by Cynthia Eden
“Really.” He leaned forward and his hand slid inside his coat. He pulled out—a wooden stake. Oh, crap. Things were definitely about to get real in there. “I would have pegged you for an older vampire.”
Her gaze locked on the stake as Eric twirled it between his fingers. “What are you doing with that?” A stake to the heart would freeze a vampire. Totally incapacitate her. She wouldn’t die, not unless he followed up the stake attack by cutting off her head. But—
He threw the stake at her. It flashed, whirling end over end in a deadly arc that was directed straight at her chest.
She grabbed that stake right out of the air before it could land in her heart. Then she flew across the room. Okay, she didn’t technically fly, but she moved so fast that she knew it would look like a big blur to him, and in a flash, Ella had that stake shoved at his throat. “Do you enjoy torturing vampires?” Ella snarled at him.
He didn’t fight her. Her body was sprawled on top of his as he continued to lounge on her couch. She could feel his strength, but he wasn’t using it against her.
No, he’d just tried to stake me, that’s all. Bastard.
“You’re not Freshblood,” he said softly. He almost sounded pleased, satisfied, as if she’d passed some kind of test for him.
“This is what’s going to happen,” Ella said, fighting to keep her voice steady. “That jerk you’ve got behind the glass? The one watching us now—videoing our interaction or whatever the hell it is that he’s supposed to be doing—that guy is going to open the cell door. He’s going to clear a path so that I can get out of this prison. And you’re going to let me walk away. I’ll vanish, and we never have to see each other again.”
His gaze held hers. “And why would that happen?”
She pressed the sharp end of that stake deeper against his throat. “Because if you don’t order him to do as I’ve said, I will shove this stake into your throat. Do you think you’ll stay alive long enough for help to get to you?” Ella pretended to consider the matter. “I don’t think so. I don’t—”
“You don’t bluff that well.”
She certainly did!
“You’re strong, your reflexes are off the charts, and you move with the speed of a vamp who has been around a very long time.”
Mistake three, mistake four, mistake—screw it! I won’t count them now.
“Yes, you are many things, Ella…”
A shiver slid over her. There was something about the way he said her name. A deep caress in his voice that unnerved her.
“But I don’t think you are stupid.”
She growled, “That’s good to know.”
“Because killing me? That would be a dumb move. If you murdered the head of the Para Unit, what do you think would happen to you?”
Nothing good.
“How about I tell you what would happen?” Eric murmured. “You’d lose this plush cell and be on the next boat to Purgatory. The guards would throw you in a cage and you’d stay there for the rest of your very, very long life. If the werewolves there didn’t kill you—I’ve heard some of them are very attracted to vampire females—then I’m sure there would be plenty of other hell for you to enjoy.”
The stake was still at his throat. Her legs were on either side of his hips as she straddled him on the couch. She stared into his eyes, and, for a moment, she truly hated him.
Ella snapped the stake in her hand and tossed the pieces of wood aside.
He nodded. “See, I said you weren’t good at bluffing. I knew you weren’t going to kill me.”
“And how’d you know that? Trust me, buddy, I’m plenty tempted right now.”
His hands rose and curled around her hips. For the first time, her position took on a very sexual tone. A tone that she didn’t want. “Let me go.”
“You’re the one who came after me.”
“You’re the one who tried to stake me first!”
His smile stretched a bit. He had an oddly disarming smile. Good thing she wasn’t the type to be disarmed.
“You lied to me, so I just tested that lie,” Eric explained.
“With a stake?” Ella gritted out.
“It wouldn’t have killed you.”
Her chest seemed to burn. “No, but it would have hurt. If it had hit my heart, it would have paralyzed me.”
His smile dimmed.
“But I guess my pain is acceptable for you.”
Eric glanced away from her. “Actually, it’s not. I don’t…like that idea.”
She laughed. “You know what, Eric? You’re not very good at lying.” Her hands pushed against his chest. That push should have been enough to have her easily breaking free from him.
If he’d just been human, she would have been free.
But her push didn’t make him move. He tightened his hold on her hips, and Ella was too aware of his strength.
Lowering her voice, she said, “You’re the man who chains up the monsters. Do the men and women who work for you even realize that you’re a monster, too?”
A muscle flexed in his jaw.
She brought her mouth close to his right ear and Ella whispered, “I guess I’m not the only one with secrets, am I?”
He stiffened beneath her.
Then, in the next instant, Eric had put Ella on her feet and he’d jumped up to her side. “We’re done for the day,” he snapped. The guy marched for the door.
Ella blinked and stared after him. Done? No, done meant he’d leave her and she’d be trapped alone in her cell again. “Stop!”
He didn’t stop.
So she just sped right past him. Before he could reach the door, Ella was in his path. They nearly collided, but he pulled back at the last moment.
“Don’t lock me in again,” Ella said. She hated the pleading note in her voice. “I’ve been a prisoner too long. Your prisoner. His prisoner. I want to be free. That’s all I want.”
Emotion flashed in his gaze—and she could feel the swirl of those emotions in the air around her. Desire, rage…such a dangerous combination.
And…pity?
Ella straightened her spine. “I haven’t hurt anyone.” Despite that little show with the stake. She’d restrained herself. “Let me go.”
“I’m sorry.” His gaze swept over her face. “I can’t.”
Then he walked around her.
Ella didn’t move.
She heard his fist pound into the door. Obviously, that was a signal for the guards to let him out because the clang of the bolt in that lock rang a few seconds later. She looked over her shoulder and saw the door open. And Eric strode out.
Her body turned toward the door. Ella took a tentative step toward it.
The guard slammed the door shut.
Clang. The heavy lock slid back into place.
At that moment, something inside of Ella seemed to splinter—or maybe she splintered. Into a thousand pieces.
***
His hands were shaking.
Eric Pate took a deep breath and tried to yank his control back into place. He never lost his control. Never.
“Uh, boss?”
His hands clenched into fists.
“Are you sure we’re doing the right thing with her?” Connor Marrok asked as he moved to Eric’s side. Both men were staring through the observation glass, watching Ella.
She stood near the locked door. Her shoulders were slumped. Her long, dark hair fell forward, concealing her face.
“I don’t like locking up victims,” Connor continued, his voice roughening. “I saw her in that hellhole. That bastard Keegan had her chained up. He’d nearly starved her…”
Eric made a mental note to remove Connor from Ella’s rotation. The other man felt too much sympathy for her.
Right, like I don’t?
When he’d been in that room with her, when she’d stared up at him with tears glinting in her gorgeous eyes, his chest had begun to burn.
When she’d asked not to be locked in again, he’d almost set her fre
e right then. Almost offered her anything, everything to just not look at him that way.
As if he were a monster.
“We aren’t hurting her,” Eric said and his voice was gruff to his own ears. “We’re helping her to heal. She needed to be monitored after what she endured with Keegan.” That sick, twisted bastard of a werewolf. A werewolf who had actually turned out to be Connor’s long lost brother. Talk about a twisted family tree.
“We have monitored her,” Connor said. “You’ve tested her plenty. You’ve given her your drugged blood. Until today, she didn’t fight anyone.” He turned his head and glanced at Eric, his golden eyes glinting. “Until you went at her with a stake…”
Eric locked his jaw even as he felt shame burn through him. I had to do my job. I don’t like my damn job, but I had to test her. It was necessary. “I knew she wasn’t a Freshblood. I knew she’d catch that stake.”
“What if you’d been wrong?” Connor asked, not pulling any punches. “What if the great Eric Pate had actually made a mistake? But then, I guess it wouldn’t be the first time you staked a vamp. If the stories are true, you even staked your sister once.”
Eric swallowed. That particular story was true. But he’d only staked his step-sister, Holly, in order to protect her. She’d been heading out toward certain death. His job—always—was to protect his sister.
“You think I get to make the easy choices?” Eric asked, his voice low. Ella had known she was being watched, so he wondered just how much of their conversation she might be overhearing. “Nothing I do is easy.” He exhaled on a long sigh. “But Holly had run her tests on…on Ella.” A strangely disarming name. “Some interesting anomalies appeared, and I knew she wasn’t some weak, new vamp that Keegan had captured.”
Connor’s brows shot up. “Just what kind of anomalies are you talking about?”
“The kind that make me nervous. The kind that even Holly can’t understand—and she’s the best expert on paranormal genetics that we’ve got.” He glanced back through the observation window. “Ella’s not just a vampire. At least, according to Holly, she isn’t.”
He could feel the tension rocking up as Connor leaned closer to the one-way mirror. The guy was now studying Ella with new suspicion. “You think she’s like me?”
“A vamp and werewolf mix? A cross-over?” A deadly combination. “I sure as hell hope not.” But there were other things to fear in the world, too. “For a while, I thought we were just hunting vamps and wolves. Now…because of her…I’m wondering if other things could be out there, too.”
“Other…things?” Connor’s voice roughened. “She’s a woman, first and foremost. She’s not a damn thing, and you have to stop thinking like that.”
Connor didn’t understand. He probably never would. Eric couldn’t let his control down. He couldn’t risk empathizing too much with his prisoners. If he did—
Her head snapped up. Her gaze—so wide and deep and filled with pain and fury—locked on his. No hesitation. She just zeroed right in on him, as if the mirror weren’t even between them.
“Trust me,” he heard himself murmur. “I am highly aware that she’s a woman.”
A woman who was now striding straight toward him.
“Ah, correction,” Connor said, “that is one very pissed woman.”
Her cheeks burned red. Her delicate jaw locked and when she lifted her hands, Eric could see the small claws that had grown from her fingertips.
“Uh, Eric…”
She stopped on the other side of the glass, standing directly in front of Eric. Her shoulders shuddered with every gasping breath that she took.
“I won’t be a prisoner again.” Ella’s voice was loud and clear. Her eyes glittered. “You can’t keep me here. You won’t!” Then she lifted her hands, balled them into fists, and started smashing the glass.
She’ll hurt herself. She—
“It’s reinforced, right?” Connor said, his voice flat.
It was. “She has to stop,” Eric said. “She’ll just hurt her hands. All of the cells here are paranormal proof, and even if she hadn’t been taking the drugged blood—”
The glass started to break beneath her fists.
Every muscle in Eric’s body locked down. “That’s not possible.”
“Yeah, it is!” Now Connor was letting his own claws out. “Guess we’re seeing those anomalies you mentioned.” His clawed hand reached for the red button that would sound the alarm.
Ella bared her fangs at Eric. Fangs that weren’t quite as long as a normal vamp’s. More delicate. Then she drove her fist into the glass and it shattered, falling down around them.
Connor swore and slammed down the alarm.
But Eric didn’t move. The broken glass reigned down around him and he stared into Ella’s blazing gaze. Nothing separated them now. Nothing at all.
He probably shouldn’t have noticed how incredibly gorgeous she was in that moment. But he did. He’d been drawn to her from the first instant. Such a very, very dangerous thing.
For them both.
“I won’t be a prisoner!” Ella yelled. “Not anymore.”
Then she leapt right at him.
Chapter Two
An alarm was shrieking, making her head pound, and blood dripped from her hands as Ella shot through that now destroyed observation window and went straight for Eric.
He was the one she needed. He was the one who was trying to keep her captive. He was the one who would free her.
She launched straight at him, her fury nearly choking her. Fury and pain and fear. The emotions raged in her, a terrible fire that couldn’t be quenched. And that fury wasn’t just directed at Eric…
No, it went back longer—back to that bastard Keegan who’d kept her chained in his basement. He’d starved her. Taken her blood. Made her drink from him.
And he broke something in me.
She could tell. She was damaged and she wanted her old life back. I’ll take it back!
Her body collided with Eric’s and they fell to the stone floor. He was beneath her, so he took the full force of the impact. That was the least of what he deserved. She shoved upward and her nails went for his throat.
Her wrist—both of her wrists—were instantly trapped in a rock hard grip. Not Eric’s grip—the guard’s.
“Sorry,” a gravelly male voice rumbled, coming from her left. “As tempting as it is, I can’t let you kill the guy.”
Eric stared up at her. His pupils had expanded, the black dominating now in his eyes. “She wasn’t going to kill me, Connor.”
The alarm was still ringing, nearly shattering her mind. It was so terribly loud.
She jerked against the hold on her wrists, trying to break free with a mighty heave—but the guy held her tight.
“Can’t do that,” the one called Connor said, “you’ll just go for his throat again.”
Her head whipped toward him. Through her fury and fear, she…recognized him. His eyes were pure gold as they held hers. There was no fury in his gaze. No hate. Just stoic determination. His hair was a little too long, dark, and his face was cut in hard, almost rough lines.
That face—she could never forget it. “You saved me.” She stopped fighting him because she owed this man. Yes, she thought she could break free of his grip, but he’d be…damaged…in that battle. “You were the one who got me out of that basement.” The fire had been raging around her, and she’d been trapped.
Then this man—this agent—had appeared. He’d broken the manacles that locked around her and she’d rushed from the house. Only she hadn’t gone far until she’d found herself tumbling straight into Eric’s arms.
Before he could respond, a door burst open—a door that led to the observation room that they were in. A team of agents—all dressed so stereotypically in black—stormed inside. They were all armed and their guns pointed straight at Ella.
She was still crouched over Eric. He wasn’t moving at all. And Connor had her wrists in his powerful grip.
<
br /> Her heartbeat thundered in her ears. For a moment, that frantic sound was so loud that it nearly drowned out the terrible screech of the alarm.
“Stand down,” Eric said, his voice strong with command. “And someone, please, shut off that fucking alarm.”
The agents in black lowered their guns.
The alarm stopped a moment later.
“If I let go of your hands,” Connor said, “you can’t go for his throat.”
Ella gave a grim nod. She knew if she so much as twitched, the agents would probably open fire on her. Since she didn’t know what sort of bullets were in their guns, she didn’t want to take any additional risks.
Connor let go of her hands. She kept them in the air, wanting to show the other agents that she wasn’t a threat. At least, not at that moment, she wasn’t.
“Orders, sir?” One of the men in black barked. She didn’t look at him, but she did turn her gaze back to Eric.
He was watching her. She wondered if he’d been staring at her the whole time.
A chill slid over her. He’s always watching me.
“My orders are to back out of this room. Your fast response is certainly appreciated, but I have things under control.”
There was a quick cough, and then the guy asked, “You sure about that, sir?”
Eric smiled up at Ella. It was a rather chilling smile. “I’m dead certain, Lawrence. Now get the hell out.”
“Sir!”
Footsteps thudded in a quick retreat. She still had her hands up—until the last agent shut the door behind him.
“I’m not complaining,” Eric mused, “I rather like the view I currently have, but if you prefer to stand while we talk—”
She shot to her feet. Glared at him.
He rose slowly. “I thought as much. Pity.” He glanced down at her hands, and all traces of humor left his face. He grabbed her wrists and pulled her toward him. “You’re bleeding.”
She looked down. Blood coated her knuckles and she might have broken some fingers.
“I’ll heal.” She cleared her throat, then pointedly said, “I’d heal better without drugged blood but—”