by I. T. Lucas
Leaning against the counter and sipping his hot brew, Anandur just stared at her for a long moment before responding. “He is down in the dungeon. It’s on the same level as the rest of the guest rooms, but in a section that is better secured and not as lavishly appointed.”
“Take me to him.”
“I can’t, not without Kian’s authorization. And frankly? Hell would freeze over before he allows it.”
“Then we’ll go over his head.”
“What do you mean over his head? Kian is at the top of our food chain.”
“Wrong. My mother is. Or did you forget that she is still the head of our clan? The fact that she lets Kian and Sari run things as they see fit and doesn’t interfere with the day to day operations doesn’t mean she can’t or wouldn’t. After all, we are not a democracy, and she has the final word.”
“You’ve got a point there. You’ll have to forgive me, though, if I demand to hear it from her own lips… or in writing. As it is, I’m in enough trouble with Kian already over that little incident with Syssi.”
“Damn you, Anandur. Since when did you turn into a wuss? My mother is still sleeping, and I really need to see Dalhu now. I had this horrible nightmare about Kian torturing him. It was so bad that I didn’t even brush my teeth before rushing down here.”
Anandur arched a brow, but then his face softened. “You can rest easy. No one tortured your Doomer. Kian left with Andrew and his men, going straight from the helipad to the garage. And I’m sure he was too exhausted to torture anyone when he came back. But if you need to see your Doomer so badly, I have a solution that can ease your mind without getting me in trouble or waking a sleeping goddess and risking her wrath.”
“Yeah? What is it?”
“We can go down to security and view him on the surveillance monitors.”
“Anandur, you’re a genius. Let’s go.” Amanda put her empty mug on the counter and reached up to kiss his cheek.
“I’ll be damned, wonders never cease. First Kian, and now you? Two compliments in less than twenty-four hours.” He shook his head as he headed for the bedroom. “I wish Brundar were here to hear it. He would never believe me.”
“Why? Where is he?”
“Who knows?” Anandur answered from the bedroom. “He is a secretive bastard.”
That was true. Brundar was the most tight-lipped guy she had ever met.
Anandur came out of the bedroom tugging on a T-shirt. “Let’s go, princess. Your frog awaits.”
“Does he do it a lot? Stay the night somewhere else, that is?” she asked as they entered the elevator. Amanda couldn’t help her curiosity. Brundar was such an enigma that every morsel of information about him, no matter how small, was a rare treat.
“From time to time, not often, though. I’ve learned not to ask because I never get an answer.” Anandur crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the elevator’s panel.
“Care to hazard a guess?” Anandur had to know something. Not only was he Brundar’s brother, but the two worked and lived together.
Anandur shrugged. “I assume it’s sex. When we go clubbing, he doesn’t go for the females, and I know he doesn’t use paid services either, not any that I’m aware of, anyway. But he has to get it somewhere, right?”
The elevator stopped on the second floor and Amanda followed Anandur out. “Do you think he is gay?” she whispered.
“No, I know he isn’t. His reaction to females is the same as any other heterosexual, horny immortal male’s.”
“So what do you think he’s hiding?” she asked as they reached a set of gray double doors which were secured with a card-reader lock.
“I don’t know. But if Brundar wants to keep his sex life private, it’s his prerogative. Right?” Anandur slid his card through the scanner and pushed the left door open.
Amanda had never seen the place before, and as it turned out, Security was not what she had imagined. Instead of one room full of monitors and a guy watching them with a bored expression on his face, the Security Department was huge, occupying most of the second floor’s office space and employing dozens of people—mortal and immortal.
Lording supreme over the whole thing was the gatekeeper—Rose the receptionist—a formidable elderly human.
She smiled at Anandur while Amanda got the tight-lipped who-is-that-floozy look-over. “I’m sorry. But Dr. Dokani doesn’t have the necessary clearance. You’ll have to go in by yourself, dear,” Rose rasped in her smoker’s voice.
It took some of Anandur’s famous charm, or maybe it was the veiled threat of a possible retribution from the big boss that did the trick, but eventually the harpy relented and buzzed them in.
As they made their way down the long hallway, Anandur poked his head into the various rooms and explained their function. Besides several viewing rooms that were each in charge of monitoring a different section of the building, there was also a weapons room, the head of security’s room, a changing room with rows of lockers, and even a small staff cafeteria that doubled as a rec room.
Greeting everyone by name, Anandur introduced Amanda as his cousin.
For some reason, the appreciative looks she got from the guys failed to thrill her—annoying her instead—and she was glad to reach the end of the tour.
Anandur swiped his access card to the only room in the security wing that was restricted to immortal personnel only. Not that the humans were aware of who their coworkers were, of course. As far as they were concerned, the restricted access only meant that a higher clearance was required.
Over there, surveillance tracked the floors occupied by the clan, including the private underground garage, the rooftop, and the entrances to the dedicated elevators. Though if needed, they had access to all the other camera feeds as well.
Two guys and one girl were working the twelve-hour night shift which would probably be over soon. Early dawn had been on the horizon when she’d left her apartment.
“Hi, Steve, how’re you, buddy?” Anandur slapped hands with the guy. “How is our lone prisoner doing?”
“Sleeping, I think. Here, these are the two feeds from his room.”
Amanda waited for the monitors to come online, but when nothing happened she got impatient. “Well? How long does it take to turn them on?”
“They are on. It’s just dark in there. That’s why I said he was probably sleeping.”
Dark? Pitch black was more like it. If even she, with her enhanced eyesight, could see nothing, then there was absolutely no light in the room.
“Did he wake up at all since we’ve brought him in?” Anandur placed a hand on Amanda’s shoulder, halting the rant that was building up.
“Yeah, he did. Got up, used the bathroom, ate breakfast, then went back to sit on the mattress. But after five minutes of him pulling the Rodin, sitting motionless, the sensors turned the lights off. That was a little over an hour ago.”
“Could you rewind the footage? Amanda wants to make sure he is okay.”
Steve gave her a quizzical glance, then shrugged and did as Anandur had asked, starting the recording from the moment the brothers had brought the unconscious Dalhu into the room and had transferred him from the gurney to the mattress.
The room—if one could call it that, more like a closet—wasn’t as bad as in her dream. The walls were painted a plain cream color, and there were no chains or even hooks to attach them to in sight. But other than that, it was shockingly small and bare.
A few minutes after the guys left and locked the door, the lights switched off, and the monitors went black.
“Speed it up,” Anandur said.
Steve did just that, and once Dalhu woke up and the lights switched back on, he slowed the thing to only four times the normal speed.
As she watched Dalhu in the fast forward, it was obvious he’d been aware of the cameras, and as his gaze had swept over every detail in the room, his expression had been guarded, revealing next to nothing. But Amanda knew him well enough to notice the litt
le tell signs he had been working so hard to conceal.
He looked hopeless.
Not that she could blame him. Being locked in a small inescapable box, with no hope of ever getting out, who wouldn’t feel despondent?
But he was wrong.
Dalhu underestimated what she could and would do for him, and more importantly, who she had at her corner.
When the recording ended and the monitors returned to live feed, the little number at the top left corner of the screen showed it to be a little before seven in the morning. It was still too early, considering that Annani had gone to bed less than two hours ago. Nevertheless, she was going to risk rousing her mother.
“Thank you, Steve. Let’s go, Anandur.”
“I’m having Dalhu moved,” she said once they were out of the security wing and back inside the elevator.
“You know I can’t do it. Kian selected this cell specifically. That’s where he wants him to stay.”
“I know. I’m going to wake my mother. “
“Oh, boy, the shit’s gonna hit the fan.”
Amanda glanced up at Anandur with a half-hearted smile. He was right. This was going to get real nasty, real fast. And for once, she wasn’t looking forward to all the drama.
“Good luck,” Anandur said as they reached his floor. “I’m going back to sleep. Don’t wake me up unless an all-out war is raging.”
She smiled. “Goodnight, or rather good morning.”
He nodded, giving her the thumbs up as the elevator doors were about to close.
Back in the penthouse, Amanda paced around her living room for a good ten or fifteen minutes. Before waking her mother, she needed to work on phrasing her request to sound as convincing and as respectful as possible.
Despite what she’d told Anandur, she wasn’t certain at all her mother would agree to go over Kian’s head. In fact, she was pretty sure she would take a lot of convincing.
True, Annani had promised her support, but her mother’s idea of helping was probably talking with Kian and attempting to reason with him.
There was no doubt in Amanda’s mind that her mother would balk at undermining Kian’s authority over his own keep.
Shit. Amanda didn’t like it either.
She had to find a way to have Dalhu transferred to a decent room without an all-out battle with Kian.
CHAPTER 7: DALHU
The darkness didn’t bother Dalhu, nor did the quiet. The lack of outside stimuli provided a blank canvas for his imagination. He filled the void with images of Amanda, painting them in vivid colors on the inside of his eyelids, and the silence with her voice, playing her spoken words like a soundtrack in his head.
He was committing to memory each and every nuance of her expressive face, her perfect body. The smiles. The way she tapped her foot on the floor when angry. The arch of her perfect dark brows when doubtful.
Her spirit.
She was such a passionate woman, and he wasn’t referring to sex. Although, yeah… that too. She was just as enthusiastic about her work—finding a solution to her clan’s plight.
Fuck. As Dalhu’s head jerked up, activating the motion detectors, the harsh light flooded his cell again. Amanda would not be able to return to her work. Not as long as the men he had foolishly left behind—alive—knew who she was, where she worked, and what her face looked like.
Even if she were to change her name and establish a new research laboratory elsewhere, they’d still be able to find her.
As long as they lived, Amanda would never be safe.
Damn. He hadn’t planned for the contingency of her ever going home and therefore had never considered what would happen if she were to be rescued.
Amanda would want to return to her work at the lab as soon as possible.
He’d been careless. He’d fucked up and had failed to protect Amanda again. What the hell had he been thinking? What had possessed him to spare their lives? He should have eliminated each and every last thread leading to her.
I’m such a fucking idiot.
Dalhu pushed up from the mattress and began pacing. Like a caged animal, he walked in circles around his tiny jail cell, struggling to suppress the roar that was building up in his chest.
Up until that moment, he’d been careful to project a strong image for the benefit of the guys watching him on the surveillance cameras, refusing to give them the satisfaction of seeing him lose it.
Not anymore.
Lacing his fingers behind his head and pressing the heels of his palms into his temples, he didn’t give a shit if his captors were watching.
Let them see his distress.
Let them gloat.
He had to talk to Amanda and warn her.
But how? How would he communicate with her?
The fuckers watching the monitors wouldn’t tell her if he asked for her, and anyway, it wasn’t likely that they were monitoring sound in addition to visual in this rattrap. If the room were ever to be used for interrogation, it would have been rigged with audio recording equipment. But Dalhu doubted a cell this size could accommodate such activity. Besides, there was no residual scent of blood. And it wasn’t like prisoners in solitary confinement were known to talk to themselves and reveal secrets that were worth recording.
He had the passing thought that if he were to trash the place, someone would come to check on him. Except, there wasn’t much to trash, and the room was probably soundproof. No one in the adjoining cells or the corridor would be able to hear him; only the guys in security would know anything was going on.
In the end, desperation had driven him to employ a last-resort measure. He turned his face up to the camera and began miming.
From a warrior to a fucking mime.
How low the mighty had fallen.
Doing the chatting thing with his lips and the fingers of one hand, he pointed to his head with the other. Hopefully, the guards were better at charades than he was, and weren’t mistaking his gestures to mean he was hearing voices in his head.
Asking to talk to someone in charge, Dalhu mouthed the words and gesticulated with his hands. Repeating his request, he even tried to shape his hands into something resembling a crown on his head.
Damn, he could only imagine the ridicule his performance was garnering.
CHAPTER 8: AMANDA
“Ninni?” Amanda whispered and dipped her head to kiss her mother’s warm cheek. “Are you awake?” she whispered again.
It was dark in Annani’s bedroom. The closed shutters blocked all outside light from filtering through, and the room would have been pitch black if not for the lambent glow cast by the Goddess’s luminous skin.
“No,” Annani rasped, a small smile blooming on her delicate face. “I am still sleeping and dreaming my little Mindy is afraid of the dark and wants to crawl in bed with her Ninni. Come, child, get in and let me hug you.” She lifted the comforter and scooched back a little, making room for Amanda.
Hesitating for all of two seconds, Amanda hopped in and snuggled up to her mother. And if anyone had a problem with a two-hundred-year-old woman wanting a little babying from her Ninni, they could shove it where the sun doesn’t shine.
Annani let the comforter drop back, then lifted her palm to Amanda’s cheek and cupped it gently. “What troubles you so early in the morning?”
“I had a bad dream.”
Annani chuckled and shifted up, kissing Amanda’s forehead. “Here, I kissed the bad dream away. All better?”
“You know what? It’s funny, but it is.”
“Of course it is. Love always brightens the mood.”
Amanda sighed and moved to lie on her back. “I had a horrible nightmare. I dreamt that Dalhu had been tortured. It was so awful that I woke up with my heart up in my throat, and I just had to check up on him to reassure myself that he was okay. But knowing Kian would never allow it, I tried to get Anandur to take me to see Dalhu. But Anandur refused to go over Kian’s head and took me to security instead. I watched the recording from t
he surveillance cameras, all of it, from the moment they’d brought Dalhu in and up to that moment. As far as I could ascertain, he wasn’t harmed. But his cell is tiny, with nothing but a mattress on the floor. He is a big guy, taller even than Anandur, he’ll go crazy in there.”
Amanda paused and sighed again, adding a soft sniffle for effect. “I don’t know what to do, Ninni. I’m well aware that we can’t risk letting a Doomer roam free about the keep, and I’m not suggesting it. But I can’t stand the thought of Dalhu being locked up in that little empty box. Besides, I want to be able to visit him and spend some time with him without everyone in security watching and listening to everything that’s going on. You know what I mean?”
She sniffled again, a little louder this time. “Talking with Kian will achieve nothing. In fact, the opposite is probably true. If I try to reason with him, he’ll just get angrier and may take it out on Dalhu.” As real tears slid down her temples, trickling into the crease between her shoulder and neck, Amanda covered her eyes with the palms of her hands.
Annani’s reply was a long time in coming. “Do not worry, child, I will talk to him.”
“Kian won’t listen to reason, not even from you.”
“Oh, but my dear Mindy, you underestimate me. By the time I am done with Kian, he will be convinced it was his own idea to move Dalhu to a better holding room.”
“How? Are you going to use influence on him?”
It was a disconcerting thought. As far as Amanda knew, Annani had never used her power to manipulate her own children, but what if she had? As the only one capable of playing with the minds of immortals, she could’ve done so with no one any the wiser.
Except, why would she?
Whenever Annani wanted something from her children, or from any of the other members of her clan for that matter, all she had to do was ask. No one would dare defy her. And it wasn’t as if the Goddess shied away from voicing her demands.
“No, of course not,” Annani humphed. “I will simply do what every other mother does… well, maybe not every mother… just those with a flair for the dramatic.” She winked. “I am, after all, a diva, and my loving son is obligated to cater to my whims, however bizarre.”
