“It doesn’t matter,” Bas assured his friend. He was done with the games. He was going to protect his family. And screw the world. “Once I’m healed I intend to take Myst and Molly away from here.”
Kaede blinked, as if caught off guard by Bas’s decision. “Are you certain the Mave will allow you to leave?” he demanded.
“I hadn’t intended on asking for permission.”
“Okay.” Kaede tilted his head, studying Bas’s stubborn expression. “Say that you get out of Valhalla—what’s the plan?”
Bas shrugged. “We’ll go someplace we can’t be found.”
Kaede cocked a brow. “That’s it?”
Bas was instantly on the defensive. Probably because his friend had a point.
It was a shitty plan.
“You got a problem?”
Kaede didn’t back down. “I’m not an expert on visions, but I don’t think hiding can change the future.”
“What do you suggest?” Bas lifted a hand to shove his fingers through his hair. For the first time in his life he felt as if he didn’t have control. The sensation was making him more than a little testy. “That I let Myst take her life?”
There was a blast of heat as Kaede narrowed his gaze. The enforcer clearly wasn’t amused by the stupid accusation.
“Is that what you think? That I would want Myst to die?”
“Christ, no,” Bas breathed in regret. “Sorry.”
The heat eased as Kaede studied Bas’s strained face. “I can travel to the temple,” he startled Bas by suggesting. “They’re uncovering ancient texts every day. Maybe one of them will give us a clue as to what this weapon is supposed to be.”
Bas frowned. It was possible the temple that’d been discovered by the necromancer could reveal new prophecies. Maybe even some that were related to Myst’s vision. But he’d never expected Kaede to willingly offer to go there.
Not with his past.
“I couldn’t ask that of you,” Bas said. “If I decide it’s necessary, I’ll go.”
“You’re not asking,” Kaede corrected. “I’m volunteering.”
“But—”
“It’s okay.” Kaede held up a hand, interrupting Bas’s protest. “It’s time I went back and faced my past.”
Before Bas could respond, the sweet scent of honeysuckle was distracting him. Turning his head to the side, he watched as Myst stepped into the room, some restless ache deep inside him slowly easing.
She was wearing a pretty raspberry sundress that emphasized the ivory satin of her skin and the stunning silver hair that tumbled down her back. Her tiny feet were bare, although there was a delicate gold chain around her ankle.
She looked like a wood nymph who’d accidentally strayed into captivity.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured, glancing from Kaede to Bas. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
Kaede sent Bas a wry smile, both of them realizing that Myst had no idea the electric static in the air was because she was gut-wrenchingly gorgeous, and both Bas and Kaede were too male not to react.
“No problem,” he murmured, strolling toward the door. As he passed Myst he reached to run his fingers over her amazing hair. It wasn’t sexual. More a silent promise of protection. “I was headed out.”
“You won’t leave Valhalla until I’m out of this bed,” Bas reminded his friend.
“Aye, aye, captain.” Kaede turned to send him a mocking salute. Then he glanced toward Myst. “Take care of him,” he requested in a low voice before leaving the room.
Myst walked toward the bed, her gaze straying back to the door where Kaede had just disappeared.
“He was saying something about confronting his past,” she murmured. “What did he mean?”
Bas reached to wrap his fingers around her hand the second she was within reach.
“I’m not entirely certain,” he admitted, his tone husky as his thumb stroked the pulse beating at her inner wrist. She was alive and well. Thank God. “I assume it has something to do with our first meeting.”
“Where was that?”
He studied her pale face, suspecting she was trying to keep him distracted. She had a habit of building barriers the second she feared he was getting too close.
But he could find nothing but genuine interest etched onto her ivory features.
“I was sneaking out of the harem of a particularly powerful sultan,” he murmured, hiding his smile as she predictably rolled her eyes.
“Why am I not surprised?” she muttered.
Bas settled his head against the pillow propped behind him. He was still weak, but having her near was easing his pain. As if she was helping to speed his recovery.
A realization that should have shocked him. Only a connection at a soul-deep level could allow high-bloods to share power.
But he wasn’t shocked. He’d already accepted that this female was far more than just a transitory lover.
She was the mother of his child. The other half of his heart.
His mate.
“I didn’t realize the sultan was a high-blood until he had me chained and tossed into a pit of vipers,” Bas continued, grimacing at the memory.
The viper poison hadn’t been able to kill him, but it had hurt like a bitch.
“Ouch,” Myst said.
Bas winced as a chuckle was wrenched from his throat. She didn’t sound particularly sympathetic to his plight. In fact, he suspected she wasn’t at all sorry he was tossed in the pit.
“It wasn’t the most pleasant experience,” he assured her, insanely pleased by her reaction.
She could try all she wanted to keep him at a distance, but she couldn’t disguise the fact that she was jealous at the mere thought of him with another woman.
As if sensing she’d revealed more than she wanted, Myst cleared her throat and wiped the expression from her face.
“How did you get out?”
“I’d like to say I broke the chains with my brute strength or killed the vipers by biting off their heads,” he said, his lips twisting. The humiliating episode hadn’t been his finest hour.
She wrinkled her nose. “Eww.”
“The truth is one of the concubines took mercy on me and threw down the key to the lock that held the chain together,” he admitted. As much as it grated at his pride, he’d never been more relieved when he heard the key hit the ground just inches from his feet. “I was weak from the viper poison, but managed to claw my way out.”
She blinked. “You were saved by a concubine?”
He lifted her fingers to press them against his lips. “Actually, if you really think about it, I was rescued because my skills in giving women pleasure were so addictive that she—”
“Stop.” She jerked her hand free, glaring at him as her jealousy overcame her determination to pretend indifference. “I would have left you in the pit.”
His gaze slid over the silver beauty of her hair before taking in the delicate features and wide, velvet-dark eyes.
So stunningly beautiful, and yet so unbelievably untouched by the evil that’d tried to destroy her.
He reached to regain his hold on her wrist, and his thumb brushed her satin skin. Immediately he pondered the delicate bones. Hmm. If he gave in to his increasing urge to handcuff her to him to ensure she couldn’t escape, he’d probably have to have the cuffs special-made.
“No you wouldn’t,” he denied.
She frowned, but she wasn’t foolish enough to argue. They both knew she was too softhearted for her own good.
Which was why she needed him.
“You were telling me about Kaede,” she instead said.
He thought back to the night. At the time he’d been fascinated by the beauty of the Middle East. The heat, the exotic spices, the plush luxury. The luscious women who were trained to please a man.
Now it all seemed oppressively opulent.
He far preferred the image of a sunlit glade with Myst and their daughter seated among the wildflowers.
“Afte
r I escaped I was sneaking out of the palace when I stumbled across a treasure chest,” he said, leaving out the part where he’d had to kill several guards to make his escape.
Myst wouldn’t be impressed.
She studied him with a curious expression, caught up in his story.
“I suppose you found enormous riches?”
“In a way.” He gave a careful lift of one shoulder. “I could sense there was someone locked inside.”
“Oh,” she breathed in disapproval.
Bas had been equally outraged. After having escaped the pit, he wasn’t about to leave another prisoner behind.
“I took the chest with me just to piss off the sultan,” he said.
Myst gave a slow shake of her head. “Why can’t you admit that you wanted to help whoever was inside?”
He snorted. There was no way in hell he was going to play the “good guy” card. He was a bad-ass assassin.
End of story.
“For whatever reason, I took the chest with me,” he muttered. That was as far as he was going to admit he was worried about the person inside. “And when I reached the mountains I opened it to release the captive.”
A man had his pride.
Her eyes widened. “Kaede?”
“Yes.”
“Why was he in there?”
Bas snorted. Kaede had been like a wild man when he’d leaped out of the chest. His hair was hanging down to his waist and his skin filthy and caked with blood. He’d obviously been inside the chest for years. Perhaps decades. “He didn’t volunteer the information and I didn’t ask,” Bas admitted. “In fact, he took off as soon as he was free. I never expected to see him again.”
“Obviously you did.”
“I woke the next morning to discover him waiting outside the cave I’d used to take shelter.” Bas gave an amused shake of his head. He’d nearly killed the male before he realized he was there to offer help. After he’d been stupid enough to get caught by the sultan he’d been on full alert. Which meant there was no way anyone should have been able to sneak up on him. No one. “He had a hot breakfast and clean clothes for me.”
“A gift for saving him?” she asked.
That’d been his first thought. But Kaede had quickly corrected him.
“Kaede’s service is the gift.”
“His service?” She made a sound of surprise as his words sank in. “He became your slave?”
Bas laughed with genuine amusement. “You’ve met Kaede. Can you imagine him being anyone’s slave?”
Her lips twitched as she realized just how ridiculous her words had been.
Kaede was loyal, ruthless in carrying out Bas’s orders, and willing to place his life on the line to protect his employer. But by no stretch of the imagination could he be considered submissive.
“No.”
“His honor demanded that he repay me for rescuing him from the sultan, which is why I made him my enforcer,” Bas said. “But he stayed because we’ve become friends.”
She glanced toward the door, her thoughts clearly on Kaede. “And now he wants to return to that place?”
“Not necessarily,” he reluctantly denied. The last thing he wanted was for her to feel guilty. “He’s going to the temple that was discovered by the necromancer. He hopes the newly unveiled scripts will hold some clue to your vision.”
Chapter Eighteen
Stella paced the cell.
Back and forth. Back and forth.
This was all wrong. Peter’s vision had specifically seen her at Valhalla, which was the only reason she’d allowed herself to be taken without attempting to escape. But she wasn’t supposed to be locked in a cell. And certainly she wasn’t supposed to have her mind ripped open by psychics.
Which meant Peter had been mistaken. Or, more likely, he’d lied to her.
She had been in the process of pointing a gun at his head when he’d been struck by the timely vision, after all. It was quite possible it was his last act of revenge.
What better way to punish her than to promise her greatest desire would be found in the home of her enemy, just so he could be sure she would end up exactly where she was?
Stuck in the dungeons, at the mercy of that bitch of a Mave.
No doubt he was laughing from his grave.
But Stella hadn’t survived over the years by being a naive putz.
There was no one in this world that she trusted. Certainly not a high-blood who’d already proven his willingness to betray those who trusted him. Which was why she’d taken a precaution.
Lifting her arm, she slid slender fingers beneath her hair, locating the thin piece of metal that she’d taped to her neck. Careful to keep her back turned toward the camera, she studied the strange device.
The Brotherhood tended to be made up of bullies, fanatics, and a handful of crazies, but there were a few who had the sort of underground connections that kept them fully stocked in illegal weapons.
Most of them she left for the soldiers who possessed a weird fascination with blowing things up, but on occasion she was offered an intriguing prototype she couldn’t resist. This one was by far her favorite.
Or at least, it was her favorite as long as it worked.
The Brother who’d given it to her had promised when she broke the plastic seal that covered the device it would send out a pulse that would knock out every electrical grid within a thousand feet. Even better, it emitted a high-pitched sound that humans couldn’t hear, but would disable any nearby high-bloods.
Like a dog whistle on steroids.
She could only hope the disruptions would be enough to allow her to escape.
First she had to get the door to the cell open. It wouldn’t do any good to set off the device if she was stuck in her cell. Thankfully, her guards were men.
High-blood or not, they could all be led around by their cocks.
Hiding the device in the palm of her hand, she allowed the strap of her camisole top to slide off her shoulder, revealing the plump curve of her breasts.
They would never fall for the “oh, I feel sick” routine. Or the “I’m going to hold my breath until you let me out of here.”
No. They needed a pressing reason....
Ah. Her gaze landed on the heavy glass pitcher filled with water that had been left beside her cot. Keeping her movements deliberately nonchalant, she strolled to pick up the pitcher as if she was going to pour a glass of water. Once she had a firm grip, however, she whirled around and threw the pitcher at the blinking camera with every ounce of her strength.
There was a nerve-racking second as she watched it are through the air, then with an explosive sound it shattered against the camera at the same time it drenched the cell in water.
Moving to stand in the center of the floor, she calmly waited for the door to be shoved open by an angry Sentinel.
“What the hell?” he snapped, shoving his head into the room to examine the broken camera and shattered glass.
“Oops.” Stella smiled, leaning forward. She needed him to actually enter the room. Otherwise he might be able to shut the door before she could get out. “It just slipped out of my hands.”
“Bullshit,” the man growled, his gaze not even glancing toward her breasts she was deliberately exposing.
Clearly the sex kitten routine wasn’t going to work.
“I need to speak with the Mave,” she said, easily changing tactics.
He frowned. “Why?”
“I have information she needs.”
“I’ll send word to her.”
“No, I need to speak with her now.”
The guard’s dark eyes narrowed. “She’s busy.”
She pouted. “Trust me, she isn’t going to be happy when she learns I have the key to halting the destruction of Valhalla, but you couldn’t be bothered to interrupt her.”
“Fine.” The Sentinel pulled out his phone but he remained too wary to actually enter the cell.
Stella swallowed a curse. She was going to ha
ve to take a chance her weapon would incapacitate the guard before he could react.
Squeezing her hand, she hissed in pain as the metal sliced into the flesh of her palm. Damn. She hadn’t realized it was going to hurt. Still, she continued to press against the device, at last hearing the faint sound of the plastic cracking as the seal was broken.
And then . . .
Boom.
It wasn’t an actual sound. At least, not to her. It was more an unseen explosion that rushed past her, making the cell shake and the Sentinel pitch forward. The lights flickered as she watched the guard fall flat on his face, then she was plunged into an inky darkness.
Oh, thank God. The cell door remained open.
Warily, she forced herself to her knees, crawling forward as she searched for the phone the Sentinel had been holding. She found it a few feet away, and pressing the screen, she used the light to make sure the guard was truly out for the count.
He was.
Not only was he sprawled at an awkward angle, but there was a trickle of blood running out of his ears. He couldn’t fake that, could he?
Confident the weapon had worked, she rose to her feet and stepped over the guard. Heading out of the cell, she used the phone as a flashlight.
Thankfully, she’d been smart enough to keep track of their journey through Valhalla when she’d been led to her cell, so even with limited light it was a simple matter to retrace the maze of narrow hallways.
She didn’t bother to go in search of her men, who’d been placed in another section of the dungeons. Right now it was every man, or woman, for themselves. Once she’d managed to escape, she could easily find another group of Brothers. They were a dime a dozen.
Reaching the small guard room at the end of the hallway, Stella stepped inside to discover two Sentinels slumped in front of their blank monitors. For the first time she hesitated.
The weapon had clearly done its job in knocking out the computer system, which meant she couldn’t be tracked by the security cameras, but that meant the elevators wouldn’t work.
So how the hell was she going to get to the upper floors?
With a low curse, she searched the office, hoping to find an override for the elevator. Surely there had to be some sort of fire escape?
Blood Lust Page 24