Dante’s footsteps slow with my words, and he stops a dozen feet away from an overflowing dumpster. I release a soft breath, my heart pounding in my ears. “Fuck. Fucking flesh bags and their trash.”
And like that, my hope crushes into a million pieces. I’m not even sure he was listening to me, more concerned about how inconvenient the tenants of the complex make it for him to throw me away like garbage. Who knew a heaping, smelly pile of trash would be a small miracle to me?
Dante lets go of me, and I hit my ass on the ground, pain radiating through my body. Striding away, he flips the lid up and starts throwing trash and garbage bags on the ground. I don’t waste more than a second watching him. Instead, I find my will to live and crawl away on my hands and knees. I can make it to a neighbor’s. I just have to keep moving.
I grind my teeth. “God, pleas—”
Two hot hands rip me from the ground, and I scream and flail, trying to make as much commotion as I can. These monsters are crazy to think they can just leave me in a fucking dumpster. I’m not ready to die.
“Let me go, you fucking asshole! You can’t just throw me in a dumpster!” I buck and slap Kase’s face over and over again without getting a reaction from him.
“Fuck, Dante. She’s got too much fight. I don’t think she’ll stay in the dumpster. We can’t leave her here,” Kase says, flipping me onto his shoulder. It’s like they have some special ability that allows them to ignore me, and it’s really starting to piss me off. “We’ll take her home and get her out of sight until we figure out how we should proceed.”
Oh no.
Hell no.
“Help!” I scream, pounding my fists on Kase’s back. “Help!”
Fingers lock into my hair, yanking my head up. Dante bends my neck to meet his startling green gaze. His eyes do this weird, filmy second eyelid blinking thing, and his pupils morph into diamonds again. Slipping his tongue between his lips, he shows off two silver barbells on each side...and then his tongue splits into a fork and flicks at me with a hiss, grazing my cheek. I cringe at the freaky sensation and try to recoil before he does it again.
“Pretty soul, are you afraid of me?” he asks, the strange hissing noise coming from his mouth again. I don’t know what should freak me out more: the fact that he turns more animalistic by the second or that I’m not as scared as I should be. The dissipation of my fear surprises me. He obviously desires for me to scream and cry in fear but I don’t.
My mouth slackens the longer he stares at me, my heartbeat slowing. A strange sensation buzzes across my skin, numbing me. I can’t move my limbs or anything like I’m trapped in his glowing green stare.
“Tell me,” he says, leaning closer. His warm breath tickles me with his command.
My mind whirls with a dozen thoughts. Why am I not terrified? My heart should feel as if it wants to explode from my chest. But the only thing I feel is the inviting electricity between us. I can’t take my eyes from his, the darkness in the depths far more intense than the glowing green of his irises. He’s strikingly handsome—too handsome—even in this weird half-beast state. It’s enough that the vain part of me can overlook his monstrous features trying to frighten me.
His brows furrow at my lack of response, and he gets so close that I can feel the soft touch of his tongue caress my lip but not in a sexual way. It’s almost like he’s sensing me in the same way some animals do.
“Tell me you’re afraid of me, broken soul,” Dante repeats, revealing his two long fangs from beneath his lips.
It snaps me out of the dizzying haze entrancing me. “No!”
I try to thrash on Kase’s shoulder to throw myself off, but a weird-ass rope slides out from beneath his jacket and wraps around me, restraining me to him. Fuck. It literally might be an ass rope and not just extremely weird. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. So I shriek and struggle.
Dante tears his shirt sleeve off like the cotton is made of tissue paper and shoves it in my mouth, silencing my screams. “Fuck, we gotta get her inside. She can resist my influence,” Dante says, releasing another hiss.
The two men stride back into the complex without glancing around. Nothing I do affects them or gets them to let me go. Panic turns me wild, and I buck and thrash, knowing if they take me inside their apartment, I’m going to die. They’ll kill me and finish what Joel couldn’t.
Kase kicks an apartment door open, sending it clattering against the wall. Warm air engulfs me along with the collection of fragrances lingering on the two of them. It’s their apartment for sure. I try to look around, but Dante blocks my view, and I can only stare at the dark wood of the floors far nicer than the ones in Joel’s place.
“Take her to the bathroom. Make her get cleaned up. I’m summoning Lucian.” The strange black rope uncurls from my body, and Kase flips me into Dante’s arms. “Be quick. The saviors might’ve picked up on her calls if she is what I think she is. I need him to verify.”
Verify? I use my tongue to push the balled up fabric from my mouth, spitting it on the floor. “I’m no o-one and n-nothing.” I wish my voice would stop stuttering and cracking. “Please, let me leave. I won’t tell anyone. I won’t ever come back. Please. I don’t understand what you want from me.”
“We might not want anything, so shut up before I make you. It’ll be far less pleasant than a gag,” Kase says, pointing his finger at me. His eyes glow red with his scowl and he turns to Dante. “Go now. We need to hurry. Our window to put things in place shrinks by the second.”
Tears burn my eyes. “Just let me go. Please.” I’ve never begged someone so much in my life, not even Joel when I crawled back to him in desperation.
But begging doesn’t work. Neither does praying.
Without arguing, Dante stomps his way down the hall and to the first door on the left. I spot a display case of strange weapons and trinkets at the end of the hall situated between two open doors that face each other. Knocking open the cracked bathroom door with his knuckles, he carries me into the bathroom and drops me in the tub. I flail, trying to orient myself to what’s happening. Going from his arms and into the bath freaks me out even more.
I sit up and grab ahold of the washcloth rack on the wall, trying to pull myself up. Dante latches his fingers to my shoulder and stops me from getting to my feet, touching his hot fingers to the center of my back over my bra clasp.
“Hold still,” he commands, hissing under his breath. “Don’t make me burn it off you.”
I stiffen as he goes to unhook my bra and swing my hand, slapping him across the face. “Don’t you dare fucking touch me!” I scream, fisting my hand to fight like hell against him. I don’t care if he’s a foot taller and twice as heavy. I’ve had e-fucking-nough of assholes treating me any way they want.
Dante groans and takes a step back, raising his hands in surrender. “You think I want to touch your filth? That I want to fuck you in this tub? You look like that nasty thing might be the only one you have. You should appreciate my thoughtfulness. I was trying to help you.”
“Help me by taking off my damn bra? You kidnapped me, you psycho!” I heave a few breaths, angry tears branding hot streaks through the sticky blood staining my cheeks. “Just stay away. I didn’t ask for your help. I asked you to let me go.”