by Rachel Jonas
“Eat up. We’ll be back to collect the tray and the girl in ten,” was Jax’s morning greeting. As usual, his smaller protégé, Tomas, had no words, just awkward glances as he adjusted the blue band on his arm—a fashion statement of sorts, I guessed.
Corina’s resentful gaze met Jax, and he responded with a laugh and a loud smack of his lips, making a kissing face at her.
“Right back atcha, sweetheart,” he mocked. “Which reminds me. Tonight’s gonna be rather special for you, so make sure you clean up well, and … I don’t know, try to do something nice with your hair.”
The grin he wore grated on my nerves.
“What do you mean ‘special’?” There was no dialing back the protectiveness I felt over Corina. And in instances like these, where these goons thought it wise to play coy, I was especially irritable.
“Well, allow me to be the bearer of good news,” Jax grinned. “It seems the two of you are famous around these parts. The boss requested that the lady take her supper with him this evening.”
“She’ll do no such thing,” I answered before Corina had the chance. “Wherever she goes, I go. No exceptions.”
Two sets of eyes darted toward me—Corina’s with a sharp look I couldn’t quite read. The second, a fading smile from Jax as he came closer. I stood and he sized me up with each step. I did the same. What he lacked in height, he more than made up for in girth, but I’d held my own against better men.
“Boss wants to dine with the woman,” he asserted, “so he’ll dine with the woman.”
As tensions mounted, Tomas read the room, inching closer as if he meant to create a wedge between Jax and I if the situation escalated.
However, a warm hand came to rest gently on my shoulder, and the feel of it calmed me instantly.
“Why does he want to meet me? Or better yet, I’d love to know what all of this is about?”
I didn’t face Corina when she asked, but I was anxious to hear Jax’s answer.
“There’s interest in speaking with you both,” Jax revealed, addressing Corina directly, “but he’s requested that he have a word with you first.”
Beside me, Corina crossed both arms over her chest. “None of this makes even a bit of sense.” She raised her voice out of frustration. “Why won’t anyone tell us why we’re here?”
When Jax finally turned to meet Corina’s gaze, it seemed she had said some magic word that earned her his full attention.
His large belly jiggled when he adjusted his belt as a small part of the truth was revealed.
“Well, had one of our guards in the field not recognized this one’s mug,” he paused to point at me, “we wouldn’t have bothered either of you. But as I’m sure you know … a prince fetches an attractive ransom. When he falls into the right hands, that is.”
Corina’s brow knitted together.
“Ransom? This is about money?” she asked before I had a chance to respond myself.
The sound of gruff laughter filled the space, and it only added to the already heightened sense of aggravation eating me alive. All this cryptic conversation, the riddles, it was enough to drive a man mad.
“Don’t be naïve, sweetheart. There are some things far more valuable than money. The girls will be down to fetch you when it’s time to get dolled up.” With that, Jax turned to leave.
“At least tell us who this guy is,” Corina called out, prompting Jax to pause and flash a smile over his shoulder.
He answered her question with only one word.
A name.
“Aaric.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Corina
Only one man had ever been allowed to order me around, and that man was my father—Alan Prescott.
Not Levi Buchanan.
However, he seemed to have missed that memo. I didn’t speak up when he tried to pick a fight with the guard over this, but now with it just being the two of us, he had no choice but to hear me.
And this decision wasn’t his to make.
“I’m going.” I asserted, bringing Levi’s blood to a boil, I was sure. Sitting down with this guy might be the only way we get answers.”
“And it might also be the best way to get yourself killed.”
I watched from the cot while he paced. The way his brow furrowed together and the tension in his jaw told of his frustration. He couldn’t seem to grasp the idea of me putting my foot down on this, even when I pointed out that we didn’t exactly have a choice in the matter. We were outnumbered, and whoever this Aaric guy was, he’d get his way.
One way or another.
“I won’t be there to protect you.”
“And somehow, I’ve made it through life a whopping nineteen years without you hovering,” I snapped.
A cool, silver gaze landed on me, and right away, I felt guilty. I hadn’t meant to come across as hard, but I wasn’t used to mincing words with my team when it came to me being out in the field. And that’s exactly what this was. There was a mission to be tackled and I was the only one who could tackle it. Levi would just have to accept that, the same way my team did.
If I had to guess, Levi wasn’t accustomed to women handling themselves in this manner. Those in his world were of the spoiled, pampered variety, so for a woman to go into a dangerous situation without a man to accompany her was unheard of surely.
But I wasn’t one of those women.
When something needed to be done, I put on my big girl pants and got it done. End of story. No knight in shining armor required.
He huffed and paced some more, and I felt guilty some more.
“Listen,” I sighed. “This bond, it’s taken its toll on us both. It’s made us feel things we maybe weren’t quite ready to feel for each other, but … this is our new normal.”
I peered up just as Levi did the same, locking in on his tense gaze.
“If last night taught me anything, it’s that we have very little control over who we’ve become,” I shared, remembering how I behaved after letting him feed—forward and a bit aggressive. “I wasn’t myself.”
My head lowered with the statement, but the sound of quiet laughter from Levi brought my eyes back to him.
“Did I say something funny?”
“Well, that depends. Are you seriously making excuses to me, of all people, for coming on so strongly?”
Hearing him ask made heat spread up my neck and face. If there had been someplace else to hide, I certainly would have.
Levi came closer, staring down on me while I sat. “Corina, listen. If we had been anyplace else, under different circumstances, I can assure you of one thing.”
His cool hand lifted my chin, forcing me to meet his stare again.
“You wouldn’t have stood even an iota of a chance escaping me,” he admitted, finishing his thought.
He was unbearably hard to look at, beautiful in ways I didn’t even know existed. The more time we spent locked away together, the more I realized some of that beauty was on the inside as well.
He … overwhelmed me, made so many conflicting thoughts enter my head. For instance, right now I wanted to turn away, but staring at him was just such an appealing alternative.
Forcing my eyes closed, I blinked, recapturing some of my strength when I did.
“You’re uh… you’re missing the point,” I stammered. “What I mean is that none of this is real, what we think we feel for each other? It’s all smoke and mirrors, brought on by the bond.”
“And I’ll have to respectfully disagree,” Levi rebutted.
Arguing with him was exhausting. When I rolled my eyes, the reaction brought a broad smile out of him.
“You can’t insist that, because something’s sudden and intense, it can’t be real,” he argued.
I was actually going to make that very point when a breath hitched in my throat. Levi’s staggering height lowered, and he knelt in front of where I sat on the cot. Face-to-face, there was no escaping how sickeningly handsome he was—how his dark lashes intensified the g
leam of his eyes, how he’d just dampened his lips after speaking. He took both my hands in his, making mine appear so, so small. I stared at them.
“I dare you to look me in my eyes,” he stated, and despite myself, I accepted that challenge, meeting his gaze. “Now, tell me this energy vibrating between us isn’t the realest thing you’ve ever felt.”
His stare broke skin, pierced bone, and then finally made a crash-landing in the deepest part of my soul.
“If I’m being honest,” he continued, “I’ve never felt anything like it.”
Like so many times before, he’d left me at a complete loss for words.
“You’re in my every thought,” Levi admitted before pausing to laugh. “Even thoughts that have nothing to do with you, revolve around you. And I believe the craziest thing of all is, despite being locked inside this cell, under less-than-ideal circumstances, I’m having the hardest time wishing I was someplace else. All because you’re right here with me.”
His hands warmed as they cradled mine. I felt my gaze drifting from his eyes, down to his lips as they seemed to come closer. A fact I confirmed when my mouth was covered by the softness of his.
Yes, he was warm—burning up, actually—and there was no denying the hold he had on me. Or, maybe it was a hold we had on each other. He took to parts of my personality that others often found off-putting. For one, he seemed to find my sassiness and defiance to be more of a turn on than an annoyance. And I could admit that his arrogance fed the part of me that secretly gravitated toward pompous dicks like him.
I didn’t know. We just … fit.
The points of emerging fangs dragged my bottom lip lightly and the feel of it enlivened every inch of me. Another taste of him, and I lost myself, lost all sense of time, all sense of where we were.
Heat pulsed through my hands when they burned a path up Levi’s forearms, over deliciously broad shoulders, to his neck. My fingers tingled at the feel of the low-trimmed hairs at the nape. I drew him closer, allowed his tongue deeper as my spine bowed, arching my body closer to his. When he finally pulled away, it was the most dizzying and frustrating sensation known to man.
“Deny it.” His breathless challenge reached my ears. “I dare you to tell me that wasn’t real.”
I loathed this authority he had over me. Not bending to his will was almost painful.
“Levi, it’s … I can’t discuss this right now,” I admitted, still unable to open my eyes while recovering from the out-of-body experience his kiss had induced. “You’re making my head foggy, and I need to … I need to think. We need to think.”
Leaning away, I scooted toward the back of the cot until my shoulder blades touched the padded wall.
Hoping to lessen the foreboding tension, I shifted the focus back to our original topic of conversation. Levi’s response to the not-so-subtle maneuver was a quickly flashed smile. One loaded with a sense of knowing this thing between us wasn’t anywhere near over, only temporarily interrupted due to our circumstances.
I was also certain he knew the things I said about none of this being real were, basically, a load of crap.
“Have you ever heard of him? Aaric I mean?”
Levi’s brow quirked. “Nope. Never.”
Dead end.
“Neither have I. Which means the only piece of his puzzle that we know for sure is that he’s the leader of this particular faction of Roamers. But we have no idea how deep their network runs, why we’ve been taken, or what they plan to do with us when all is said and done.” The look on Levi’s face made it obvious there were too many unknowns for his comfort. However, there was no room for hesitation.
“I have to do this,” I insisted, reclaiming a smidge more of the energy he’d stolen from me a moment ago. “Besides, it’s not like we have another option unless your powers have returned.”
I didn’t mean to let the small inkling of hope I held out show through, but the look of disappointment in his expression let me know he’d sensed the optimism in mine.
He shook his head. “No more than when we discussed it earlier.”
Needing to think, I closed my eyes. “They’ll be coming soon. Jax said these girls would be here to get me before sunset. We need some type of plan.”
Still kneeling beside the cot, Levi let out a sharp breath. “Even though the guard confirmed that they know who I am, that doesn’t mean they know who you are.”
My eyes popped open as I frowned. “How is that possible? They would have seen the broadcast where you made the blood bond announcement, right?”
He was already shaking his head before I finished. “No, not necessarily. Roamers’ access to technology is very limited. Their ways can be rather primitive,” he explained. “If they’ve heard anything it was likely by word of mouth, but our best bet is for you to keep whatever answers you’re forced to give as vague as possible. He can’t dig deeper into things that aren’t issues he’s privy to.”
I gave a nod, feeling my heartrate spike a bit as the sun lowered even more. I heard what Levi said, but questioned whether his ideas about Roamers being primitive was based more on his prejudices than facts. In which case, I’d get to this Aaric guy and he’d know everything about me.
“If push comes to shove, if he … tries to feed on you,” Levi forced out, “tell him you’ve got the venom of a royal coursing through your veins. He’ll know what that would mean for him, so I believe he’d spare you.”
The visual that pushed into my thoughts made me breathe deeper. The idea of my only defense being reliant on such a thin hope was unnerving. It was contingent on the idea that Aaric knew the consequence of feeding on a human with a monarch’s venom inside them.
But I wouldn’t falter. This dinner was nothing more than an opportunity to gain valuable intel. I’d hold on to that thought for when my nerves started getting the best of me again.
My thighs tingled when Levi’s hands settled there. “Corina … don’t try to be a hero.”
I chuckled at his words. It wasn’t the first time someone had said them to me.
“I’ll do my best.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Corina
The girls showed up exactly when Jax said they would—and an ornery bunch they were. Their pale skin, and bold red eyes were where their similarity with Ianite women seemed to end. They were far simpler in appearance, but still strikingly beautiful in their own right. Their clothing was far more subtly stated, and none boasted the name of any particular brand or designer. They were just … normal.
They entered our cell, only long enough to tell Levi that someone was on their way with warm water and clothing for him, and then ordered that I follow them to the bathing room.
We took two flights of stairs up, and wove our way through an array of roamer-lined hallways. There were far more of them than I imagined. A few twists and turns later, we arrived at the room where they intended to prep me for a meeting with their leader and I found myself wondering: why all the fuss?
It was as if they revered this man as some sort of god, which further caused me to wonder what sort of operation this was.
The bathing room was quite the surprise. For starters, I was pleased to see it wasn’t the filthy cesspool I imagined it would be. A large room housed ten bathtubs, each enclosed with its own white shower curtain that stretched to the vaulted ceiling. The tiled floors weren’t perfect or new by any means, but they were clean. Along the back wall, a counter stretched from one end to the other, and a well-lit mirror hung above. Set up in that space, was an extensive makeup collection that would have been heaven for Liv. Standing in the doorway, taking it all in, I smiled a little at the thought of her.
I gathered that this faction had occupied this facility for quite some time, and had a system going that worked for them. The area where Levi and I had been held was quiet and closed off, giving the impression that we were one of maybe a few on the grounds, but that wasn’t so. There were hundreds here, maybe nearing a thousand.
I reve
led in the warmth of fresh water touching my skin, emerging completely beneath the bath that had been drawn for me. After days of spot-cleaning in a bucket of tepid water, I was almost grateful for this. If nothing else good came of the evening, I would at least go to bed clean.
There was no privacy. One woman was assigned to wash my hair, another to shave my legs, and yet another to scrub the bottoms of my feet. It was too thorough and invasive to be considered pampering. The process was more like … a gang of neurotic mothers set loose to bathe one ill-fated, unsuspecting infant.
Lucky me.
Once they were satisfied that I’d been properly scoured, the plug was removed from the drain. Yet another member of this team stood beside the tub with a towel held open for me to step into. I didn’t argue with them because I was outnumbered and too smart to pick a fight. Especially over an experience that was simply annoying. I guess I’d learned to pick my battles, and this wasn’t one I chose to fight.
There were no words exchanged as I was dried from head to toe, and then shoved into a silk robe—its shade of blue matching the night sky to perfection. I was shoved down into a seat in the same manner and there was a frenzy of blow driers, mascara, and lipstick. After a while, I slipped into a daze, wondering if there was any point to this.
Did it really take all this to meet their beloved Aaric?
But there was one thing that comforted me. I didn’t imagine they’d go through the trouble of making me presentable if the plan was to kill me tonight.
Seemed reasonable enough.
Another stranger approached from the left and I watched her from the mirror’s reflection. She carried a dress in her arms and I thought of Elle, how much fun she had dressing me up during my stay at Julian’s palace. A strange pang flitted in my stomach and I knew right away what it was.
I missed her.
Missed … him.
This time away had given me a chance to evaluate it all from a distance—his kindness, the major sacrifices he made on my behalf. I’d been so stupid to think it wasn’t genuine, or that there was some self-serving motivation behind it all. Being here with Levi, experiencing the rawness of the budding passion between us, I knew better now.