My eyes flick around the office again, desperate now. The furniture is sleek and spare — a low desk of dark wood, chairs positioned with mathematical precision, nothing out of place. No loose objects I could throw. No panels I could access. The windows are floor-to-ceiling but sealed, and even if I could break them, the drop would kill me faster than Sethrak’s guards.
Another door. There has to be another door.
Nothing.
Just the one we came through, now sealed. One way in, one way out. Just the guards at my sides, their grips unyielding. Just Sethrak’sempty burnished eyes, still fixed on me. Just Kazren’s satisfaction, warm and ugly in the corner of my vision.
The door opens.
I jerk towards the sound. Zavin. But the name dies in my throat. More guards fan out along the walls with the unhurried precision of males taking prearranged positions.
Positions.
The word echoes through my skull. They’re spreading out to cover the chamber. Covering every angle. Facing the door.
Facing the door.
My mind scrambles backwards. The overturned room. The books scattered across the floor. The chair on its side. Every broken thing in that room will tell him how hard I fought. He’ll see Percy hidden and he’ll understand.
He’ll understand what happened and he’ll come. Straight here. To me.
Because Sethrak knows Zavin. Knows his son. Knows that Zavin is predictable in the worst possible way — predictable in his loyalty, predictable in his fury, predictable in the one thing Sethrak can set a trap around.
Me.
His son is no longer under his control, and he knows it. I’m not a witness being removed. I’m not even a problem being solved.
I’m the bait.
A sound tears from my throat and I start to struggle, terror stripping any thought of self-preservation. Wrenching against the hands holding me. My shoulder screams. I don’t care. My heels skid against the polished floor as I throw my weight sideways, trying to break free, trying to reach the entrance, trying to do anything that might warn him before he walks through it.
The guards’ hands tighten. One of them wrenches my arm higher behind my back until white light floods my vision and my knees buckle. I don’t stop fighting. Can’t stop fighting. If Zavin comes through that door he’s walking into a room full of armed males with nowhere to run and no way out. It will be my fault, all of it my fault, because I was the one thing he couldn’t leave behind.
“Hold her still.” Sethrak’s voice cuts through the chamber without rising.
The guards lock me in place. I’m breathing in ragged gasps, my hair falling across my face, my pulse roaring so loud I can barely hear anything else.
Sethrak’s amber eyes travel over my face. “A pity. All of that intelligence. Wasted.”
Opening my mouth to scream a warning. Through the door. Through the walls. To whatever part of the house Zavin is in. I don’t care if the guards break my arm. I don’t care if they kill me before he arrives. If I can give him even one second of warning, one heartbeat to realize what he’s walking into—
The door pings open.
My voice locks in my throat.
The guards along the walls go still. Sethrak turns from the window and Kazren’s smile sharpens.
His gaze finds me immediately, sweeping over the blood on my face, the guards holding me and the angle of my shoulder.
His claws slide free.
Only then does he look at his father.
“Let go of my female,” he says quietly, “and I may let you live.”
Chapter Seventeen
ZAVIN
