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She popped the grape in her mouth and kicked her legs up on the seat across from hers. “You’re going to be one of us soon, but no matter how much I hate him he is your brother. I adore mine, and he’s done more than his fair share of screwed-up stuff.”
I placed my chin in my hand, toying with the rim of my glass. Knowing this, I had to wonder that if he had Claire, was she safe? I didn’t believe she was dead. Seeing her barcode tattoo earlier had disgusted me and led me to think so at first, but her death wouldn’t be a gift.
The removal of that damned mark would be. It meant she was free.
“How did you get kidnapped?”
I’d heard rumors about this, but by now it was apparent how I felt about words that came from loose lips.
It’d seemed rude to ask before, but now I felt the need to know. The sadness that came across her face made me regret asking. Of all the Savages I’d met so far, Bella didn’t hide her emotions. On the contrary, it seemed as if she wore her heart on her sleeve.
“Samael knew how to manipulate and strategize at a disturbing level, and well, that’s a different story. Anyways, he had this obsession with my best friend. So, we did everything together. Long story short, he was smart enough to pull off getting in with the Stags and masterminding our kidnapping. I got let go, she didn’t. He has her hidden.”
“Could Samael be the brains behind Amo, then?”
She sat all the way up, looking at me as if I’d just solved a long, drawn-out mystery.
“Why has no one ever thought of that?”
“I only pointed it out to Luce an
hour or so ago.”
“Hmm.” She crossed her arms and settled back in her chair, the burst of excitement fizzling out. “He’s probably all over that right now. Give my brother a seed of information and he’ll return with a harvest.”
“It’s probably best not to go off too much of what I say. I was really isolated at A.R.C.”
“You gave us an actual angle we haven’t thought of. We didn’t know how to link Samael and the Stags or pin down why he’d join them. You have an outsider’s perspective, no offense.”
I wasn’t offended, but that wasn’t where I’d been going with my theory. There were a few things not connecting or making sense. If the gossip I’d heard had a kernel of truth in it, this situation was more twisted than any of us thought.
“Do you know anything about the Lazarus?”
“No. I don’t think anyone knows much about that group. They stay off the radar for the most part,” she replied flippantly. “What do they have to do with anything?”
She looked at me skeptically, awaiting an answer, but I wasn’t sure if I should tell her this before telling Luce, or at least not giving him the chance to figure it out on his own. I remembered what Addy had said about Bella getting her hopes us.
“I was just wondering,” I replied, my mask of indifference in place.
Someone had come in and changed the sheets. Freshly showered and sprawled across Luce’s bed, I ran down the list of things I knew for sure in my head. It was a relatively short list.
I closed my eyes for a few minutes, opening them when I felt Luce touching me. I knew it was him by the feel of his hands and the presence I felt every time he entered a room. His aura was always dark with a touch of sinister, too large for any four walls to contain it.
“I didn’t hear you come in.”
“You were sleeping.” He ran his hands up my sides, lifting the shirt of his that I had on.
“No underwear?” He cupped my ass and gently kneaded the flesh, parting my legs with his knee. When he pressed his lips to the nape of my neck, I sighed, breathing in the scent of his body wash.
“I need to talk to you.”
“It can wait.”
He pressed two fingers into me, slowly. I winced at the initial discomfort, tucking my lower lip between my teeth.
“It’s important.”
He twisted his digits so that his palm was facing upward, applying pressure against my clit.
