“What are you talking about?” Kyle chuckled nervously, looking confused.
With a tilt of his head, Nate locked eyes with Laina and lowered his lips to her ear. “You don’t want to do this out here, Princess. If you think I’m above taking out this entire place to get to you, you don’t know me.”
“What did he just say to you?” Kyle asked. “I couldn’t hear.”
“Just explaining that there’s a problem at Hunt Club I need to discuss with you right away,” Nate said.
“I’ll go. Anna can wait here and enjoy herself.”
Nate shook his head in warning. “This has to do with her as well, and if she doesn’t come, I’ll have to take action.”
“All right. I’ll come.” Her voice cracked as the truth settled like a red-hot ember in her belly. Either Nate was Jonah or he was someone working for him, and she and everyone in this room were in terrible danger, especially the man she loved. “I’ll come if you let Kyle stay here.”
Kyle looked at her like she was out of her mind. He laughed and threaded his fingers into hers. “While I have every confidence in your abilities, I think I should be in the room if there’s a problem at Hunt Club.” Laina tugged at his arm and shook her head, but the look in Nate’s eyes held menace. A tremor flowed through the ground under her feet, strong enough to rattle the plates.
“Did you feel that?” Nate asked.
Kyle snorted. “Weird. Felt like a mild earthquake. Are we sure we’re not in California anymore?”
Nate laughed, his eyes boring into Laina’s. “Who knows, a fault could crack open and swallow us all.”
Anxiety raged like a swarm of bees inside her. That was terrifyingly strong magic, and by the wicked gleam in Nate’s eye, she knew it was no idle threat.
“Come on. Let’s get this over with. It shouldn’t take long.” Kyle placed a hand in the center of her back.
With an evil grin, Nate grabbed her elbow and ushered both of them through the door he’d pointed out. “Let Kyle go,” she whispered in a voice she knew only Nate could hear.
“Laina, you’re, uh, sweating. Are you all right?” Kyle did a double take, his worried expression making her heart squeeze. He held the back of his hand to her forehead.
She didn’t have a chance to answer. As soon as the door was closed behind her, a sharp pain exploded at the back of her skull, and then everything went black.
ChapterTwenty-Nine
Laina came awake on a hard marble floor with her wrists bound and secured to the wall by a length of chain behind her. The back of her head ached, and it took her sitting up and shaking it for her vision to clear. She was in some kind of dungeon. Across the room from her, a familiar mass of human muscle lay in an unconscious heap.
“Kyle! Kyle!” she called, trying her best to rouse him.
“He’ll be out for a while,” a voice said from her left.
Scrambling to her feet, she turned her head to face the dark figure in the shadowy corner of the room. He was tall, lanky, with dark blond hair and eyes that twinkled purple when the light hit them a certain way. The dragon fae amulet hung around the man’s neck. Without a doubt, under his tuxedo, his right upper shoulder sported the tattoo of a harvest moon with three claw marks ripping through it.
“Jonah,” she said.
“Think again.” He stepped into the light. “You don’t remember me, Laina? I kissed you in the game room at Rivergate when we were children.”
“No…”
“And then there was that time I murdered your parents.”
“Impossible. We found your body.”
“You found myoldbody. I rather like this new one. My Zafka, Jonah, worked out regularly—more than I ever did. It was brilliant, if I do say so myself, to use the amulet to switch bodies with Jonah when it was clear your brother Silas had the advantage. It was the last magic I performed with this”—he fingered the amulet—“before they took it from me. Before your brother tookeverythingfrom me.”
“Alex,” she spat. She shook her head, pulling against the chains binding her.
“I love to hear you say my name.” He smirked. “Now, here’s how this is going to go. In approximately twelve hours, you’re going to shift.”
“Shift? What are you talking about?” Nate said from across the room. The big, balding man hovered over his brother, patting Kyle’s face and feeling his neck for a pulse. He hadn’t been there before and wasn’t chained to the wall. Laina looked between Alex and Nate, confused. Nate was still alive, which meant he’d cooperated with Alex to some extent, but clearly, he wasn’t happy about the state of things.
