The elevator slid open with a soft ping.
Lothair pointed, motioning her through the entrance into…
Where exactly? The descent proved she was underground, in some sort of facility. But the structure was far from new. Paint peeled, leaving bald patches on the walls in some places and latex curls hanging from cinder block in others. And the concrete floor? Worn as though the passageway had been well traveled, but not maintained.
Angela stepped out of the Otis and into the corridor. The paper slippers slid on her feet, catching on the uneven floor as fluorescents buzzed, making her head ache, but at least the air was fresher down here. A continuous click-click-whirl sound rattled through the corridor. Angela glanced up at…
Thank God. A steel grille. The place had a ventilation system. Maybe she could—
A big hand clamped down on one of her biceps.
She jerked, wrenching her arm out of Lothair’s grip. He smirked, planted his palm between her shoulder blades, and pushed. As she cursed and stumbled forward, calling him every name she could think of, he kept up the shove routine, herding her ahead of him until they came to steel bars. Straight out of a prison, the barrier was old, but effective, blocking the corridor in both directions.
Lothair shoved her sideways, away from the electronic keypad. Her shoulder collided with the wall. Angela barely noticed. She was too busy to bother with the pain. Her focus was pinpoint sharp, glued to the digital screen and…
Bingo.
The idiot.
He hadn’t blocked her view. And as Lothair’s fingers got busy punching in the access code, she paid attention, squirreling away each number and…
Gotcha.
Man, the bonehead was clueless. She had the access code. Now all she needed was to make sure she could find her way out when the time came. A problem for most people, but not her. She controlled the swing vote, had an ace up her sleeve, so to speak: a photographic memory that provided perfect recall.
Thank God the Razorbacks didn’t know that. A blindfold would’ve been the kiss of death for her.
The steel bars retracted with a clang, echoing through the deserted corridor. Well, “deserted.” It was all relative, really. She was here along with Mr. Asshole, after all.
Lothair shoved her again. “Move it.”
“Screw off,” she rasped, her throat raw from that awful drink.
“There you are,” he said, sounding pleased. “The spirited female I know and love…back at last.”
He had no idea. Payback wasn’t fun, and after what she’d suffered the last few hours, Lothair was first on her hit list. ’Cause, yeah, given half a chance? She would pump him full of lead. Blow his head off without hesitation.
Too bad her gun had been lost in the firefight. At the precinct. Where her partner had been blown through a plate-glass window.
Angela blinked back tears. Oh, no…Mac.
She’d thought of her partner countless times since the explosion and her capture. Had prayed and pleaded…Please, God, let him be all right. Whether or not he heard her she didn’t know. All she could do was hope.
Hope. Pray. And beg.
Holding in a sob, she walked past cinder-block walls and under bare lightbulbs. Lothair hummed behind her—like he knew what she felt and loved the show. She ignored him, her mind fully occupied with Mac.
Please, don’t let him be dead.
She could handle a lot: the torture and pain, the humiliation and imprisonment. But a world without Mac? No way she could go there and survive what she knew was coming. He was the big brother she’d never had, the only family she acknowledged. The only one who cared enough to come looking for her.
Rounding a corner, the empty corridor gave way, branching in two different directions. Angela wanted to go right. She saw tools down there: lying on the concrete floor, leaning against dingy walls, stacked on top of half-open boxes. Two men, looking empty-eyed and exhausted, glanced up, then looked away as though afraid to acknowledge her. Desperation hung in the air around them. Hers? Theirs? She didn’t know. Maybe it was a combination of the two, but as her mind sharpened, her body responded, hitting her with a shot of adrenaline.
The nausea evened out. Her heart picked up the slack, thumping hard as she scanned the dilapidated hallway, looking for the fastest route, the likeliest weapon with the deadliest potential. Lothair was big, too strong for her to outmuscle. But, maybe, just maybe, she could surprise him. Deploy the blitz attack so many murderers used to down their victims. One sharp blow to the head. One hard slash to the throat, and she’d be free, sprinting back toward that keypad with the access code riding shotgun.
Lothair veered left.
Angela lunged right, kicking out of her slippers, forcing her legs to work, her gaze on the box cutter no more than ten feet away.
A growl sounded behind her. Heavy footfalls followed, pounding out a terrifying rhythm.
Panic grabbed hold, making her run flat out. Something white flashed in her periphery. Clear plastic. And inside? Loose powder. She grabbed a handful as she sprinted past. Three feet from the tool, Lothair grabbed her hospital gown from behind. Angela twisted, flung her bound hands wide, and opened her palms. The fine dust flew, hitting Lothair in the face.
With a roar, he reeled and, heavy boots sliding, lost his grip on her. She slid into a stack of boxes. Cardboard toppled, but she didn’t retreat. All she saw was the weapon she needed to stay alive. Time slowed. Sound came from far away, like voices through water as she reached out. The cutter’s metal handle touched her fingertips, then slid between her palms. Her teeth bared, she spun, raising the tool like a knife. She slashed, striking out with an upward arc. The blade struck, slicing through skin to meet bone. Lothair howled as she cut his cheek wide open.
Blood arced in a violent splash, spraying across the wall and the front of her gown. Angela didn’t care. Victory was seconds away.
She raised the cutter again. All her focus on her captor’s throat, she plunged forward. He countered, blocking the strike with his forearm. Pushed back by the thrust, Angela pivoted, ducking beneath his arm. She aimed for his ribs.
Air exploded from his lungs as she slashed him again. “Fuck!”
Black eyes flashed fury. Angela didn’t slow. She deployed skill instead, kicking out with her foot. Bull’s-eye. She nailed him in the balls. He squawked, cupping himself as his knees hit the floor. She thrust hers forward, hammering him again. His chin snapped up, and his head whiplashed. A sick crack echoed as the back of his skull slammed into the cement wall.
Breathing hard, she watched him crumple, the makeshift knife raised in defense. One…two…three seconds passed. He didn’t move. And she didn’t wait.
Galvanized into motion, she leapt over his body. The instant her bare feet hit the floor on the other side, she let loose, legs pumping, heart hammering, hope lighting a fire deep inside her. A window. She had a narrow slice of opportunity before the other Razorbacks realized Lothair hadn’t returned.
She needed to run hard. Think fast. Make every second count.
Her life depended on it.
Chapter Three
Rikar slowed his roll, pausing in front of a reinforced steel door to punch in his access code. As his fingers did the walking, his inner beast stirred as though the bastard knew what awaited him on the other side. An hour with a Razorback. Nothing but a Razorback.
Oh, thank you, God.
A quick hand flex. A little neck action—rolling his chin against his chest, stretching out the tense muscles bracketing his spine—and he was ready to go. To cause pain. Inflict suffering. At one with his frosty side.
A rarity among his kind, a frost dragon whose blood ran cold, he was fortunate that his magic never abandoned him. The power was always Johnny-on-the-spot. Night or day—in and out of dragon form—it simmered in his veins, wanting out of its cage, begging to be used.
Most males weren’t so lucky. Their magical abilities diminished in human form. But he was different. Bastian, to
o. His best friend was the only other male he knew who could command his magic in both forms. Maybe that was the reason they were so tight, bonded in a way he found difficult to describe, never mind understand.
Right now, though, the mystery didn’t mean much. He had a job to do. And what do you know? His frosty side was on board with the plan, juicing him up, chilling him out.
His mouth curved as frost rose. As the chill got thicker, the temperature dropped, and Rikar exhaled, thankful for the deep freeze. The cold evened him out, settled him down, made him remember his purpose.
Angela. Why the hell couldn’t he find her?
He should’ve been able to…had tapped into her and fed on the energy she drew directly from the Meridian. Which meant he was linked in, so attuned to her life force that tracking her should’ve been the work of minutes. Instead, he had nothing. Zippo on the leads front.
Rikar cranked his hands in tight, praying for a miracle. For the rogues to screw up and let the cloaking shield they held around Angela slip. He needed thirty seconds tops to lock onto her signal. But that wouldn’t happen now. Not with dawn approaching and the deadly UV rays that arrived with it spreading over Seattle.
Twelve hours. Twelve freaking hours before he could go back out. Before he could hunt, maim, and interrogate Razorback soldiers. And in the meantime? He had his very own plaything locked deep inside Black Diamond.
“Rikar, man.” Venom took a step back and turned his face to the side, like someone forced to stand too close to an inferno. “Could you lay off until we get in there? I’m getting frostbite over here.”
“Suck it up, Ven…or find a parka.” Yeah, that and a bomb shelter. His frosty side was just getting started, and as the air fogged, ice spread, turning the door frame and wall into an arctic wonderland of white. “It’ll only get worse.”
“Great.” The grumble in his voice unmistakable, his buddy pulled a long-sleeved shirt over his head. “I’m gonna end up a frigging ice cube before this is over. Theraflu, here I come.”
Rikar’s lips twitched. Thank God for Venom. The male never failed to pull something out of his hat. And that something was either wicked funny, off-color, or just plain cool. Which always chilled Rikar out, parked his instincts long enough to put intellect in the driver’s seat. Man, he needed that right now. Walking into the interrogation center in snarl mode wouldn’t get him the information he wanted. Or a map…with the longs and lats of the Razorback lair.
Pinpoint accuracy. Lethal precision. A successful raid, and…bam! Angela would be home safely. Was that too much to ask? He swallowed past the lump in his throat, hoping beyond hope that it wasn’t.
Rikar threw Venom a grateful look and grabbed the door handle. The security system beeped, releasing the electronic locks. With a tug, he pulled the heavy door wide. Even toned down, his frosty side made itself known as icicles formed, clinging to the handle before he let go and stepped over the threshold. With a curse, Venom scrambled—shitkickers sliding on the icy floor—to avoid touching the freezing steel and muscled the door aside with his shoulder.
Completed less than a month ago, the interrogation center was a thing of beauty. Secure, state-of-the-art, surrounded by miles of granite, the facility sat one level below the underground lair. A prison with attitude, the cell capacity maxed out at seven prisoners. Not that he wanted that many rogues anywhere near Black Diamond. Especially now, with B’s female in residence. But planning equaled preparedness.
Or so he’d been told repeatedly by Gage.
Their resident gearhead-slash-architect-slash-engineer and…well, all right. So the male was a jack-of-all-trades in the “build something” department, and now that the facility was completed? He was glad Gage had pushed Bastian to build the prison.
But that didn’t mean he liked the magic surrounding it.
The electrostatic current pulsed in the air, attacking his central nervous system, drawing him so tight his skin felt like it was shrinking. The nausea hit next, making the back of his throat burn.
And wasn’t this fun? Uh-huh, so not a picnic. Just steel walls, concrete floors, and dimmed halogens marching down the middle of twelve-foot ceilings.
Rounding a corner, Rikar tensed as the current grew stronger, boxing him in until claustrophobia reared its ugly head. No surprise there. Enclosed spaces weren’t his thing. Venom, though, didn’t mind tight quarters, liked riding the elevator to reach the main house above the underground lair.
But shit, even his buddy was squirming under the strain, shuffling his feet as he growled, “I hate this place.”
“Almost there,” he said as much for himself as for Venom.
He hoped voicing the fact out loud would settle him down. No such luck. The rush beneath his skin grew worse the deeper he walked into the center. As sensation screamed along his spine, he jogged down the steps. The descent was fast, controlled, his focus on the door at the bottom of the single staircase. Another security measure. One way in. One way out.
Halfway down, he punched the code into the keypad with his mind. The electronic locks clicked. With a mental push, he swung the door wide a second before he crossed the threshold into the wide open space on the other side.
He released the breath he’d been holding. The electrostatic bandwidth stabilized, throwing all its energy around the prison cells that ran down the left side of the narrow room. He checked the first as he strode past it, searching for the purple-eyed Razorback.
Empty.
The second was too. Which made sense.
Bastian would want the rogue in the largest pen. Farthest from the door, the extra space would give them more elbow room for all kinds of yakkety-yak and nasty—
Something moved in the shadows. Rikar’s head snapped to the right.
Green eyes shimmering in the gloom, his best friend stepped into the light. He tipped his chin. “Anything?”
Rikar dialed back the frost factor. Bastian wasn’t stupid. Truth be told, the male knew him better than anyone. Under normal circumstances, a big plus. Right now? Not so much. His commander would guess his intentions in a heartbeat if he wasn’t careful. Which would KO his shot at the Razorback. B wouldn’t turn a blind eye. Not when he’d gone to such lengths to cage the bastard. And not before Bastian got the information he needed to keep his mate safe.
Rikar shook his head, indicating a negative.
A muscle twitched along B’s jaw. “Fuck.”
No kidding, and the understatement of the century. Angela was out there somewhere—alone, afraid, vulnerable—and what did he have? A shit storm in the making. He refused to let Bastian shut him down.
Did it matter that he loved the male like a brother? Respected the hell out of him? Normally followed his command without question? No. Not even a little. He needed the Razorback to squawk. So as much as he hated the endgame, he would take B out of the equation to have his way.
Stopping alongside his best friend, he looked inside the last pen. The corners of his mouth tipped up. Satisfaction, it seemed, came in size extra large.
Built lean, but loaded with muscle, the rogue stood at least six foot eight in his bare feet. Thank God. Just by looking at him, Rikar knew the male owned fighting chops. Enough to challenge him. Which lit him up, added that special sauce to the dish he was about to toss into the Razorback’s pan.
Bastian’s eyes narrowed on him. “We gonna have a problem?”
Rikar shrugged off his internal flinch. He hated that soft tone. The low pitch was a shade shy of melodic and, when B used it, a smart male got out of the way.
“Nah,” he said, lying his ass off. Backing up the BS with a head shake, he geared up. Distraction time. He didn’t want to tip his best friend off, so in the spirit of the me-me-me crap he had going on, he threw out the only question guaranteed to shift B’s focus. “How is Myst?”
“Exhausted, but okay.” Bastian scrubbed a hand over the top of his head. The action spoke volumes, of the worry he suffered for his mate and the relief of bringing her
home safely. “I finally got her to sleep fifteen minutes ago.”
Fantastic. He’d missed his window by a measly fifteen minutes.
The irony, right? Now he was stuck in a place he didn’t want to be. He made the hard decision anyway. Bastian would be pissed, but maybe if he left the rogue alive, it would all wash out in the end. Okay. So, that was a long shot, but what else could he do? Honor wouldn’t let him leave Angela and—
Ah, hell. That was a big, fat lie.
Honor had nothing to do with it. What drove him was much more powerful than that. It was predatory and instinctual, territorial and terrible. Somewhere along the line, his dragon half had decided Angela belonged to him and, no matter how much he disliked the admission, biology wasn’t something Rikar could fight.
Silence grew, sliding against the steel walls as Bastian studied him, no doubt working all the angles.
Venom stepped into the void—thank fuck—and up to the energy barrier stretched across the front of the prison cell. Flying in the face of physics, the thin electrostatic current was stronger than steel, yet invisible, giving him a clear view of the male imprisoned on the other side. As their gazes locked, the rogue snarled at him: amethyst eyes flashing, fists flexing, veins popping against the electronic collar around his neck. Rikar studied the metal band, imagining how it would feel against his skin. Not good, that was for sure. But worse than that was the knowledge that once secured, the thing would blow your head off if you crossed the magical threshold into the free zone.
A trap. Perfect. Absolute. Diabolical to a male who valued his freedom.
Raising his hand, Venom brushed his fingertips against the invisible wall. The barrier shimmered in the low light, rippling like water in a pond. His buddy’s ruby-red eyes glowed, flashing aggression as he glanced over his shoulder. “He say anything yet?”
“No.” B stopped giving Rikar the evil eye and switched focus. His too-shrewd gaze landed on their prisoner. “We got a name, though.”
Rikar raised a brow, asking without words.
Fury of Ice Page 2