She wasn’t heavy, but together with the chair, it was way too much for Charlie, who wasn’t nearly as burly as Bowen.
“Yes, I can.” He lifted the chair with her in it without even a grunt and carried her up the steps as if it was nothing.
“Are you a bodybuilder?”
He put the chair down in the aisle. “In my spare time. Can you wait here for Bowen to assist you into the seat?”
“Sure.”
That was strange. After the impressive show of carrying her up the stairs, the guy hadn’t been winded at all, so why did he want her to wait for Bowen?
Was he afraid of touching her?
It would seem so. The question was whether it was because of her injury or because of Bowen.
Maybe the pilot thought that there was something going on between them?
Some men got very possessive of their girlfriends and wives and didn’t like anyone else touching them. She didn’t trust those types any more than she trusted the cocky ones. Possessiveness was dangerous, and it could turn ugly, leading to very bad things.
Except, she wasn’t Bowen’s anything, and Charlie had nothing to fear from him.
The question was, did she?
11
Arwel
Arwel watched his prisoner through the surveillance camera mounted near the ceiling of Emmett’s cell.
Most of the cells in the dungeon had been converted into rooms, and Ingrid had done an incredible job of turning them into comfortable living quarters, especially given how small most of them were. What used to be a spartan bathroom facility that had been separated from the living area only by a pony wall was now an enclosed three-quarter bathroom that had a proper door.
The room itself was no longer stark white, with a single bed pushed against the wall. Somehow, she’d managed to squeeze in a full-sized bed, a nightstand, a dresser, a compact couch, a narrow coffee table, and a hotel-style minibar.
The safety features hadn’t changed, though, and Emmett couldn’t break free no matter how strong he supposedly was. He hadn’t tried anything yet, and neither Arwel nor the two other Guardians had had to use force to subdue him.
They could have put him in one of the dungeon cells that were still in their original Spartan form, but neither was adjacent to the one-bedroom apartment Arwel was staying in for the duration of this assignment.
His empathic feelers didn’t work as well with several thick walls separating him from his charge, and since Jin had insisted on joining him in the keep for at least some of the time, Arwel wanted her to be comfortable in the luxuriously appointed suite.
Officially, she was supposed to be staying in one of the apartments up top, but since it was the weekend, she was spending most of her time with him down in the dungeon. Except, he had a job to do, and she was bored.
With a sigh, Jin put her book down on the nightstand and pushed up on the pillows. “What’s he doing?”
“Same as before. Pretending to stare at the ceiling while fiddling with the cuffs.”
Putting one on each wrist was overkill, but that was how Kian wanted it.
“You should tell him to stop before they explode.”
“They won’t unless he manages to pull them off, and he’s not going to.” Arwel pushed to his feet, walked over to the bed, and sat down next to her. “You really shouldn’t be down here when I’m on duty. Kian is not going to be happy about it.”
“He doesn’t need to know. Before he comes over, I’ll go to the apartment upstairs.”
Arwel shook his head. “It’s not safe here for you during the day when I have to deliver food to him. The guy might try to escape, and I don’t want those cuffs exploding anywhere near you.”
Smiling, Jin flashed him her fangs. “Let him try. I’ll deal with him.”
As usual, the sight of her sexy fangs made Arwel instantly hard. “Those babies are meant for my pleasure, not for battle. Besides, you have no training, and you wouldn’t know what to do with them.”
She pouted. “That’s because you refuse to train me.”
“I said that I would teach you self-defense.”
“Yeah, but you didn’t deliver on that promise yet.”
He laughed. “That’s because every time I start, we end up tearing each other’s clothes off.”
As she opened her mouth to answer, his phone rang.
“Speak of the devil.” He showed her the screen. “It’s Kian.”
“I’ll be quiet as a mouse,” she whispered.
“Good afternoon, Boss.”
“How is your prisoner doing?”
“Anxious.”
“Naturally. What else?”
“Angry, frustrated, all the usual you would expect from someone in his situation.”
“What about his inner makeup?”
“If you’re asking whether he’s evil, I don’t get that sense from him. If you want, I can get in there and have a chat with him, but you said to let him stew for a while.”
“I don’t want Emmett to guess that you are tuned in to him. He’d become more guarded with his feelings. Until we interrogate him tomorrow, I want to keep him off-balance and scared, so don’t engage him in conversation. Also, is it possible that the earplugs are diminishing your capacity to read him?”
Arwel chuckled. “My ability doesn’t require sound.”
“That’s what I thought, but I wasn’t sure. Anything else I should know?”
“He’s trying to fiddle with the cuffs. Should I tell him to stop?”
“Did you explain that they will explode if he manages to pull them off?”
“I did, but evidently he didn’t believe me.”
“Let him fiddle for a little longer, and then shock him and tell him that it was just a small taste of what they can do. He needs to know that they are for real.”
“I’ll do that.”
“By the way, did you tell Jin about him?”
As Arwel glanced at her, she scrunched her nose and shook her head.
“Just the basics.”
“You can tell her the whole story. There might be a connection.”
“I’d rather wait for William to prove or disprove Emmett’s claims. Did he get a response from his leader?”
“Not yet.”
“Then he’s probably making the whole thing up.”
“If not for Jin and Mey, that would have been my leading theory, but we can’t ignore the possible connection.”
Arwel rubbed a hand over his jaw. “I should call Peter and get more details.”
“You should. And say hi to Jin for me.”
Damn. “I will.”
As Kian ended the call, Jin let out a breath. “Someone must have told him that I was here.”
“I didn’t try to keep it a secret. Alfie or Mason might have said something to Onegus, or he might have seen you on the security feed. Kian didn’t sound mad, though, so it’s all good.”
“What did Kian mean by a possible connection between Mey and me and Emmett Haderech?”
The reason Arwel hadn’t told Jin what he knew was that he hoped it wasn’t true. Emmett claimed that his people were not immortal, only long-lived, and if Jin and Mey were related to them, they weren’t immortal either, and that would be devastating.