AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He hit the floor and rolled, coming up in a crouch. His fangs glinted in the low light. I felt a twinge of respect; the man had to know he couldn’t escape, not with his hands bound behind his back and with three of us to his one.
Étan and Blaise moved forward. They grabbed Zaq, shoved him up against the wall and worked him over. They were pros. They went for the soft, unprotected parts—his belly, his groin. Taking their revenge for the blows he’d gotten in at Charles de Gaulle.
I stood back and let them.
Telling myself Zaq deserved it, that I couldn’t stop them anyway.
But my chest was tight and my stomach clenched into a sick ball, because Zaq’s grunts and heavy, broken breaths didn’t sound like a monster’s. They sounded like a man in pain. A defenseless, half-drugged, hands-bound-behind-his-back man in pain.
It seemed like an hour, but it was really just a few minutes before the vampires stepped back. Zaq wavered on his feet, blinking like he was having trouble seeing. He slid down the wall to the floor and sat there, legs sticking out, head lolling to the side.
Satisfaction flickered across Étan’s face. He gave Zaq a last kick, then he and Blaise jerked Zaq to his feet, each taking an arm. Zaq hung between them.
The butler opened the silver-reinforced door. We followed him down three flights of stairs, Étan and Blaise dragging Zaq.
At the bottom, Aubin keyed in the five-digit code that opened a second silver-reinforced door, then headed back upstairs. I held the door open while Étan and Blaise took Zaq through.
We were deep underground in the lowest level of Moreau’s lair. His private dungeon of five windowless cells carved into the bedrock and lined with concrete blocks. No one, even a vampire with their superhuman strength, could get out without the enforcer’s say-so.
Four of the cells were currently empty. The fifth held an old vampire, a blood-mad woman who should’ve been staked. To be honest, it would’ve been a kindness—she’d sunk so deep into the blood craving, she was more animal than human. But apparently she was the woman who’d turned Moreau, and he had a fondness for her.
Blaise and Étan put Zaq in the middle cell and released him. The tiny lights on the walls’ upper perimeter came on. Zaq’s knees wobbled, but he kept upright. He faced us and tried to straighten to his full height, but couldn’t. Somehow he managed to look proud, even bent at the waist like an arthritic old man.
I felt another reluctant flicker of respect. He should’ve crumpled by now. Maybe not all his press was a lie. The pampered prince had a tough core.
Blaise pulled out a knife and cut off Zaq’s cuffs, and Étan put a hand on his chest and pushed until he was forced to back up. He hit the concrete blocks.
“Raise your hands,” Étan said.
Zaq leaned his head against the wall and shook out his hands, working his fingers back and forth. Then he drew a breath and raised his head.
He bared his fangs. “You want them there, you do it.”
Étan grabbed his arms and shoved them against the wall, then slammed a knee into Zaq’s balls.
Zaq grunted. His face twisted. He hung in Étan’s grip, panting audibly, one knee raised to shield his groin from another blow.
“Next time,” said Étan, “when I tell you to do something, you do it. Comprenez?”
“Jesus.” I pushed between the two men. “Give it a rest, already.” I fitted the first cuff around Zaq’s wrist.
Zaq turned his head. For the second time that day, our gazes snagged.
I felt him pleading with me not to do this. Felt it in my gut, a primal cry from him to me.
I set my jaw and focused on the cuff. The silver singed my fingertips but I’d tolerated pain like that—and worse—during training.
Think like a slayer. Fight like a slayer. Live like a slayer.
I touched two buttons in rapid succession and the cuff snapped into place.
The cuff burned a red line into Zaq’s wrist. He stiffened, but didn’t make a sound. Étan stepped back so I could get to Zaq’s other arm. I snapped that cuff into place, too.
Zaq stood against the wall, arms clamped on either side of his head, a menacing expression on his angelic face. “Bastards.” He glared at us, a travel-stained, T-shirted demi-god. “I’ll see you all in a light-filled hell.”
I swallowed uneasily. The Op Angel slayers had given each of the Kral princes a nickname. Gabriel was Prince Responsible, Rafael was Prince Charming, and Zaq was Prince Fuck-with-Me-and-I’ll-Fuck-With-You.
Zaq was the quiet one. Not weak in anyway; just thoughtful, focused. And when he made a promise, he kept it.
