She wasn’t successful.
She was annoying.
Lena started her so-called tricking by chitchatting with the witch as if they were old friends and reminiscing about her life in the city. She told the witch about the beautiful libraries she had visited and wanted to visit again, and the food establishments that she wanted to eat in again. She was basically describing New York in a dreamy outlook, and it was all Hans could do not to start interrogating her again about who she really was. But he kept his calm and didn’t interrupt, a tactic so as not to draw attention to himself.
They didn’t know if the witch was even listening to her, but she seemed to think so. Lena kept up the chatter until another tray was placed in front of them, and the witch went out the front door and didn’t come back for a while.
Now was the chance to escape. Hans tried to shake the bars with his hands, but they didn’t budge. He tried it three times before noticing Lena’s hand creeping towards the tray.
He slapped it before she could pick one, earning a scandalized expression.
Without a word, he took one and sniffed it. It smelled normal. He handed it to her, and she reluctantly accepted it. Then Lena started eating with fervor. Ten minutes later, she was done and cleaning her hands up, and he was still silently observing her.
“You should eat,” she urged. “Get your energy up.”
“What did we say about Hansel & Gretel?”
She rolled her eyes. “Oh, please. Like you’d ever get fat with one meal.”
Her eyes were trained on his chest, almost as if mesmerized. He couldn’t help it again—this time, he chuckled, and it was filled with amusement despite their situation. Her eyes immediately dragged away from his chest, and a light pink color stained her cheeks.
“Are you insinuating I look good, Lena?”
She narrowed her eyes. “We’re trapped here and you’re still so conceited.”
He grinned, but she didn’t take his bait. After a while, he sighed. “Any brilliant plans so far on how to get us out of here?” he asked.
She shot him a look, blue eyes flashing. “Of course.”
“Care to elaborate?”
“No. I’ll handle it. You just sit still and pretend you don’t exist.”
It was a casual insult, one he didn’t take to heart. He was curious enough to see what she had planned.
An hour later, the witch came back carrying logs that had to be heavier than his own weight. She set them beside the fireplace and went to the cage, looking entirely too pleased at the almost empty food tray. That didn’t look good. He’d bitten off some of the ribs on the other plate, but placed the bones on Lena’s plate so it would look like she ate them all. The witch didn’t seem to mind as she took the tray in a better mood.
“Need fleshhhh…”
Creepy woman. But Hans waited for Lena, since she obviously wanted this to be her show. After five minutes, Lena started speaking again.
“Ganda, can I tell you a secret?”
No response.
Not seeming to care, Lena began to weave a tale of romance—that of hers and this guy in New York who had promised her a kiss once she returned from her so-called mission. There was something about them being in love, of the guy being so handsome and kind, that he literally swept her off her feet during their first meeting, when they’d bumped into each other and the guy’s hard chest had her almost flat on the floor. But he caught her before she could fall down, and sparks started to fly between them like crazy.
It was a ridiculous story. What was more ridiculous was how easy it was to believe her, with her wide eyes and trembling mouth. It was the same tactic she’d used on him before, and he wasn’t going to fall for it a second time around.
Tuning her out, he let her distract the witch as he gazed at their surroundings, taking every detail in. There was the kitchen with its dirty pots and pans, and the candy land section that looked appealing and gross at the same time. He couldn’t see any bedroom or bathroom, but the living room was within sight, where there was the chimney, a dirty rug and some sparkling gems on the couch. There was also a spinning wheel beside it, which was so out of place there. There were still some needles there, pointed yet rusty. He looked around the cage for the lock, found it just beside Lena. Maybe if he could find a way to reach the needle, he could use it to pick the lock and get them free.
His thoughts were interrupted when he felt heat at his side. Suddenly realizing what it was, Hans only had a split second to duck down and drag Lena along with him. He was crouched atop her to protect her, and he felt fire touch his back. The pain had him cursing the air blue as he glared at the witch, who was glaring right back.
“Shut uppp…”
Damn crazy woman.
Hans gritted his teeth against the pain and glared down at Lena, who was covered from head to toe with blue splotches of color. “What the hell did you say to her?”
Lena clamped her mouth shut and shook her head. But Hans shook her slightly, his patience already ebbing. “Lena…”
“I told her I’d have sex with you in front of her if she didn’t release us,” she blurted out.
Hans blinked, not expecting that answer. Then he released her and they both sat up. “Jesus. You’re crazy.”
“She obviously really hates you,” she pointed out. “I actually thought that would get her disgusted enough to release me…” Her words trailed off and she blinked her eyes, as if drowsy. Then despair entered her expression. “Oh, no.”
“What?”
“I think the blue thing’s poison,” she whispered. Panic laced her voice. “I can’t feel my fingers. Numb…”
Panic set inside him too, but he held on to his calm as he brought her up to a kneeling position in front of him. Her blue eyes were glazed. Damn it.
“Stay with me,” he ordered. “Stay with me, Lena—”
“My name’s Nell,” she blurted out.
He paused from whatever he was about to say.
“I’m not looking for a brother. That was a total lie. I’m hunting rogues for my mission.”
Jesus. The blue splotches were some kind of truth serum.
“Who ordered—”
“And I really haven’t been kissed before,” she declared.
Now he was speechless as she looked at him with earnest, expectant eyes. It was clear what they were conveying, and suddenly his panic was back.
“I’m not going to kiss you,” he growled.
Tears filled her eyes.
“So I’m going to die without ever having been kissed?” she whispered. Sadness sparked inside her, almost tangible.
Uncertainty filled him, along with something else—an attraction bottled up deep inside. He knew he was attracted to her, despite her crazy attitude. He knew she was pretty. He knew her lips looked soft and entirely too kissable for her own good, especially when she pouted them out like that…
Hans cursed the air blue again, wishing he was anywhere but here.
Then he was dragging her closer and covering her mouth with his.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Fighting the truth serum was like fighting an entire army of rogues trying to take her down. Honestly, fighting the rogues would have been easier at this point.
She couldn’t believe she’d asked for a kiss—not directly, but she asked for it nonetheless.
But what was more shocking was Hans accepting the challenge by dragging her closer and kissing the life out of her.
It should not have been glorious. It should have offended her right away, and maybe if there was no magic confusing her feelings at the moment, she would have pushed him off from the get-go. As it was, all she could do was kneel still and accept the kiss, feeling his skilled mouth assault hers in a way that had a jolt of heat spreading all over her body. Her toes tingled and her knees weakened, and all she could do in the moment was grip his shirt with all of her might and pull him closer.
Then she was kissing him back.
Sparks flew. Tongues slid in, tangl
ing together and making desire leap in her system like it never had before. He smelled like pine and man, and his warmth all but threatened to scorch her on the spot. What started out as hard and glorious ended up becoming slow—so painfully slow that it threatened to send her into overdrive as he seduced her lips with his tongue, caressed her waist with his huge hands. It made her want to caress back, to feel his skin beneath her fingertips.
And his kisses…they went on and on and on.
This was madness.
This was delicious.
He was going to ruin her kisses for other men if he kept this up.
Someone moaned, but she wasn’t even sure anymore who produced the sound. She made a move to scramble towards his lap, desperate for more—desperate for all of him—when her brain started clicking into place: she was kissing a stranger. A shifter.
An enemy.
It took all of her willpower to break it then and there. Nell scrambled back, finally breaking the kiss and staring at him in shock. He didn’t follow her, merely stayed in place, and at the moment he looked very dangerous with his mussed up hair and darkened eyes.
Her stomach jumped in pleasure at the sight.
She started cursing herself in her head. The magic was kicking in, cajoling her in sweet whispers to say something true—to let her true self out. She fought it with all her might, opened her mouth to utter something else.
“That was the hottest kiss I’ve ever had,” she blurted out.
Oh, God. Not what she was planning to say.
Hans’ mouth quirked, as if he was trying not to smile. His breathing was uneven. He nodded his head gravely, and her hands itched to touch. What the hell was wrong with her? “You mean that was the only kiss you’ve ever had.”
Okay, that wasn’t cool. She glared at him in response as worry slithered inside her. Please don’t ask me what I am, please don’t ask me what I am…
“Who are you, Nell?”
The truth hovered over her senses. Vampire. Predator. Your greatest enemy. But she fought it again, almost crying out at the pain it brought in her body to keep the secret in. Not yet, not now, it wasn’t time yet. God. She bit her tongue and dug her nails on her elbows, drawing blood. She could smell it.
“I’m Nell Louise, Lucinda’s ally and assistant,” she gritted out. The pain in her stomach eased.
Hans frowned down at her in utmost disapproval. He opened his mouth to ask another question—
“I’m so horny right now,” she interrupted before he could form the question. The key was to distract him with other truths, no matter how embarrassing.
His eyes darkened again, the hunger vivid, but he didn’t say anything.
“I would really like for you to kiss me again, Grayson…”
“Not gonna happen,” he murmured.
I’m a vampire, I’m a vampire, I’m a—
“And I despise you,” she whispered. “I despise you for not fighting alongside your peers and cowering in the prejudice and letting your shifter comrades die.”
Whatever openness had been on his face was now gone as his expression shut down into nothingness. There was no darkening of eyes, no thinning of lips at her declaration. Instead, he stopped looking at her and withdrew.
“Can’t even come up with an answer, huh?” she found herself saying.
Silence. Then Hans shook his head. “There’s nothing to defend. You’re right.”
She felt sick to her stomach, disgusted with herself. But she didn’t let him see any of it. A barrier was between them now because of her words, and there was nothing she could do. So she shifted her attention to the person who’d done this to her.
The witch was in the living room, sitting on the floor and staring at them hungrily. Her yellow eyes practically glowed with greed as she slowly crawled nearer until she was just outside the cage. Ignoring Hans, Ganda focused her gaze on Nell.
“Work for Lucinda?”
Nell nodded her head automatically. “Yes. I take it you don’t have a grudge against vampires?”
“Vampires are bastards.”
“Wouldn’t I know it,” Hans muttered at the side.
Ganda’s face filled with hate as her attention shifted to the bear shifter, which just wouldn’t do at all. So Nell pinched him on the back in warning, not eliciting a reaction. Then she babbled on so the witch’s attention would go back to her.
“Ganda, where’s the rogue nest?” she asked gently. “I really, really need to finish my mission. It’s of utmost importance.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m trying to protect humans,” she said solemnly. “They don’t deserve to be mauled to death by vicious creatures like that.” She felt the man beside her give her a look of surprise, but chose to ignore it.
The witch tilted her head, which caused a worm to slither out of her long hair. It made a slow crawl over to Hans’ foot, but he didn’t seem to care. More worms slithered out and over to them, making Nell panic out of her own accord. Her panic changed to surprise when she found arms clamping at her back and bottom. Then she was being lifted off the ground, just as the worms and other bugs crawled over to where she was sitting.
“I’ve got you,” Hans murmured quietly.
Her heart pitter-pattered as her mind registered his strong hands. But she forced herself to keep ignoring him, her eyes on the witch.
“Everyone will die eventually,” Ganda hissed.
“Where’s the vampire nest, Ganda?” Nell persisted softly.
Silence followed her question, dismaying Nell into believing she didn’t have a chance to pry it out as the witch looked down. But her head snapped up again, boring into Nell’s and making her shiver.
“North of North,” Ganda murmured, a hint of glee in her tone. “But you die before you go. I keep everything precious there...”
Slowly, Nell climbed up Hans until she was straddling his shoulders. If he found it odd, he didn’t say anything. One of her hands went to his hair, registering how soft it was before deciding a new tactic—a dangerous one, more than anything. Her other hand went to his shoulder, where their bound hands joined. “I have a proposition, Ganda.”
“Oh?”
Nell smiled. “I’ll kill someone for you. Someone you hate.”
There was a definite freezing of the body below her, but she already moved into action by squeezing his neck with her legs. She could feel shock vibrating inside him at her strength, and the question forming in his mind. Desperately clutching on to the truth serum, Nell continued speaking.
“You will be rid of your hate,” she declared. “You will be free and the person will be dead.”
Hesitation filled the witch’s face, and Nell tried to cover up her own expression.
“I will kill. I will kill without hesitation, Ganda. Make no mistake.”
Below him, Hans was clamping on to her thighs, using his strength to pry her off as he slowly choked. But her resounding strength matched his, and he couldn’t get away. A few more minutes of this, and he would choke to death.
She needed to act fast.
“Ganda, my hands will be filled with the blood of the person who ruined your life.”
That spurred the witch into action. Despair filled her ugly face, followed by anger so stark, it almost blinded Nell. Then the witch blurred and stopped an inch from her face, cheeks pressed against the cage bars.
“Kill bear. They killed lover.”
So that was it.
Nell nodded her head. The witch’s hands and hair moved towards Hans, an endless long line of sharp, dirty nails and frizzy hair. The blind hate and the intent to kill were all the leverage Nell needed as she heard the lock click, just as Hans’ arms started weakening against her thighs.
Then Nell was moving into action.
Her teeth came out, sharp and deadly. Her nails did the same. In a blur faster than the witch, she was pouncing with all her might, registering only the shock on Ganda’s face as it stared up at her.
Then she
was ripping the skin from the witch’s bones as her teeth sunk into rotten flesh. Blood flowed freely, contrastingly warm to the witch’s cold skin. It was rich and intoxicating, parallel with her hunger that sharpened her senses and made her stomach growl. Without thought, Nell kept ripping, kept attacking, sucking the blood and letting it fill her heart and soul. A voice sounded somewhere in her head, but it didn’t seem important at the moment.
Bones snapped. A head crawled over to her—Ganda’s second head, which wasn’t attached to the body. Still without thought, Nell leapt towards it before it could escape, fangs sinking in until she heard the crack. Bones shattered and blood filled her throat again, until it became her everything.
The voice grew louder in her head until it was all she could hear. It was her name being said over and over, a cacophony of sound forming in her mind like an insistent little cloud. Slowly, the fog dispersed, and the bloodlust that she hadn’t experience in a long while abated until she could think clearly again.
She was still sucking, even where there was no blood left. Now she could taste brains, and disgust filled her throat and made her want to vomit. With a cry of horror, Nell pushed the head away, watching it bounce sickeningly on the floor and join the body she’d abandoned.
Her name kept repeating in her head, reverberating in her ears. She turned her head to the side, searching for its source.
Just inside the cage, hand still attached to hers, green eyes watched her intently. With shock.
With anger.
“Nell,” he said one more time. “Stop.”
Purple and black streaks were found on his neck—her doing. Her violence. A drop of blood slid down, making the hunger so sharp it vibrated in her stomach. His blood would be delicious, and she knew the intent was clear in her eyes. But he didn’t move to hurt her, didn’t so much as make a move to defend himself. Instead, he sat still and swayed on the spot. She realized that her sudden movement had the orange dust inside the cage swirling again, the same dust that made her drowsy earlier.
She finally met his gaze, wrapping her arms around herself to keep her from slowly unravelling even more out of control. “The person she hated most was herself. So I killed her.”
Hans (The Clan Legacy) Page 5
