I rolled my eyes. “Sorry if I don’t share your joy. Seems like a pretty shitty experience to me. Zero stars. Do not recommend.”
Adramal snorted. “You let her talk to you like that?”
Maltraz chuckled, never breaking his gaze. “It’s delightful. You should have seen the look on Finn’s face when I took her. I’ll replay that memory every night for a decade.”
Something inside me twisted, but I wouldn’t let him see it. I spat blood onto the floor and glared. “So what’s the play, Maltraz? You gonna drag me into the underworld and make me your hell bride, or is there some actual plan here?”
He leaned in, close enough that I could smell the sulfur of his magic and the rot of his real self beneath it. “I could. But what would be the fun? You see, I’ve spent the last ten years building a network in your world. Money, power, influence. I made a bet on the right wolf, and then your Iron Valor bastards went and burned it all down.”
He pulled a gold coin from his pocket and rolled it along his fingers. “So now, I do what humans have always done with valuables that won’t stay put: I auction them off.”
For a second, I didn’t get it. Then it hit me, and my stomach lurched.
“I’d heard that you traffic women. It’s a bit cliché, isn’t it? It’s about the most heinous thing you can do outside of messing with children. In Paris, Steiner mentioned he was sending me to you. I hoped that the operation had been shut down. Guess it’s hard to stop evil.” I don’t know why I was poking the bear. Or demon or whatever. Maybe because he was Lysander, and I still felt like I knew him.
“Oh,little girl, you are naïve.”
I winced at that term. “So,that’sthe plan? You’re going to sell me?” I laughed, partly because it was insane, partly because it was the only way not to start crying. “To who? The highest bidder gets to what, hang me on the wall? Make me paint for them?”
Maltraz’s eyes sparkled. “Not paint. I’m thinking more of a trophy. A warning to every wolf and every rebel who ever thought they could cross me and walk away. There’s a buyer already, actually. The Vampire King of the West is quite taken with you, and he hates Iron Valor almost as much as I do. There are others too. You’d be surprised how many people want to own you, Brie.”
Adramal looked skeptical. “She’s not an alpha. She’s not even that strong. Why bother?”
Maltraz never looked away from me. “Because it’s not about what she is. It’s about what she means. Take her, and you rip Gunner Walsh apart. You rip apart the heart of Iron Valor. The Council will scramble, the alliances will fracture, and then—when the world is nice and weak—I swoop in and collect the pieces.”
I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction, but I couldn’t help it: I bared my teeth and snapped, “He’s coming for me, you know. You think you’re ready, but you’re not.”
Maltraz placed the coin on his tongue, let it melt into smoke, then grinned. “I hope he does. It’ll make the final act so much sweeter.”
He turned to go, but paused and looked back. “Don’t worry, darling. I won’t touch you. I’m not interested in that. I only touched you in your dreams to weaken your mate. Now I’m saving you for someone who will truly appreciate what you are.”
He gestured to Adramal, and the big demon stepped forward. For a second, I thought he was going to hit me, but instead he produced a battered water bottle and held it up to my lips. I drank; most of it ran down my chin, but the cold felt good.
When he was done, he wiped my mouth with his thumb, his touch unexpectedly gentle. He looked me in the eye and spoke barely loud enough to hear. “Don’t let him win. He loves that.”
I nodded just once, and then he stepped back.
Maltraz sauntered to the door, then stopped again. He turned, strode across the room, and bent so our faces were inches apart. He smelled like smoke and death.
He ran a claw along my jaw, tipping my chin up. “You hang on to that anger, Brie. King Otero will drain it out of you, slow and sweet. That’s his style. I wonder how long you’ll last.”
I spat in his face, and he laughed, a big, joyous, evil sound that echoed through the cave like a thunderclap.
He stood, brushed off his jacket, and walked away, whistling a little tune that I recognized from somewhere, but couldn’t place.
Adramal lingered, glancing back at me, then followed his boss out.
I hung there, arms burning, blood running down to pool in my shoulders. But I wasn’t scared anymore.
Finn was coming.
And Maltraz was about to find out just how much trouble one wolf girl could cause.
It was hard to tell how much time had passed since Maltraz had left. Down here, the air didn’t move, and the only way to measure minutes was in the slow, aching pulse of blood through your hands. I’d been chained to a metal chair that was bolted to the floor. I must have dozed off, because the next thing I heard was a new set of voices, arguing in low, furious whispers from somewhere just out of sight.
I held my breath and listened.
“You idiot. You absolute glory-drunk idiot.” The voice was sharp, nasal, with a lisp around the s’s. I recognized it instantly—Nazek, the other demon from Maltraz’s inner circle. He’d always been the sidekick, the note-taker, the one who stood two feet behind and two IQ points below the action.
