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She tensed as suddenly Matteus was at her side, breathing close to her ear. She made her face blank, refusing to let him see her desperation.
“What do you think of your new home, little dove?”
“It’s not my home,” she gritted out. “And it’s not yours either. This is human lands.”
Matteus smirked. “Wrong. I own every one of these fifty acres.”
“H-how come?”
“Let’s just say I did a deal with the devil.”
She blinked. “The devil?”
Matteus laughed, the ruby in his canine glinting. “The Counsel of Towns needed the money, and I needed a beautiful home for you to live in, my sweet. Win-win.”
Horror and incredulity churned inside Shona’s gut.
This wasn’t an impetuous move on Matteus’s part, was it? He’d clearly been planning this for a while, buying land and cultivating it, employing monsters to work for him. And now, abducting her. Oh, how stupid and naïve she’d been to think that because he hadn’t bothered her in a while, he’d lost interest.
Bile rose up her throat.
Once they had their prey in mind, vampires never moved on. She should know that.
“Y-you’ve been planning this… t-to kidnap me…”
“On the contrary, my love, I planned to win you back slowly.” His lip lifted in a sneer. “But then you went and defiled yourself with that orc, and I realized I had to move fast to save you.”
Save her! The vain, deluded idiot. Her hand itched to slap him, but he was too fast. As she raised it, he clasped it in his leather-gloved hand and squeezed her fingers until she yelped.
“Enough whining. You will thank me for this, shortly.” He raised his free hand and snapped his fingers. Two goblin women came running out of the house. They grabbed her by the arms.
“Take her away,” Matteus ordered. “Scrub her clean and get her gown ready.”
Shona’s blood ran cold. Oh yes, every part of this had been meticulously planned, right down to what she would wear.
Matteus leaned nonchalantly against the limo, watching her struggling against the goblins’ rough hands. He stroked his lean jaw and smirked. “Go dress up. Be pampered, little dove. I have beautiful things planned for our reunion.”
Be pampered—huh, what a joke that was.
The goblins dragged her through the house, practically wrenching her shoulders out of their sockets. Shona could barely take in the ornate splendor of it. Not that she cared. Any other time, she’d be working out what price she could get for such a palace, but right now she just felt sick to her stomach.
They hustled her up the grand sweeping staircase, along a passage lined with paintings of Kominsky vampires through the centuries. Finally, they entered a huge suite furnished in plush gold and red velvet, with black enameled cabinets and ornate chandeliers. Very vampire.
Tor was right, vampire taste was horribly over the top.
Shona tried to shake free. “Take your hands off me.”
“Nah,” the older of the two grunted out. “You be needing a good scrub. The boss said.”
“I don’t want you touching me!” Oh gods, if they washed her that would be like stripping her of her last link to Tor, his scent gone.
But despite her struggles, the biggest goblin ripped off her clothes and dragged her into the ornate bathroom, where she was shoved naked under the shower head and doused in cold water.
Shona screamed.
After she’d been practically drowned, her hair scrubbed by rough goblin hands until her scalp stung, she was pulled out of the shower. The younger goblin wrapped her in a towel and rubbed her skin until that stung too.
“Get off me!” Shona heard herself screech like a trapped animal. She yanked the towel off the younger goblin. For a second she caught a look that might have been contrition in the girl’s eyes, heard a mutter that might have been an apology. She was barely past her teens, Shona realized. Any other time she would have felt bad for screaming at her, but she was fighting for her life here.
