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Her gut tightening and twisting, she inwardly cursed. Unable to use telepathy while in her avian form, she tried shifting so she could sound an alarm. But nothing happened. Not a thing. Her skin didn’t even ripple.
No matter how hard she tried, no matter how many times she tried, it didn’t work. She just couldn’t shift. She was stuck in this form, and she’d bet that the net was responsible for that.
She screeched again, furious. Her demon lunged for supremacy . . . but it couldn’t surface. It was trapped, just as she was trapped.
Her body finally touched the ground, settling on a stretch of grass that she recognized as being part of a local park. She glared up at the three male demons that surrounded her. Holt and his two cronies.
Oh, they were gonna die so hard.
As her waste-of-space anchor stared down at her—his eyes flinty, his face an impassive mask, his posture radiating superiority—she knew she’d been right all along. He hadn’t changed a bit, despite his claims. Here and now, he looked so very different from how he’d presented himself each time he recently approached her. He looked like the old Holt. The real Holt, to be exact.
“I’m not supposed to be in Vegas anymore, I know.” He cocked his head. “But did you really think I’d leave without you?”
Well, yes, actually, she had.
He turned to the tallest of his sentinels. “Put her in the van. And be careful about it.”
Van? What v—
Oh. It was idling at the nearby curb.
You could bet your ass that she made it as hard as possible for Holt’s little minion to carry her to it. She writhed and screeched and bit at him through the gaps in the net. He swore and stumbled and winced and bled, to her demon’s morbid delight.
But he also kept walking, the perseverant bastard.
Holt opened the van’s rear doors. The sentinel jumped inside, placed her on the floor of the vehicle, and then disappeared. Holt promptly hopped into the van and closed the doors behind him. His expression still blank, he took a seat on the wooden bench across from her.
She kept screeching. Kept squirming. Kept biting at the net. Kept attempting to shift.
“You can calm down,” said Holt, his tone flat, as the van began to move. “There’s no need to be distressed.”
Her demon blinked in surprise, and Larkin almost did a double-take. She could be calm? Just exactly what aspect of this scenario could warrant or allow her to be totally chill?
“I realize how this might look, that you might assume I want revenge for how you so firmly rejected me, but my intention isn’t to kill you.” It was a statement, not an effort to reassure.
Clasping his hands, he leaned forward and dipped them between his spread thighs. There was a sort of exaggerated casualness with which he moved—it fairly oozed self-satisfaction; showed he was completely at ease. He believed he was on top of the situation and lacked any concern that something would get in his way.
“I wish it hadn’t come to this, Larkin. Truly. I never wanted any harm to come to you.”
She was finding that a little hard to believe right now, given she was trapped in a goddamn net. Hence why she didn’t stop chewing on it.
“All you had to do was agree to form the bond. That’s all.” His slow, disapproving shake of the head was something an adult might do to a child who’d disappointed them. “I meant it when I said I would have respected your wish to remain part of your lair.”
If she could have raised a doubtful brow, she would have.
“Perhaps I would have eventually urged you to switch to mine,” he admitted, no hesitation or sheepishness. “But not straight away. I would have waited. I would have given you time. I would have earned your trust.” The corners of his eyes tightened. “But you just wouldn’t swallow your pride.”
She paused in chewing, confused. He thought this was a matter of pride?
“You might not wish to admit it, but that’s all this was about for you. It was a hit to your ego when I left you. A hit you never recovered from, because you don’t want to recover from it. You held tight to your anger all these years so that you didn’t have to feel the pain.”
Uh, no, not at all.
“You held even tighter to that anger when I showed up recently. You did it so that you wouldn’t be tempted to give into me. Pride wouldn’t let you back down.”
That was honestly what he thought? That she would ever let her ego interfere with a situation so serious? Maybe that was how he functioned, but not her.
“Much as I understand it, I can’t let it be a factor, Larkin. I can’t.”
Yes, yes, he could. Absolutely.
