But she had no doubt that the glower in her eyes had gone no way to match the one in his.
‘Keep your head down and your mouth shut,’ he warned as he led her over to awaiting door.
‘Recent graduate, were you?’
His eyes narrowed questioningly as he looked across his broad shoulder at her.
‘From charm school,’ she quipped, sensibly breaking eye contact again before sidestepping him and slipping through the doorway first.
The desolate, wide corridor loomed ahead.
As the door scraped to a close behind her, Sophia kept her head up, her shoulders back and her strides purposeful, Jask alongside her.
‘I like what you’ve done with the place,’ she remarked, the fluorescent tubes above buzzing in the silence. ‘Very institutional.’
She looked across at him and sent him a glib smile in retort to another of his frowns, before she glanced over her shoulder to attempt to make eye contact with the younger lycans.
They hadn’t just stumbled on her like they’d made out to Jask and Corbin. The two vampires who’d held her had been awaiting the arrival of two others – two lycans, from what she’d overheard.
But not once had Rone or Samson mentioned The Alliance or her role in it. Yet neither had any other lycans turned up.
She could have used her suspicions as a bargaining tool back in the ruins but had quickly resolved that if they truly didn’t know, disclosing her links to The Alliance was potentially more suicidal than keeping her mouth shut.
Now what she needed to know was, if they had lied to their lycan leader, why? More importantly, how she could turn it to her advantage to get out of there.
But there was no way she could catch their eye without making it obvious with Corbin between them. She’d have to practise a little bit of uncharacteristic patience.
Jask pulled open another corrugated door and led them into what resembled a warehouse.
Two groups of males looked up from tables on opposing sides of the room. One cluster abruptly ceased their conversation. The other momentarily suspended their game of cards. All gave Sophia the once over.
As Jask marched her across the room, she struggled to keep her arms lax by her sides – the temptation to wrap them protectively around herself overwhelming under the oppression of their stares. Instead she looked a couple of lycans direct in the eye as she passed, swiftly giving them an equal once-over by way of retaliation.
As they reached another door on the far side, Jask keyed a code into the security panel before pushing the door open.
They stepped into a courtyard encompassed by chain-link fences – their twenty-foot height overshadowed only by further chain-link fences some fifteen feet beyond. The latter were at least fifty feet in height and topped off with coiled barbed wire – a sight made increasingly ominous by the eerie glow of dawn pending from behind the dense clouds.
Dawn meant another night gone. Another night wasted when she needed to get back to The Alliance. More importantly, to make contact with her sisters.
‘If a subtle sense of paranoia was the theme you were aiming for, it worked,’ she added, as much to ease her own tension in the dominating silence as maintain a mask of nonchalance.
But this time Jask didn’t acknowledge her as he led her directly to the door opposite, keying in another code. The door made a sharp buzz before opening automatically. He stood back and indicated for Sophia to step through first.
She entered a low-arched, red-brick tunnel, her eardrums struggling to adjust to the oppressive enclosure. As the door clunked shut, a terrifying sense of disquiet encompassed her. Instinctively she picked up pace towards the open exit some twenty feet away, not least because of the unsettling echo of lycan footsteps close behind her.
The last thing she expected to enter was a large, open space, let alone be faced with greenery.
Apart from a scattering of hardy trees on the outskirts of Blackthorn – trees surviving despite the odds against the unrelenting polluted atmosphere – greenery was non-existent in Blackthorn. Occasional glimpses were only fractionally more apparent in Lowtown. Greenery was a privilege reserved for Midtown and, not least, Summerton, her true home – the latter having an abundance of parks, fields and woodlands.
But here in the lycan compound, in what was once an affluent city hotel, was not only a green lawn, but a scattering of small fruit trees.
She stood in the corner of the quadrant and scanned the three-storey building ahead, as well as the adjoining two-storey building to her left, both dark and geometric against the swirling mass of clouds. The sky appeared even heavier there, closeting the compound and encapsulating the cold bite that crept with the subtle breeze. A breeze that stirred a damp and earthy aroma evoked by the recent rainfall.
The place was scattered with lycans. Some relaxed on low walls and steps, others gathered at picnic tables, chatting in clusters. But it wasn’t long before she caught their attention, her hands involuntarily clenching at her conspicuousness.
‘Take them to the holding room,’ Jask said to Corbin, referring to Rone and Samson. ‘I won’t be long.’
Corbin nodded, shooting Sophia a glance, before cocking his head towards Rone and Samson as an indication for them to follow.
Her pulse rate increased a notch. Jask wanted her alone. That could be a good thing or a bad thing.
She followed Jask around the paved periphery to the left whilst Rone and Samson were led to another tunnel on the far right of the quadrant. And from their perturbed faces, their leader was certainly living up to his reputation.
As Jask cut across the corner before continuing along the path to the three-storey building, she mindlessly rubbed her wrists – the wrists he had pinned so easily. Humiliation consumed her again at the recollection, as did the knot of nerves in her stomach as he led her up the broad stone steps to the impressive stone-arched entrance and through the open front doors.
Passing through a tile-floored entrance hall, they entered the lobby. Sophia stared ahead at the sweeping central staircase – one which she had no doubt would have been breathtaking in its day. At its pinnacle, the galleried landing split into two either side of a distant, dominating arched window.
Just like outside, lycans mingled in clusters – some reclining in worn armchairs, others strolling leisurely through the open doorway to the left or heading out of sight down the corridor to the right of the foot of the stairs.
She followed Jask across the mosaic floor, past an ornate stone fireplace to her right, and what would have been the reception desk to her left. Ascending the stairs alongside him, her attention was drawn to the opaque glass dome that crowned the ceiling, until the scorch of stares was too much to bear.
She glanced over her shoulder to see every pair of piercing eyes watching her. Even the lycans descending on the opposite side of the staircase frowned in curiosity as they passed.
She tugged at her knotted bobbed hair behind her ear, rubbed her thumb beneath what she assumed were now clown eyes, before glowering back at them. ‘What the hell do they think they’re staring at? Anyone would think they’d never seen a woman before.’
‘Number one, you’re with me, number two, you look a mess, and number three, you reek of vampires,’ Jask declared. ‘Everyone in this building can smell you coming from a hundred feet away.’
Despite his insults coming without so much as a glance in her direction, she still flushed with embarrassment. But she promptly reminded herself it didn’t matter what anyone thought of her – least of all what Jask or any other lycan thought of her.
As they reached the top, she was tempted to turn and perform a theatrical curtsey for her captive audience, but Jask didn’t give her time as he took a sharp left across the galleried landing.
He opened the only door on that side and she stepped in behind him, her heartbeat audible in her ears as he sealed the door behind them.
She took a steadying breath, taking her eyes off him only to scan the enclosure
.
Aside from a cluster of three armchairs in front of the dominating window to her right, the fifty-by-thirty-foot room was void of furniture. Even the window was bare, doing nothing to hold back the muted early dawn glow across the exposed floorboards.
Jask kicked off his boots, his bare feet now silent as he led the way towards the jacquard bottle-green curtain ahead.
He brushed it aside to reveal a room about half the size of the last one, only this one had a much more homely feel.
A large, deep-pile rug lay against the wall to her right, conquered by a mass of floor cushions, pillows and a duvet. Clearly the rumour that lycans didn’t sleep in beds, preferring to nest down on the floor, was true.
Another window dominated the wall ahead – this one a bay and housing an impressively deep window seat. But again, it was void of curtains. It seemed privacy wasn’t an issue for lycans – not within the pack at least.
They passed scuffed, white-glossed inbuilt wardrobes as Jask led her to another curtain in the middle of the wall to her left. He tucked the fabric up on a hook and indicated for her to step inside.
She crossed the threshold into a bathroom. A shower cubicle big enough for four sat ahead, the white plastic curtains pulled back but still covering the sides left and right. A toilet was tucked in the top left-hand corner of the room. In the top right-hand corner, were two adjacent sash windows. A lengthy vanity unit containing a sunken sink spanned the rest of the wall to her right.
She caught a glimpse of herself in the broad mirror that sat above it – a small figure in loose, unflattering black clothes with skin too pale for her mussed, dyed-black hair.
‘Strip to your underwear and shower,’ Jask said.
Her heart skipped a beat. She turned to face him as he leaned against the door frame. ‘You’ve got to be kidding me.’
He folded his arms, the taut bulge the position evoked reminding her of his strength. ‘I want the war paint off your face so I can see what I’m really dealing with, and the repulsive vampire scent off your skin.’ He cocked his head towards the cubicle. ‘Now.’
She exhaled tersely. ‘Screw yourself, Jask. Go find some other way to sate your guilty little pleasures – I don’t strip for anyone.’
He held her gaze in the silence.
She held her breath.
A split second later, his chest was a solid wall against her back as he pulled her to the floor between his legs. He looped his ankles over hers, spreading them with his. Locking her arms to her chest, he unlaced one of her mid-calf army boots.
‘I ask nicely once but never twice,’ he said, as he tore her boot and sock from one foot before swapping hands and unlacing the other. ‘If you want to continue being a belligerent little madam, fine. But you need to know I’ve no qualms treating you like one.’
He discarded her other boot and sock before lifting her to her feet with ease.
Arm locked around her waist, he carried her into the cubicle and switched on the shower. He let go of her only to yank her sweater and T-shirt up over her head, casting them aside. Re-pinning her arms pinned around her waist, he retained a faultless hold despite her furious kicking as he reached low down her abdomen to unfasten her combats.
‘You can’t do this!’ she said through gritted teeth as she tried to buck futilely against him.
But as she lifted her feet to the wall to give herself leverage, she only gave him easier access to tug the clinging, soaked fabric down to her knees.
‘No?’ he asked. ‘Then you clearly didn’t learn from your lesson the first time.’
He pushed his foot down between her knees, taking her trousers the rest of the way to the floor. Lifting her out of them, he kicked them aside.
He reached for the shampoo bottle on the nearby shelf as she tried to elbow him away. Squeezing some onto her hair, he rubbed it in, using some of it to wash her face.
Sophia spat out bubbles, the shampoo stinging her eyes as she was forced to close them, let alone keep her mouth shut to avoid the foul taste.
She winced as it stung the wounds, scuffs and grazes from both her encounter with the vampires and the rough treatment of Marid who had made it quite clear he preferred his goods silent – something she’d had a lifelong difficulty with.
‘I trust you can finish yourself off?’ he said, finally letting her go.
She spat the last traces of shampoo from her mouth and hurriedly rinsed her stinging eyes with water before turning to see he had exited the shower. Through the thin fabric of the curtain, she could see his dark shadow in the corner of the room as he stood staring out of the window.
She ran her trembling hands back through her hair and rubbed her eyes until there were no more smudges of the heavy grey eye make-up she always wore.
Once she’d soothed the sting in her eyes, she sulkily grabbed the shower gel and gave herself a wash down. Although she wouldn’t admit it to Jask, she was equally as keen to freshen up after being locked in a filthy room on that putrid bed for the past three days.
She glanced back at the shadow beyond the curtain and felt another flush of embarrassment at the state she’d been in, but immediately quashed the needless emotion.
She rinsed and turned the shower off, but as soon as she turned to look for something to wrap around herself, Jask was back at the opening.
She’d never been particularly shy about her body, and even less so serving with The Alliance – stripping off and tending wounds was a regular occurrence. But something about Jask’s unashamed appraisal whilst she stood in her sodden, thin black underwear gave her a sense of unfamiliar inferiority that didn’t rest easy.
‘Do you own a towel or do you just shake dry?’ she asked as she thrust up her chin, her gaze locked defiantly on his. She placed her hands on her hips. ‘Or would you like to admire me for a little longer?’
He persisted, taking in every inch of her to the point she nearly lost her temper. Until she realised what he was doing. He was checking her inner arms, wrists, neck, thighs, stomach, ankles. He wasn’t examining her for his own satiation – he was looking for bite wounds.
Of course – he assumed she was an experienced serryn and was assessing how many vampiric encounters she’d had recently.
She had almost forgotten what she was now. What she had become. After the night’s events, let alone the previous three days, it had barely registered.
She should have been ecstatic and overwhelmed by the power that now, for a reason she had yet to uncover, flowed through her veins. For years she had dreamt of one day finding a serryn still alive – their blood the ultimate weapon against vampires and subsequently a platinum resource for The Alliance. And the whole time Leila – her sensible, shy, reserved big sister – had been harbouring a secret she would never have seen coming.
A secret she may never have discovered if something hadn’t clearly happened that very night to cause the serryn line to jump to her.
A pang of sickness lingered at the back of her throat. Leila had to still be alive. She had to be.
‘Turn around,’ Jask said. ‘Put your hands on the wall, bend forward and open your legs.’
She inhaled deeply, nearly gave him a mouthful of expletive-filled abuse but, despite what he thought, she had learned her lesson. Temporarily, at least.
She turned, placed her hands flat against the white tiles, spread her legs slightly and leaned forward just enough that he could see both the backs and inners of her thighs.
‘Let me know when the thrill is over,’ she said.
But when she looked over her shoulder, he’d already draped a towel over the rail above and was removing a shirt from the hook by the doorway.
He threw it at her.
‘Get rid of the underwear and put that on.’ He turned away. ‘You’ve got two minutes.’
Stepping outside, he let the door curtain drop back into place.
Chapter Three
Jask stood in front of the window seat, arms folded as he looked out beyond the fence
s and barbed wire. Dawn had defeated the darkness on Blackthorn’s horizon, early sunlight diminishing the shadowed recesses of the compound.
From the pivotal viewing point of his quarters, he looked left, down at the archway that led to the outbuildings where Rone and Samson had been taken. He didn’t have time to wait around. He needed to get down there and find out as much as he could of exactly what they had been doing on that side of Blackthorn, let alone what mess there could still be to clear up.
But clearly his idea of two minutes and the serryn’s idea of two minutes were two entirely different things. The bathroom was silent and it sure as hell didn’t take a woman more than two minutes to put a shirt on.
He pulled away from the window and drew back the curtain to the bathroom.
She was sat cross-legged on the vanity unit, her small frame swamped in the towel, arms lax in her lap, her head resting back against the wall. She stared back at him – her brown eyes still brimming with anger and resentment, despite the lack of harsh makeup to emphasise such. Make-up without which, as he’d suspected, she was even prettier.
Her sodden combats, sweater and T-shirt were draped over the rail to dry. Her exposed slender shoulders still revealed the straps of her bra. His shirt had been thrown to the floor.
As aggravating as her non-compliance was, he’d give her spirit its due. He rested his forearm above his head against the architrave. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Does it matter?’
‘I asked you a question.’
Her gaze remained unflinching. ‘Give me multiple-choice answers and I’ll pick one.’
A pang of irritation sliced his chest at her insolence. But it was fascinating insolence all the same – especially from something two-thirds of his size, let alone in her situation.
He folded his arms and rested his shoulder against the doorframe. ‘I’ll just call you serryn then, shall I?’
‘It’s the closest you’ll get to the truth.’ She broke eye contact only to assess him slowly from feet to chest.
Blood Torn (Blackthorn Book 3) Page 3