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“No. No. Frankie, please,” Allyson cried.
A large lump lodged in Frankie’s throat. “Allyson, I’m so sorry. I know this is going to hurt, but I have to get your skin off this iron. If your head stays where it is, the metal will eat completely through your skin until it reaches your skull. I can’t let that happen.”
Inhaling a steadying breath, then chanting “sorry” over and over, Frankie hoisted Allyson’s body off the metal floor. The sound was disgusting, like peeling an old bumper sticker from a used car. Allyson’s screams vibrated through Frankie’s head as if someone had shoved a tuning fork inside her ear.
In one quick swoop, she had Allyson off the floor and sitting in her lap. The other woman weighed practically nothing, but her blood poured onto Frankie, staining her white tank top a deep crimson. Allyson screamed and writhed in Frankie’s arms.
“Shh. Shh. Allyson, it’s okay. It’s okay.” She gripped her friend tightly around the middle to hold her still. She couldn’t let her touch the iron again. “We’ll be out of here soon. I promise.”
“You shouldn’t make promises you can’t keep.” The voice came from the other side of the room.
Frankie looked up as Allyson’s screams started to fade to groans and her bleeding slowed. Leaning against one of the warehouse walls, Robert stared at her with unrelenting, cold eyes.
Frankie scoffed. “A cage, huh?”
A smirk crept across his face. “You like it? I thought it was very fitting.”
She shrugged—anything to piss him off. Anger made people sloppy, and sloppiness meant a better chance for them to escape. “I’ve been in worse.”
He frowned. “Dismiss me if you want, but you’re the one locked up like the bitch that you are. You’re nothing more than live bait.”
Frankie stroked Allyson’s hair, trying to calm her panic. “You have me trapped now. What else do you need? Why don’t you just kill us already?”
“My, my, don’t we have a large ego?” He moved away from the wall and stalked toward the cage. “Don’t flatter yourself, packmaster. You’ve never been my target. It’s your hunter I want.”
Her stomach dropped. “What do you want with Jace?”
He grinned, gleeful despite how cold and flat his eyes were. “To kill him, of course.”
It took everything Frankie had to hold back her anger and remain still for Allyson’s sake. “What about ransacking my apartment, kidnapping me? What does that have to do with Jace?”
He chuckled and kneeled next to the cage. If he moved any closer to the bars, she could speed-shift and slip her muzzle through the opening. She would have liked nothing more than to rip his face off with her teeth.
“You must be even less intelligent than you appear. Let me spell it out for you.” He pointed to himself, then to her. “Ikidnapyou, which leads Jace straight to me. He won’t be able to resist saving you.”
“And Allyson? What about her? She’s not involved in any of this.”
Allyson stirred. When she spoke, her voice was hoarse from screaming. “To lureyouhere,” she said in a near whisper. “Only it didn’t work.”
“The troll’s smarter than she appears.”
“I’m not a troll,” Allyson said. “I’m Fae.” She winced as she said it, but her voice remained strong.
Robert ignored her comment and stood again. “When you didn’t come for her fast enough, I took a more…direct approach. There’s no question. He’ll be here.”
Frankie swallowed down the bile burning the back of her throat. Her heart thumped in her chest, its pace quickly increasing until she was near panic. Frankie’s head spun.
She growled. “Jace is going to tear you to shreds.”
Robert laughed as if she’d told his favorite joke, the kind that never gets old. “Don’t fool yourself, packmaster. Do you think Jace can match my strength? My speed? My abilities?”
Frankie didn’t say a word. She clamped her mouth shut, but a smug grin spread across her lips.
A fire lit behind Robert’s eyes as his anger melted his icy shield. He marched to the cage and kicked one of the bars. “Tell me what you know.”
She stared him in the face, challenging him to give it his best shot.
When she didn’t respond, he snatched a key from his back pocket and unlocked the door to the cage, his knife pointed straight at her. “Get out.”
