Syn. (Den of Mercenaries Book 6)

by London Miller

  A metal collar was locked around his neck, a foot’s length of chain connecting it from a loop in the back of it to a post in the wall. If it was supposed to make him afraid or submit and start begging for his life, it wasn’t working.

  He looked less like the victim and more like the one they should all be afraid of.

  Like a rabid animal held off only by the chain that seemed so insignificant despite the strength she knew it held.

  More curious, he didn’t seem to be looking at anyone in the room.

  They weren’t alone—others were present, men who’d worked alongside him, others who wanted nothing more than to see him bleed, and Rosalie who looked far too pleased with the sight of him strung up—but for all the attention he paid them, they might as well have not been in the room.

  From the moment Iris had walked into the room, finding a shadowed corner to stand and watch, his gaze had lifted from the dirty floor in her direction and hadn’t moved since.

  He couldn’t possibly see her, not with so many people surrounding her, but she could practically feel his gaze—like his hatred was a tangible force wrapping around her.

  If she were within an inch of him, he would have his hands around her throat, just as he had in the alleyway, and he’d choke the life out of her without a second thought.

  The smart decision would be to turn her back and leave this room without ever looking back. Her job was done. Her target delivered. So why hadn’t she walked away?

  “I’m so glad to have you home, puppy,” Rosalie said as she braced one leather-clad hip against the chair she stood next to, her hazel eyes trained firmly on Synek. “I’ve missed you.”

  Iris thought she had known the depths of the woman’s infatuation with Synek, but she’d clearly underestimated what he meant to her. Her eyes were shining, her lips turned up in a cruel smile, and she was practically shaking with excitement.

  Iris doubted she had ever felt even remotely as crazy about someone as Rosalie seemed to feel about Synek.

  Yet if the feeling had ever been mutual—as Rosalie had always told her it was—he wasn’t showing it. Despite Rosalie addressing him directly, he still had yet to take his eyes off her.

  Maybe it was his lack of acknowledgment to her goading that had the others realizing he wasn’t simply waiting to be addressed but that he was focused on something else.

  Someone else.

  Iris shifted on her feet, careful to keep her face blank though the rest of her was squirming. Ever since she had joined the Wraiths—ever since she had run from that courthouse in the pouring rain—she had always made it a point to stay in the background and not draw too much attention to herself.

  Yet now, here, all eyes were on her.

  She wasn’t the only one distressed by her newfound attention. A muscle clenched in Rosalie’s jaw, a flash of rage shining in her eyes before it disappeared, and she was smiling once more.

  It was a look Iris knew well, though she didn’t like the sight of it now.

  Rosalie swept her hair over her shoulder and started forward, calculating each step carefully. It was only once she was mere inches outside his reach that Synek slanted in his eyes in her direction and … no, there was no lingering love anywhere to be seen.

  He’d seemed more furious with Iris for tricking him than he was upset with Rosalie.

  Effortless was the way she’d described their love—she’d never said he would hate the very sight of her.

  Despite what she thought she knew, Iris was curious why.

  Rosalie leaned toward him, just enough to whisper something that made him lash out, her laughter ringing through the room as she ducked out of reach.

  “Iris.”

  She blinked when she heard her name, and though Rosalie’s tone made it clear she didn’t expect to be ignored, obeying was the last thing Iris wanted to do.

  And she doubted whatever plan was brewing behind Rosalie’s eyes meant anything good for her.

  This was what she’d grown weary of and why she had never wanted a permanent position with Rosalie or the Wraiths. She didn’t like mind games and hated playing them more.

  Besides, she knew all too well what Synek was capable of. She’d never tried to break a lion, and she didn’t want to try now.

  But without any other choice, she couldn’t ignore the summons even if she wanted to.

  Iris forced herself to unfold her arms and cross the room, but unlike Rosalie, who liked to stand too close to the fire, she kept her distance.

  Synek’s attention was back on her, the uncanny darkness of his eyes practically pouring out of him as he glared at her and took a step, the chain rattling as it pulled tautly.

  No, she had no doubt what he would do to her if given the chance.

  “You always did love the broken ones, didn’t you, puppy?”

  Iris did her best not to glare at Rosalie, not wanting to alert Synek to the fact that those words bothered her. She didn’t like anyone knowing her weaknesses, or even perceived weaknesses, especially someone who wanted to kill her.

  But even though she was standing across from him, and Rosalie was clearly trying to use her as bait, Synek still didn’t speak.

  If anything, he stood straighter, drawing her eyes down to his now naked chest … and the scars that covered it. Sure, a few tattoos marked up his torso, but the multitude of scars had her attention.

  For someone as good as he was, it amazed her that anyone had gotten as close to him as they had to leave this amount of damage.

  And if she hadn’t heard him speak before—and remembered the dirty things he’d whispered in her ear—she might have thought he was incapable of speech.

  He just stared at her.

  And almost afraid to let him out of her sight, Iris could only stare back.

  “Why are you making this so difficult?” Rosalie asked with a pout. “I thought he could have some fun now that you’re home.”

  Right. Whenever the ‘fun’ started around here, Iris made sure she was long gone. “I’m going to g—”

  “Are you afraid?”

  She’d barely spoken before Synek interrupted, his voice deceptively calm and void of the anger she’d seen in his face earlier. With that single question, he managed to grab the attention of the entire room all over again.

  He might have been chained like an animal, but his expression said he was exactly where he needed to be.

  Iris glanced at Rosalie, wondering if she truly expected her to entertain the question, but Rosalie merely blinked, then turned to her expectantly.

  Even as she knew she wouldn’t like what came next, Iris spoke. “Of you? No.”

  She expected anger to follow her denial, but he didn’t give her that. Instead, he smiled.

  Slow and steady.

  Every inch the corner of his mouth gained made her want to take a step back. It was different, looking up at him when he was trying to charm his way into her jeans and now.

  Now, his smile was the threat.

  Synek tried moving toward her again, the sound of the chain making her flinch, and as she met his gaze once more, she could feel the blood draining from her face.

  “When I get out of here, yeah? I’m going to show you what it means to be afraid,” he said, the thinnest twist of anger curling around his words.

  Iris took a step back.

  “If you think this lot can save you from me, they didn’t tell you enough stories. I don’t care who I have to kill—”

  Rosalie started to smile.

  “I don’t care if I have to hunt you to the ends of the fucking earth. I’m going to have you, dove, and there’ll be fuck all you can do about it. D’you understand? I’m going to make you regret this, I promise.”

  The Wraiths were shouting once more, entertained and ready for a show. Rosalie now had what she wanted from him.

  A reaction.

  His anger. His violence.

  Because Synek was no longer calm. He wasn’t subdued and careful anymore; he was lu
nging for her, and every jerk of the chain that prevented him from grabbing her only made it worse.

  He was practically clawing at the metal to get free.

  To get to her.

  To hurt her.

  Iris didn’t have to wait for him to psychically harm her to regret her part in this—she already did.

  As she turned to the door, she could hear the sharp crackle of electricity and knew without looking that Rosalie now had her cattle prod in hand.

  It was time for her to leave.

  Chapter 5

  Then …

  At ten years old, Synek knew better than to be afraid of the dark—it was what hid inside it that had his heart beating painfully fast inside his chest.

  There was no window for him to turn his gaze to with moonlight spilling through the glass, nor was there any crack at the bottom of the door providing any illumination inside the dark crawl space he laid in.

  There was just cloaking darkness … and the monsters within it.

  The monsters didn’t come every night, though that didn’t stop his mind from working overtime and wondering whether this night would be the one when the old wooden door creaked open and the shadows made his chest feel heavy. No matter how he tried to imagine a pattern, something that might alert him when his fears were brought to life, he couldn’t predict it.

  He was so tired now, having spent the day at school, then up for several hours to complete his lessons before it was time for dinner, then bed. The only thing he wanted was to close his eyes for a few minutes, to bask in the silence around him, but fear kept him awake.

  Even as his eyes felt heavy and tears threatened to fall from keeping them open for so long.

  It didn’t matter how tired his body was; his mind kept him from drifting off.

  He couldn’t be sure what time it was, whether midnight had come and gone, or if the next day had yet to pass.

  Surely, a few minutes would be enough. Surely, he would be fine once he closed his eyes and stopped letting the shadows scare him.

  Yes, that was exactly what he needed.

  Then he could stay up and wait the night out until the sun rose again and his day could begin. Besides, he didn’t mind sleeping at his desk during the lunch hour. He would catch up on it then.

  Decision made, Synek finally let his eyelids fall shut, holding the threadbare red blanket he slept with in both of his tiny fists as he exhaled the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

  Tonight, they weren’t coming.

  A second passed, maybe more, before he heard it—the sound that made his eyes pop open as fear slithered down his spine. He tried to clamp a hand over his mouth and force his cry back down to a place where even he couldn’t hear it. Screaming would only make it worse.

  His breaths left him in giant gusts as the door creaked open with deliberate slowness, and perfectly manicured fingers wrapped around the edge of the wood.

  His monster wasn’t grotesque with talons and scaled flesh as the many stories spoke of. His monster was beautiful like freshly fallen snow and just as cold and unforgiving.

  His monster was as human as he was.

  As he tried to remember how to breathe, he watched as his monster crept closer, her white teeth gleaming in the darkness of the room.

  Just as the first tear spilled onto the pillow beneath his head, he watched her lift the belt she carried, squeezing his eyes shut as she began to swing.

  “Repent,” she whispered before the leather struck flesh.

  Now …

  Fucking hell.

  Synek jerked out of the memory with a start, his chest and back coated with sweat. Too long had passed since his nightmares had plagued him. Or rather, the sort that brought on actual fear when he woke up instead of anger.

  Usually, his mind offered him a steady supply of other memories, featuring the people he had killed in the name of others. Faces he might not have thought about while he was awake but haunted him in his dreams when he was most vulnerable.

  It was nightmares that usually kept him from sleeping most nights. He much preferred skipping it entirely and driving himself harder and harder until he practically passed out. Thankfully, his unwanted dreams were kept to a minimum when that happened.

  Unfortunately, it didn’t happen nearly enough.

  Instead, he’d taken to drinking his dreams away until nothing remained but an empty space where his nightmares were supposed to be.

  But maybe he should have laid off the fucking vodka last night because sleep or not, he felt like fucking shit.

  Awareness slowly crept in as Synek stumbled to his feet, his eyes slowly blinking open as he took in his surroundings … surroundings that were all too familiar.

  The night’s events came rushing back.

  Getting off the plane and heading over to the Hall.

  Drinking his liver away with a nice bottle of vodka.

  Knives and dart boards.

  A beautiful face in a sea of ordinary ones.

  Iris.

  She’d smiled at him, laughed, ground herself against his cock when he had her against the wall in the alley next to the Hall.

  She’d played him.

  And worse, he hadn’t seen it coming.

  It was a rookie mistake to fall for this sort of bait, but for once, he hadn’t been thinking about the Wraiths or the Den or his job or any of the rest of the shit he did day to day. He’d been grounded at the moment with her.

  A fucking fool he was.

  She had even been there when they brought him in, though he hadn’t expected her.

  When he’d woken up chained to the wall, fucking Wraiths all around him cheering and taunting, he hadn’t expected to find her hidden in the back.

  She might have looked like them, dressed as she was with the multitude of piercings in her ears, but seeing her then, he understood why she hadn’t roused his suspicions—she wasn’t a Wraith.

  It went beyond what they wore—it was a state of mind.

  Where the hell had Fisher dug her up?

  The sound of clicking heels brought his gaze up from the floor and to the woman now walking toward him. Seeing her earlier, he’d expected to find dark hair and a cunning smile that used to tempt him into anything she wanted, but instead, he found silvery strands and cold eyes.

  His brow furrowed as he gazed at a face he hadn’t seen in years before tonight—a face that made his blood turn cold.

  “Glad to see you’re awake again, puppy. I thought I’d lost you.”

  Just hearing her voice …

  It made his skin crawl.

  But he didn’t let the feeling reflect on his face—that was what she wanted. Weakness was what she got off on most.

  He needed to focus on something else. “Who was she?”

  They both knew who he meant, and as he’d thought—just as it had earlier—the fact that he seemed less concerned about her and more interested in Iris annoyed her. Her vanity couldn’t take it.

  “She’s one of many. Clever, don’t you think, considering you’re here now? Then again, I had the plan all laid out for her.”

  For the first time since he’d laid eyes on her, Synek gave her his undivided attention, his gaze sweeping the length of her from head to toe and back again. “Would say it’s good to see you, but…” He shrugged. “It ain’t. And don’t call me fucking puppy.”

  It was a name he’d always despised, despite her love of it. A part of him was sure she used it just because she knew how much it pissed him off and wanted to get a rise out of him.

  Her smile faltered when he spoke, but that didn’t stop her from coming toward him. Up close, he could now see why he hadn’t immediately recognized her in the other room, even if her voice was the same. Her once black hair was bleached and dyed gray, her dark eyes covered by gray contacts—though those hadn’t been in earlier—and the once proud tan she’d always sported was gone.

  Over the years, she hadn’t just aged, she’d become an entirely new person.r />
  A person he recognized even if the thought made his stomach lurch.

  Rosalie touched his face, running her nails along his jaw. “Tell me you’ve missed me, and I won’t let them hurt you. I promise.”

  No, he didn’t believe that. Hurting him was half her fun. “What’s this, eh? You think you can turn yourself into Winter, and that’ll make me, what? Want you?”

  That, for whatever reason, made her smile grow. “I can be whatever, or whoever, you want me to be. Give me those three little words, and I’ll make this easy on you. You can come back, and all will be right again.”

  “I’ve never been a liar, Rosalie, and I’ve never been afraid of a little torture.”

  She stared at him, her expression crumpling with each second that passed, and just as her anger spread across her features, she slapped him, snapping his face to the side, the sharp sting almost making him laugh.

  Rosalie had always been good at that.

  “Ah, let’s be honest here,” he said, holding her gaze. “You don’t miss me, do you? You missed beating the shit out of me, then me getting you off, isn’t that right?”

  That only served to piss her off further, and this time, instead of a slap, she punched him hard enough that he tasted blood in his mouth. But even as she struck him, she didn’t deny what he said, and before she turned to give him her back, he saw a spark of excitement in her eyes.

  Yeah, she would make this hurt.

  “I gave you everything, puppy, and you spit in my face. How could you?”

  They remembered his time with the Wraiths very differently, but this was her family—her blood. She thought the psychotic shit he’d had to do for them was nothing to be concerned about.

  She thrived, just as he once had, on the chaos of it all.

  She didn’t care about the bodies buried out in the fields or others burned until nothing was left of them but ash.

  Rosalie hadn’t thought twice about the women she’d brought to him for what she liked to call “gifts,” even knowing he didn’t like to fuck women who didn’t freely offer it.

  Worse, she’d never cared about his resentment toward her for the things he’d done to please her.