AllFreeNovel
Share Us
If there could have been a more obvious trap, I couldn’t think of one. I looked over at Zayn and saw his eyes moving around as he scanned the area. He let out a long breath then turned to me. I wanted to tell him not to go, not to leave me, but I couldn’t and I wouldn’t because of the three men who lay hurt, possibly dying in a fucking cage, below. We needed to try. I leaned my head against his, rubbing it along his jaw. A brief purr came from deep in his chest, and then he was gone, slinking silently down the stairs.
I watched his shoulder blades shift under his fur, a memory from my own life returning of a nature documentary—a lion stalking a wildebeest. He’d approached just as Zayn was now, crouched low and slinking through the grass, until the last moment when he’d leaped and tore into the throat of his prey. I prayed the scene would repeat here.
As I watched, Zayn reached the bottom of the stairs. He stopped and looked around, scenting the air, then cautiously, he stepped out into the circle of light. I held my breath, but nothing happened. His powerful feline form made its way across the concrete floor. It glimmered under the light as though it was wet. Halfway across, Zayn stopped and I froze, wondering what he’d sensed. He took another step forward, and then another. He managed one more before his legs collapsed underneath him and he crashed to the floor.
Twenty
TORY
“Andthat’sthefour.”
My heart stopped as the familiar voice sounded through the shadows. A figure stepped into the circle of light, clad in black and carrying an assault rifle. Jabari strolled up to Zayn and nudged his body with his foot, as if to make sure he was down, his gun trained on my lover’s head. Seemingly satisfied, he lifted it. I watched the red dot move up the stairs and along the gangway. Instinctively, I shifted backwards, moving deeper into the shadows. My mind spun.
Jabari. How could it be Jabari? I didn’t even know him. I had never met the guy until the dig site. Was he Sadiq? And if so, then what about Jasper? My heart leapt at the slightest hope that Jasper might be innocent. The red dot swung over the machine near me, narrowly missing my shoulder. I moved farther back out of sight, wondering what the hell I was going to do now.
“I know you’re out there, Tory,” Jabari called calmly. His voice sounded controlled and cold, unlike the shy joker I’d come to know. “I’ve been hunting you for a long time.”
I moved behind the machine and shifted back into my human form. Bringing my knees up to my chest, I wrapped my arms around them and tried to take up as little space as possible. My mind raced, and so did my heart. I wanted to creep forward and see if my men were still breathing. What had that bastard done to them? Maybe if I bought some time, they’d wake up or I’d get some idea of what the hell I was going to do next.
“I knew we should have brought guns,” I muttered quietly to myself. “Why?” I called out. “Why have you been hunting me?” I chanced a peek around the edge of the machine. I could just make out the far side of the cage. Jabari was walking around it, searching the surrounding mezzanine for me.
At the sound of my voice, he smiled and moved towards the side where I was hiding. “We share a past, you and I,” he called.
“Not much of one.”
“Then I was right, you don’t remember me. Interesting.”
“Other than the annoyingly persistent one who seemed to develop some pathetic crush on me, no, can’t say I do. You must have been quite forgettable,” I answered, my fear beginning to subside under the growing force of my anger as it finally began to dawn on me that this little fucker was the reason for everything I’d gone through. He was also the reason my mother was lying in the hospital. I was going to rip his fucking throat out.
A shot soared over my shoulder, penetrating a concrete pillar just in front of me, and I jumped.
“Don’t antagonise me, Tory,” he warned.
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” I replied, then crawled further back into the shadows. I could no longer see the cage, but I needed to move. That shot had been way too close. I skirted around the machines as quietly as possible.
“Have they told you who you truly are?”
I paused. “Given your use of ancient Egyptian magic, I’m assuming this isn’t a philosophical question. Yes, they have.” I began to move again as I watched the red dot swing slowly over. He was following my voice. I needed to keep moving.
“But have they told you all of it?” Jabari began to walk around the cage again. I saw the red dot of his rifle sight swing around the roof as he did so. “Have they told you why they keep you on such a short leash? Why your devoted priests would track you across the world to find you? Tell me, Tory, do you know why they keep you locked away?”
I swallowed, his words touching a nerve. I fought not to react, keeping my voice as calm as his. “To protect me from nutters like you.”
He laughed, and my blood went cold. “No, my dear, it is not to protect you, it is to protect them.”
I stopped moving. “Them?”
“Humans. To protect them from your dark and endless lust for blood.”
“I don’t feed off humans,” I insisted, pushing away the memory of that guy at the bar.
“Really? There’s a young man in a bar with scars that say otherwise. Come now, you studied Egyptology, you must know your own story.”
“I didn’t really go into religion much, I was more of an architecture nerd.” I shifted position again, doubling back on myself.
“You didn’t research your own history when you discovered who you were? Strange, I would have thought you’d have wanted to know everything.”
I swallowed, feeling slightly nauseous. Jabari was right, I hadn’t researched my own supposed mythology. I had struggled with the whole goddess thing, and to be honest, it was easier just to concentrate on the whole having to drink blood thing and being able to shift into a lioness at will without adding gods into the mix. I’d figured I’d remember over time, and everyone knows mythology was only a representation of stories and never fact.
