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The vampire glances up at me over his magazine. “It’s just a receiver so it’s not linked to Jarik’s like his is to yours. Unless you try to take it off, then it will trigger the explosive and you’ll be dead.”
I freeze and then promptly sit up so that I’m no longer lying on the bomb around my neck.
“There isn’t a timer on this, is there?” I think back to a news story I saw once about a guy who had a bomb around his neck and was told to rob a bank within a certain amount of time, but the police detained him and when the time ran out…boom.
My guard looks up at me and sighs. “No.” Then goes back to gazing longingly at sunny beaches.
Well, that’s comforting at least.
Time stretches. The room is painfully silent, except for the rustling of magazine pages. With nothing else to do or keep my mind alert, I start to grow drowsy. Every now and then I think I feel a twinge of emotion, mostly irritation, in the back of my mind that I think might be Jarik. But it’s always there and gone again before I can decipher what I’m really feeling.
I catch myself nodding off when there is a bang on the door. My head snaps up and the vampire and I both turn to look at each other and then back at the door. We hear a scratching sound next and then the door flings open with enough force, it hits the wall.
“Really? How hard is it to unlock a door?” comes a haughty voice before a tall familiar redhead strides into the small room.
My stomach drops.
“Isabelle? What are you doing—” the vampire stammers.
“Your job.” She snaps at him before turning a hateful gaze on me. Carefully painted red lips curl up into the scariest smile I’ve ever seen. “Hello, again.”
“Oh, shit.” I mutter.
Ten
JARIK
I’m not in the dungeon for long before a new group of vampires, led by the same young shit as before, swarm the room. Guns are drawn and pointed at all my sensitive spots while they snap a pair of silver manacles around my wrists. The skin around the silver immediately starts to sear from the poisoned alloy and I bite back a hiss of pain.
I’m roughly led to another part of the Den, to a room I’m very familiar with. As a matter of fact, it was once my father’s office. As soon as I’m shoved through the entrance, it becomes apparent that any resemblance to the familiar space I remember has been erased. Instead of bookshelves filled with the history of the factions, there is now a St. Andrews cross* and all manner of other BDSM paraphernalia. Where my father’s desk once sat is a thick throne-like chair and sitting in it like some medieval king, is Marcus.
Yanking my arm out of the young vampire’s grip, I manage two steps towards Marcus before the little shit lands a kick to the back of my leg, sending me to my knees.
“Ah, Jarik, so glad you could come.” Marcus says, looking down his beaky nose at me.
As much as I don’t want to rise to his goading, I can’t hold back the snarl that slips past my bared teeth.
“That’s unnecessary,” he sighs. “I was so hoping we could have a rational discussion, you and I.”
“If you wanted me rational, you wouldn’t have taken my female.”
Marcus wrinkles his nose when he sniffs. “Your kind is soferalwith the way you covet your mates like they are children.”
I laugh. Mercy could never be mistaken as a child. She’s brave, strong, and fierce. There is nothing needy or weak about her or about the bond we share. If anything, she’s inadvertently made mestronger,with the need to protect. Not that I’m going to explain any of this to him.
“What do you want, Marcus,” I snap instead.
The smirk he’s been wearing vanishes as he leans forward. “Your fealty.”
“No.”
He leans back into his massive chair as if whatever he is planning next is of the greatest inconvenience. I tense and my beast surges forward, preparing for what is coming. But neither of us anticipate—
“Jarik?”
I swing around at the sound of Mercy’s voice to see Isabelle dragging her into the room. Mercy’s hands are bound behind her back and the redheaded bitch has a wickedly curved knife pressed to the underside of her chin where there are several small nicks from her carelessness.
Isabelle grins at me over Mercy’s head with a wild glint in her eerie amber eyes. Her red hair is practically floating around her head and shoulders with her manic energy. My attention swings between her and Marcus, who looks irritated at her sudden arrival, while I try to come up with a plan to get both of us out of this cluster fuck of a mess.
