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Chapter 1 - Alina
The taste of blood was on her tongue, the cut from where she’d bit her lip when Gregor slapped her still fresh enough to open whenever she tried to speak. It wasn’t easy to get even one audible word out. She was gagged too tightly for that, a bandana cutting into the corners of her mouth, pressing her tongue down. He’d knocked her out cold. She’d thought that only happened in movies. She’d woken in the backseat of his flashy car, feeling like a proper idiot for how trusting she’d been of his intentions. Never blindly believe a man who always keeps a gun on his person—her surroundings should have taught her that lesson ages ago.
Truth was, she’d thought herself above it. The pettiness, the suspicion, the lying that came with the family she’d grown up in. Her father, as the ruling head of one of the three prominent crime families in their city, kept a tight leash on his subordinates, but he’d never really leashed her. He’d trusted her to decide for herself, so when she met Gregor, he hadn’t offered up any objections. She wondered, briefly, if it had been a punishment for her always being too headstrong for her own good. Had her father let her attach herself to someone who wasn’t right for her so that she could learn the lesson on her own?
She wished he hadn’t, hot anger flaring.
But if there was one thing she could rely on, it was her father’s self-righteous fury. And her kidnapping was certain to fan that fury into burning outrage at anyone thinking they could harm a member of the Kumarin clan without any repercussion. How did Gregor think this was going to end? He’d be dead by morning for what he was doing. What was he even doing?
She tried to speak again, a strangled noise all she was able to produce.
She was blindfolded. The only reason she knew that she was in her proposed mate’s car was the distinctive scent. He liked it to smell like factory fresh leather and rubbed the seats with oil every evening. Or had someone do it for him. He didn’t like doing much for himself. Why had she agreed to bond herself to him? What had she been thinking?
The car slowed to a stop. Gregor got out, the door slamming behind them. She knew he was driving her himself since he’d spoken with someone briefly on the phone, agreeing on a location.
This location.
She growled at him when he pulled her out of the backseat, expecting her to find her balance even though her feet were bound. It had to be enchanted rope because something was keeping her from shifting into dragon shape, effectively preventing her from using her inner power to break free of this bullshit.
She was lifted, slung over his shoulder, her cheeks heating with indignation.
She felt like a prized chop of meat about to be stuck onto a spit and slowly roasted. She didn’t feel fearful, not while she was still in the dark of exactly what the hell was going on, but she did feel the need for retribution like something pointy scratching at her heart. If it was one thing the Kumarin blood in her veins didn’t take kindly to, it was humiliation.
They entered a building, her dragon senses helping her paint an image of where they were. She smelled fresh-cut flowers. Lots of them. It must be a large house with many rooms, vases in each of them. Someone with money. There was a carpet under Gregor’s feet. It smelled clean. Leather furniture stood somewhere nearby. And wood polish. Plenty of it, making her think the walls might be wood-paneled along with the hardwood floor and however many tables were in the place.
She made another muffled noise, Gregor slapping her ass for her trouble.
She growled, low.
“All right, almost there,” Gregor said.
They moved from what had sounded like a hallway and into what she knew, from how the air pressure changed, was a smaller room. It was colder in here. Probably an office. Dragon blood ran hot and keeping a working space at lower temperatures aided concentration. Her brother had taught her that.
She was dumped onto a chair that tipped backwards briefly from her weight, then settled with a soft thud.
“What the fuck is this?” A male voice, unknown to her, asked the question sharply enough for it to cut through steel. The tone made it perfectly apparent to her that whoever was speaking wasn’t any run-of-the-mill, day-working, night-drinking dragon. This was someone in her family’s line of business. With the realization came the first shiver of fright.
There was bad blood between the Kumarins and the Kuznetsovs. Very bad blood. If whoever was speaking was a member of the rival family, there was no telling what might happen to her or how she’d be used in attempts to leverage her father.
Fuck.
How had she let this happen?
How had she allowed herself to be this arrogant? Why hadn’t she run a deeper background check on Gregor?
“It’s payment. As agreed,” Gregor stated to the stranger, something smug in his tone that made her want to kick out at the spot she guessed he was occupying.
“I’m sorry, what?” the stranger asked, his voice a slow rumble that carried an unspoken threat with that simple question. As though he wanted Gregor to know how idiotic it was for him to bring a person in place of cash. And the stranger had expected cash, she was certain of that much at this point. If he hadn’t, there would have been no threatening questions asked. The deal would have been signed and sealed the moment she was put on the chair. She wondered how much Gregor assumed she was worth to the stranger. What was she acting as payment for? Debts was the most likely answer.
“For the fifty K,” Gregor clarified.
Fifty thousand.
Pathetic little weasel.
“This is awoman,” the stranger stated.
She could almost see him making a hand gesture to underline the obvious point he was making of how she wasn’t the agreed payment, no matter how breezy Gregor kept his tone. Then the blindfold was removed, yanking at her hair, making her give a muffled ‘hey’ at the offense. She furrowed her brows, finally able to see Gregor and directing a glare at him.
