“You know in your heart that this isn’t in my head. You’ve known for a while there is something different about me. How fast I can run. How easily I trained Milo, almost as if I could communicate with him in his language. How I can take a bullet and be healed the next day. How I make love.”
He stopped, took a deep breath, and let it out. He couldn’t deny that she was freakishly strong and unlike any woman he’d ever known. Whatever this was, it was weird and it was wrong, and at the moment, he couldn’t process anything but the problem in front of him. He braced and pulled until the chains cut into his palms. This was taking too long.
He looked at Laina over his shoulder. “Hey! Catch.” He tossed the silver tool across the room to her. It clattered to the floor halfway and skidded into her feet. “If you’re stronger, free yourself—then you can free me.”
Laina, whose wrists were still chained behind her back, threaded her legs through the circle of her arms so that her hands were in front of her, and picked up the Wartenberg wheel. Instead of trying to pry the ring from the wall, she tucked the handle into a single link of chain spread taut between her feet. With a groan, she twisted and lifted. The steel started to bend.
Nate stood up and approached the corner of his cell, pumping his arm in the air and mouthinggo, go, go.Kyle still didn’t understand Nate’s role in this. Why had he lured them to Alex? Or maybe it had been a coincidence. He couldn’t remember clearly. They’d been following Nate, and next thing he knew, he woke up in Nate’s BDSM playroom in excruciating pain. It was all a blur, but he was troubled by a brief memory of Nate outside the cage, raising his voice to Alex and pointing at Laina. When had that happened?
With one last grunt of effort, Laina broke the link and tumbled into the wall behind her. She dropped the tool near her feet and unhooked the broken link. Although her hands were still manacled to each other, she was no longer bound to the wall. She bent to pick up the tool again, but Nate slapped the bars viciously and pointed to a wooden box at the far end of the room.
“I think he’s trying to tell you to look in the box,” Kyle said.
“What’s in there?”
“Your guess is as good as mine. Like I said, I try to stay out of my brother’s personal proclivities. BDSM is not my cup of tea.”
Laina crossed to the box and propped open the lid. Her eyes widened at Nate as her lips spread into a smile. “I’ve never been so glad your brother was a sick bastard.” She reached inside and pulled out a heavy, double-edged sword and an extra set of keys.
Nate clapped his hands and pointed excitedly at the lock on the cage door.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Laina said to him. “Do you think I’d free you after how you set us up?”
“What are you talking about?” Kyle asked.
“Your brother was working with Alex. He wanted to get rid of me. He couldn’t stand the thought of our monogamy getting in the way of Hunt Club’s profits.” She shot Nate a nasty glare. “He cooperated with Alex and let him use his identity and image to lure us down here.”
Nate couldn’t speak, but the gesture he gave her with his right middle finger said everything.
Kyle looked at his brother and shook his head. He wasn’t sure exactly what Laina meant by all that, but given Nate’s reaction, it was clear he’d been in league with the psycho who’d locked them down here. “You fucking asshole. You just couldn’t stand to see me happy.”
Nate spread his hands and shrugged, then rubbed his fingers together. Money. It was always about money.
“We don’t have much time.” Laina approached Kyle with desperation in her eyes. She unlocked his cuffs and then handed him the keys so he could unlock hers.
“Thanks,” she said. Sword in hand, she tugged him toward the stairs. “Come on.”
“Wait, what do we do with him?” Kyle gestured toward his brother in the cage.
“We leave him right where he is. He’ll be safe there until we can get help.” Her words saidhe’dbe safe where he was, but her expression suggested she thoughtthey’dbe safe from him as well. Kyle couldn’t argue. He jogged after her, up the stairs to the door to the main part of the house. But when he reached the top, he found Laina with her fists pressed against a solid wall.
“I don’t understand. Where’s the door?” Kyle asked.
“There isn’t one,” Laina said. “Alex has sealed us in.”
“Like hell he has.” Kyle snatched the sword from her hands, raised it above his head, and stabbed the doorless wall.
ChapterThirty-One
“No!” Laina yelled, but she was too late. When Kyle stabbed the sword into the wall, a shower of sparks repelled the blade and knocked Kyle back. He tumbled down the stairs, narrowly avoiding the sharp edge of the weapon.
“Kyle! Are you all right?” She raced to his side.
“Fine,” he said, scrambling to his feet. “What just happened?”
Laina shivered. “The chains were never meant to hold either of us, just distract us while the clock counted down. Alex sealed us in using magic. We won’t be able to escape.”And no one can get in to save us, she thought.
“Magic,” Kyle repeated. He stared at the sword in his hands like he was going into shock.
