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Christian nuzzled my neck, moving his face under my hair so that it partially obscured him. His lips brushed my skin, every bit as soft as I recalled from when he and Lissa kissed. A moment later, the points of his fangs touched my skin.
And then I felt pain. Real pain.
But it wasn't coming from the bite. His teeth only pressed against my skin; they didn't break it. His tongue moved against my neck in a lapping motion, but there was no blood to suck. If anything, it was more like some kind of weird, twisted kiss.
No, the pain came from my wrists. A burning pain. Christian was using his magic to channel heat into my flex-cuffs, just as I had wanted him to. He'd understood my message. The plastic grew hotter and hotter as he continued his barely there drinking. Anyone who'd been looking closely would have been able to tell he was half-faking it, but too much of my hair was blocking the guards' view.
I knew plastic was hard to melt, but only now did I really, really understand what that meant. The temperatures required to do any damage were off the charts. It was like plunging my hands into lava. The flex-cuffs seared my skin, hot and terrible. I squirmed, hoping I could relieve the pain. I couldn't. What I did notice, however, was that the cuffs gave a little when I moved. They were getting softer. Okay. That was something. I just had to hold out a little longer. Desperately, I tried to focus on Christian's bite and distract myself. It worked for about five seconds. He wasn't giving me much in the way of endorphins, certainly not enough to combat that increasingly horrible pain. I whimpered, probably making myself more convincing.
"I can't believe it," muttered one of the guards. "He's actually doing it." Beyond them, I thought I heard the sound of Mia crying.
The cuffs' burning increased. I'd never felt anything so painful in my life, and I'd been through a lot. Passing out was rapidly becoming a very real possibility.
"Hey," the guard suddenly said. "What's that smell?"
That smell was melting plastic. Or maybe my melting flesh. Honestly, it didn't matter because the next time I moved my wrists, they broke through the gooey, scalding cuffs.
I had ten seconds of surprise, and I used them. I leapt out of my chair, pushing Christian backward in the process. He'd had a guard on either side of him, and one still held the pliers. In a single motion, I grabbed the pliers from the guy and plunged them into his cheek. He gave some kind of gurgled scream, but I didn't wait to see what happened. My window of surprise was closing, and I couldn't waste time. As soon as I let go of the pliers, I punched the second guy. My kicks were stronger than my punches as a general rule, but I still hit him hard enough to startle him and make him stagger.
By then, the guards' leader was in action. As I'd feared, he still had a gun, and he went for it. "Don't move!" he yelled, aiming at me.
I froze. The guard I'd punched came forward and grabbed my arm. Nearby, the guy I'd stabbed was moaning on the floor. Still training the gun on me, the leader started to say something and then yelped in alarm. The gun glowed faintly orange and fell from his hands. Where he'd held it, the skin burned red and angry. Christian had heated the metal, I realized. Yeah. We definitely should have been using this magic thing from the start. If we got out of this, I was going to take up Tasha's cause. The Moroi anti-magic custom was so instilled in our brains that we hadn't even thought to try this sooner. It was stupid.
I turned on the guy holding me. I don't think he expected a girl my size to put up so much of a fight, plus he was still kind of stunned over what had happened to the other guy and the gun. I managed enough room to get in a kick to his stomach, a kick that would have earned me an A in my combat class. He grunted at the impact, and the motion propelled him back into the wall. In a flash, I was on him. Grabbing a fistful of his hair, I slammed his head against the ground hard enough to knock him out but not kill him.
Immediately, I sprang up, surprised the leader hadn't come after me yet. It shouldn't have taken him that long to recover from the shock of the heated gun. But when I turned around, the room was quiet. The leader lay unconscious on the ground- with a newly freed Mason hovering over him. Nearby, Christian held the pliers in one hand and the gun in the other. It had to still be hot, but Christian's power must have made him immune. He was aiming at that man I'd stabbed. The guy wasn't unconscious, merely bleeding, but, like I had, he froze beneath that barrel.
"Holy shit," I muttered, taking in the scene. Staggering over to Christian, I held out my hand. "Give me that before you hurt somebody."
I expected a biting remark, but he simply handed the gun over with shaking hands. I shoved it into my belt. Studying him further, I saw how pale he was. He looked like he could collapse at any moment. He'd done some pretty major magic for someone who'd been starved for two days.
"Mase, get the cuffs," I said. Without turning his back on the rest of us, Mason took a few steps back toward the box where our captors had kept their stash of flex-cuffs. He pulled out three strips of plastic and then something else. With a questioning glance at me, he held up a roll of duct tape.
"Perfect," I said.
We bound our captors to the chairs. One had remained conscious, but we knocked him out too and then put duct tape over all their mouths. They'd eventually come to, and I didn't want them making any noise.
After releasing Mia and Eddie, the five of us huddled together and planned our next move. Christian and Eddie could barely stand, but at least Christian was aware of his surroundings. Mia's face was streaked with tears, but I suspected she'd be able to take orders. That left Mason and me as the most functional in the group.
"That guy's watch says it's morning," he said. "All we've got to do is get outside, and they can't touch us. As long as there are no more humans, at least."
"They said Isaiah was gone," said Mia in a small voice. "We should just be able to leave, right?"
"Those men haven't left in hours," I said. "They could be wrong. We can't do anything stupid."
Carefully, Mason opened the door to our room and peered out into the empty hallway. "Think there's a way outside down here?"
"That'd make our lives easier," I muttered. I glanced back at the others. "Stay here. We're going to check out the rest of the basement."
"What if somebody comes?" exclaimed Mia.
"They won't," I assured her. I was actually pretty sure there was no one else in the basement; they would have come running with all that racket. And if anyone tried to come down the stairs, we would hear them first.
