A flash of teeth. “You’ll find out. When you come with me.”
I hated this man.
Alarms began to sound and doors above opened with a clang. His expression turned furious. When he turned that glare on me, I gave him a little shrug. Or at least, as much as I could manage pinned to the wall in his murder bracelets.
“Oops?”
Chapter 3
“The beauty of the soul shines out when a man bears with composure one heavy mischance after another, not because he does not feel them, but because he is a man of high and heroic temper.” - Aristotle
Maddox
If he didn’t want to kill her, Maddox might end up liking her. As it was, she fought like a hellion, blooded him, and managed to evade him by persistently doing the unexpected. As more doors opened above, he clenched his jaw. Then again, if he managed to get both of them to safety before this was over, he might just kill her himself and to hell with what Fin wanted.
Cutting his attention back to her red and blistering wrists, he ground his teeth together. The wild, erratic path had taken them far from the mapped exit. More guards would be upon them at any minute.
“Take them off,” she ordered, and his cock pulsed with every word spilling from her lips. The fact that she reeked of another male did him no favors. He waxed and waned between homicidal rage that someone had touched her while she’d been trapped here, and the very distinct urge to override that scent with his own.
Neither was useful in their current situation. A situation, he might add, that was her fault.
Shooting a look behind him at the door to the unknown level, he gripped the chain between the shackles and tugged her from the wall. Her hiss of pain dragged his attention to the blistered and reddened skin of her wrists. The spelled shackles shouldn’t be reacting to either her succubus nature or her vampiric side.
Then again, she was a baby vamp.
Fuck, he’d have to take them off. He didn’t want her suffering. Gripping the door, he wrenched it open and glared through the opening. The shadowed hall looked identical to the one he’d pursued her from her cell to the stairwell in the first place.
Fuck Fin and his fired hurry to get in here. They should have tracked her together, gotten her out together.
Better, he should have just let Maddox do it himself. Hunting was his thing. Dragging her with him, he strode down the hall. The sealed cells all looked the same, but the magic on them was different.
Something he’d noticed on her level. The unoccupied cells didn’t have a metallic taint to the spell work on the doors. Something charged one of the doors they past and hit it hard enough to shake the whole frame. Magic flared, and yowl pierced the air.
That would probably leave a mark.
“Where are you going?”
“Be quiet,” he ordered. The last thing he needed was for his body and instincts to riot and override his common sense. The urge to strip her naked and sink his teeth into her grew with every passing moment. To his surprise, she cooperated and went silent. Instead of forcing him to drag her, she moved up alongside.
For exactly three more doors, then she clasped his forearm. The weight of her slender fingers gave him little warning for when she twisted the chain from his grasp while wrenching his arm up against his back. She tried to drive him into the wall.
Nice attempt.
Sexy little kitten.
Strong, too.
But he was stronger. He bore back on the force of her arms, not needing the leverage. Her little gasp as he whirled and caught her by the throat as he successfully slammed her against the wall did all sorts of things to his libido.
“Stop fighting me,” he ordered. “I don’t want to hurt you.” Quite the contrary, he wanted to lick her from one end of her body to the other, until he satisfied this wild craving she’d evoked.
“That’s not going to happen.” The stunning amber of her eyes dared him to retaliate. Most newborns boasted blood-red eyes their first couple of years. Something about the tissue in their body and how it adapted to the need to feed. Barely weeks old, Fiona’s eyes were as unique as she was.
Narrowing the distance, he forced himself to breathe through his mouth, though that did little to mute the stench of her lover or her far more provocative nature beneath it. Rage kindled in his blood, racing through his system with claws and teeth. Maddox wouldn’t forget that scent. “Fiona,” he focused on her eyes as he mouthed her name. This particular trick wasn’t his specialty. “You have to cooperate until we’re secure. Then I’ll remove the shackles. Tell me you understand.”
She laughed in his face, and Maddox snarled. The beast inside of him lunged forward until they were nose to nose. The humor in her expression drained away, but not the murder she promised him in her eyes.
“You want to kill me, kitten. You’re going to have to live long enough to do that. I could snap your neck and leave your corpse here as I made my way out. You’d wake up back in your cell, and you’d never find me.”
Her upper lip curled. “Fine,” she conceded. “But as long as we’re clear on the fact that I am going to fucking kill you.”
Maddox snorted, then licked her cheek from the curve of her jaw to the corner of her eye. It was a stupidly possessive and territorial gesture, but he did it anyway. “I’m pretty clear on the facts, kitten,” he whispered before jerking her away from the wall and gripping the chain once more.
“Blegh,” she grimaced. “Dick.”
“You wound me, kitten,” he snarked. Braced for any further attempts, he resumed his mad dash to find them a place to ride out the security breach. Twelve doors later, he found what he wanted. Gripping the door, he yanked it open and ignored the racket it made. Just another lovely feature of the supernatural roach motel they called Nightmare Penitentiary.
Empty.
Hauling her inside, he released her in the direction of the empty cot in the corner. This room was actually smaller than the one he’d found her in, but it would do. Pulling the door closed, he put a palm against the handle and muttered three words. Now to see if the cost of those syllables had been worth it. The spells flared, and his nose burned at the sudden icy metallic stink wafting at him. Retreating a few steps, he settled into a stance as he listened.
To his continued surprise, Fiona didn’t interrupt or say a word. It wasn’t long before the shuffle of footsteps reached his ears. Even the sound dampeners of the too thick walls and their magic infused layers could muffle it fully.
The drag and thud wasn’t shifter or troll. Sentinel.
They’d loosed them in the prison.
Not an unusual occurrence.
Fin. Hear me.
He waited a beat, but got no response. Telepathy wasn’t in his wheelhouse of skills either. That was all Fin. If the little fucker listened for him, he would be able to respond. Then again, it might be the prison itself. He was a few levels lower than planned, and escapes usually triggered stronger defenses.
Fin was on his own.
Clever bastard could figure it out.
The shuffling steps continued along the hall, but Maddox held off facing his charge until after the sentinel’s steps faded in the distance.
They’d have to sit it out for a few hours at least.