally had filled the vessels to the brim and now tried to walk slowly down the stairs while balancing the plate of them in my hands thrice this morning. I had lost my footing several times as the green algae seaweed spilled to the floor and onto my shoes. The seaweed was horrid and smelled like rotten fish, but it was the only vegetable the King would let us put in the prisoner's stew. With Castle Edhel-N’dor being on the cliffs of Mount Orod overlooking the deep blue sea below, fisherman would bring in barrels of the seaweed in exchange for a small price. Uile wasn’t by any means tasty, but it was food. The King decreed that it would be given to the prisoners; they were to receive nothing else. My mother had concocted a stew made with Uile and that was what they ate. During sunrise to sunset they were to receive two small meals of Uile a day.

  I quickly dispersed the vessels among the rest of the prisoners and gave them their pots of water. I walked up to my last prisoner in the deep dungeon, the one I always saved for last, for I longed to hear his words of wisdom. I looked into the cell and observed he was very weak and fragile. I gently set his vessel of stew on the ledge and pushed it into the cell. He lightly stirred to the sound, and after several attempts of trying to move he finally faced me with a despondent look.

  I tried my best to smile at him, but his expression was one of utter despair, a look of complete hopelessness.

  Chapter Eighteen

  ~Nari~

  I stirred in my sleep, but at the sense of something hard yet slightly soft and very very warm, I instantly came to. My eyes snapped opened to a person’s chest. Very much a guy’s chest actually. A guy’s chest that I just happened to be laying on. Oh, and a heavy guy’s arm that just happened to be draped over my side.

  My breathing quickened from the memories crashing down on me of everything that had just transpired up to this point while taking in Mycah’s familiar woodsy scent.

  “Hello, lovely.” His English accent was slick as velvet, and I knew in this very moment that I never, never ever would I get over how sexy it was. If getting kidnapped, drugged, beaten, starved, and scared half to death wasn’t enough to keep my heart from racing and head spinning, then I was confident absolutely nothing would.

  But before I could respond or even register where I was, Mycah was pulled from underneath me.

  “What the heck is going on here?!” Rydan roared. He had Mycah pinned against the wall. My wall. As I quickly sat up, I looked around and realized I was back at home in my bed.

  “Rydan! My god is it good to see you!” I tried to stand up, to run to him, but the movement of sitting up too fast made my head pound and the room spin.

  “Who the heck is this, Nari? And where have you been? I've been worried sick. If this douchebag laid a finger on you or hurt you in any way I swear…” He pushed Mycah against the wall even more forcefully. Mycah didn’t say or do anything. He didn’t even look upset. He just stared calmly at Rydan…He kind of looked amused.

  “I am going to kill you,” Rydan growled in Mycah’s face.

  “Rydan, stop it! He didn’t hurt me, I promise. Just let him go!” But he didn’t; he kept him locked against the wall.

  “Have you been with this prick the entire time? Nari, answer me. Why haven’t you called me or at least sent me a text—anything to let me know that you were okay? I thought Ray might've…” He looked at me then, and I could see the
hurt in his eyes.

  “Ry, please believe me—”

  “Yes, she was with me. Got a problem with that, mate?” Mycah cut me off and turned to look at me—a look that was obviously pleading with me to follow along. Wait, was I seriously not allowed to tell my best friend that I was captured and abused and that all I wanted to do was call for him? That I would have never left him hanging like that?

  I opened my mouth to protest—to deny it and spill my guts about everything that had happened—but I didn’t get the chance to before Rydan full-blown punched Mycah in the face.

  “Rydan! What are you doing?!” I screeched, trying desperately to stand up. Mycah retaliated by forcing Rydan back against the opposite wall, right into my bookcase, knocking the picture of my mother off onto the floor. They were grunting and heaving and being completely ridiculous, and after all that I had been through, I had enough. Grateful for the existence of adrenaline, I scrambled to my feet and ran over to them.

  “Stop it! Both of you! Just stop it!” I clawed and pulled at Mycah’s arms to let Rydan go, who held onto Mycah just as firmly, trying to force him back.

  “Rydan, please, just go. I’ll talk to you later, okay?” I wanted nothing more than to run into Rydan’s arms and have him hold me and tell me everything was going to be okay, but first I needed answers. I needed answers from Mycah before I could even pretend to talk to Rydan. There was no way I could explain anything to him right now. I didn’t even understand one single moment of it myself.

  But at my words, the look of hurt and betrayal that crossed his face would forever haunt me. It left me speechless and reeling, wishing I could take them back and beg for forgiveness.

  “You want me to go?” His voice was pained and so low, I barely heard it.