Fabiana was an academic, and she knew the origins of his name. The god of permanent renewal, beauty, and fertility. The one true love of Astarte, goddess of love. He had a counterpart in the Greek pantheon, but it paled in comparison to the god of a wolf who stalked the halls.
He must have known she wasn’t in any of the rooms he traversed, but he did it slowly, eating up time without a care. The kitchen where she had been forced to eat portions barely big enough to sustain her to keep her weight under control. The dining hall where she had been put on display.
Even the main living room where she never had a chance to relax, always standing at her father’s side—a trophy he’d put on display to tease his soldiers.
“Are you watching me,pequeña? Here in a home that smells of pain and torture?”
He stalked back to the foyer and took the stairs. “Am I getting closer? You don’t know me, but here I am learning so much of you. This existence was cold,pequeña.It wasn’t meant for a woman like you. But you found a way to survive. You’re stronger than you know.”
“You don’t know me,” she whispered, her fingers finding his seeking form on the screen. “You know nothing.”
He stopped on the second floor and glared at the cages. “I want you to answer me, right now, because I know you can hear me. Were you ever kept here?”
What would it matter? No, she hadn’t been, but she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of hearing her response and letting him know she was watching.
Once more, his gaze found the camera, and he shifted.
Just … shifted.
Fabiana gasped, putting her hand to her mouth. If it were possible, he grew, his shoulders broadening and his chest expanding. Bones crunched and reformed until he had an elongated muzzle with strong teeth.
“Answer me!”
If he had bellowed, she would have fought. She would have stayed silent.
But the whisper-roar was only for her, a quiet sound filled with so much threat, and she moved before she realized it. “Not here.”
He cocked his head to the side, the same way he had with Giuliana. “Nothere. So you were kept somewhere.”
His body reverted to its original size, but he still roughened his voice. “Any of them ever touch you?”
She swallowed, moments in the dark rushing in. Her father’s laughter. “Y-yes.”
“Still alive?”
“Yes.”
“They won’t be much longer,pequeña.That is my promise to you. How many?”
Remembering who had been in those cells, she shook her head and closed her eyes. When she opened them after a breath, Adonis was closer to the camera, his face morphing once more.
“Two cells nearest the back wall and the one in the center on your left. Cole, Vince, and Herald.”
He put his hand to his ear. “Raph, find Cole, Vince, and Herald. Ask the Bianchi wolves and I will alert their Alpha. They will come back with us.”
She didn’t hear the response, but it didn’t matter. He moved again, his hands running over the wall to the back.
“There’s no other way to get up to the next level, so it must be here. Will you make me take this house apart at its seams?”
How horrible was Fabiana that she wanted to see just that?
Wanted violence to destroy this place as it had destroyed her?
She didn’t give and answer, didn’t voice the dark thoughts swirling through her head. He heard her, though, this wolf who’d claimed her as his.
“As you wish.”
His claws grew from his fingertips and he slashed at the wall, growling with each strike. In moments, but maybe minutes, the back wall was stripped to the concrete and opening to the secret stairwell closer to her.
