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"No," Rio said as he turned the key in the lock. "It's bad enough she can ID me. The fewer inpiduals we bring into this, the better. She's my responsibility. I'll make sure she stays put."
"Very well. I've had the adjoining suite prepared for you. You'll find the wardrobe fully stocked with brand-new men's attire. Help yourself to anything you like. There's a bath and sauna in the suite as well, if you'd, ah, like to freshen up."
"Yeah." Rio nodded. His head was still pounding from the long ride in the back of the truck. His body was taut and edgy, hot all over, and he couldn't blame any of that on the trip or his rocky state of mind. Behind his closed lips, he ran his tongue over his still-present fangs.
"A shower sounds great," he told Reichen.
Preferably an ice-cold one.
If Dylan was confused before she and her abductor left Prague, their arrival in what she could only assume was somewhere in or around Berlin made things all the muddier to her. When she woke up in the middle of a large, silk-covered bed in a darkened room that looked like an upscale European bed-and-breakfast suite, she wondered if she'd dreamt the whole thing.
Where the hell was she? And how long had she been here?
Even though she felt fully awake and alert, there was a kind of cloudiness to her senses, like her head had been wrapped in thick cotton.
Maybe she was still dreaming.
Maybe she was still somehow in Prague and none of what she recalled had actually happened at all. Dylan turned on a nightstand lamp, then got off the bed and walked over to the tall windows on the other side of the luxurious room. Behind the beautiful drapes and curtain sheers, a tightly fitted panel shade covered the glass. She looked for a pull-cord or some other means to open it, but she couldn't find anything. The blind was completely immobile, as though it was locked in place over the glass.
"The shade is electronic. You won't be able to open it from in here."
Startled, Dylan spun around at the sound of the deep, but now familiar male voice.
It was him, sitting in a delicate antique chair in the opposite corner of the room. She knew the unmistakable dark, accented voice, but the man staring at her from the shadows didn't look anything like the filthy, ragged lunatic she expected to see.
He was clean now, and wearing fresh clothes - a black button-down dress shirt with rolled-up sleeves, black trousers, and black loafers that were probably Italian and probably very expensive. His dark hair gleamed from a fresh washing, no longer the dingy hanks that hung limply into his face but swept back now in glossy espresso-brown waves that set off the unusual color of his intense, topaz eyes.
"Where am I?" she asked him, taking a few steps closer to where he sat. "What is this place? How long have you been sitting there watching me? What the hell did you do to me that I can hardly remember coming here?"
He smiled, but it couldn't be called friendly. "Barely awake and already starting in with the questions. You were a lot easier to take when you were sleeping."
Dylan wasn't sure why she should feel insulted by that. "Then why don't you let me go if I annoy you so much?"
The smile quirked a little, softening the grim line of his mouth. Good God, if not for the scars that ran from temple to jaw on the left side of his face, he would have been drop-dead gorgeous. No doubt he had been, before whatever accident had happened to him.
"I would like nothing better than to let you go," he said. "Unfortunately, the decision of what to do with you is not mine to make alone."
"Then whose is it? The man you were talking to in the hallway before?"
She'd only been half-conscious, but she'd been awake enough to hear the exchange of two male voices as she was placed in the room - one of them belonging to the man glaring at her now, the other clearly German based on the accent. She glanced around at the wealth of antique furniture and fine art, at the ten-foot ceilings and ornate crown moldings, all of which practically screamed multimillion-dollar estate. And then there were those light-blocking, Pentagon-grade window shades.
"What is this place - headquarters to some kind of government spy ring?" Dylan laughed, a bit nervously.
"You're not going to tell me you're part of a well-funded foreign terrorist cell, are you?"
He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "No."
"No, you won't tell me, or no, you aren't a terrorist?"
"The less you know, the better, Dylan Alexander." The corner of his mouth lifted as he said it, then he shook his head. "Dylan. What kind of name is that for a female?"
She crossed her arms over her chest and shrugged. "Don't blame me, I had nothing to do with it. I happen to come from a long line of hippies, groupies, and tree-huggers." He just looked at her, those dark brows lowering over his eyes. He didn't get it, apparently. The reference seemed to go right past him, like he had never bothered with pop culture and probably had better things to do with his time. "My mom named me Dylan - you know, as in Bob Dylan? She was really into him around the time I was born. My brothers were named after musicians too: Morrison and Lennon."
"Ridiculous," her captor replied, scoffing under his breath.
"Well, it could be worse. We're talking the mid-seventies, after all. I had just as good a chance of being named Clapton or Garfunkel."
He didn't laugh, just held her in his piercing topaz gaze. "A name is no insignificant thing. It frames your world as a child, and it lasts forever. A name should mean something."
