“Asher,” the guy said. I was pretty sure he was a vampire, but maybe also a shifter. He was huge. “We need your help with something.”
Asher shook his head. “Find someone else,” he rumbled. Now, if he’d spoken to me in that “don’t fuck with me” tone, I would have found someone else. But the vamp was either brave or stupid, because he pushed. “Come on, man. This requires the use of water magic. It’s a bit of a situation, and … there’s an animal involved.”
That made me feel bad. I popped my head around Asher—who was shielding me with his body. “Go and help,” I said. “You can’t let an animal suffer. I’m not going anywhere.” The night was still young. As was the weekend, if everything went according to plan.
Asher held my gaze, then let out a long breath. “I’ll be right back,” he said. As I started to nod, he moved fast, pressing his lips to mine, and then another kiss to the corner of my mouth.
It took me like five minutes to even realize he was gone, because my head was all fucked-up with lusty thoughts. I lost track of everything and everyone when Asher was around.
Just as I was about to shuffle off the main path to stop blocking everyone, two familiar bitches stepped in front of me.
“Hello, Maddison,” Kate said, almost conversationally. “I think it’s time we addressed this issue between us.”
I crossed my arms, sending mental SOSes to Asher. “I don’t have an issue with you, Kate. I really don’t care about you at all. I just want to live my life. Run along and live yours too. There’s no reason we have to hate each other.”
Her face creased as she blinked confusedly. She appeared to be more than a little shocked by my current “let it go” attitude. Chellie, who had been watching her friend with concern, shook that off and turned anger on me.
“You pushed us too far.” Face-to-face, I was concerned by the state of her pupils. I knew drugs when I saw them, and this chick was on something heavy. She reached out and shoved me … or attempted to. I saw it coming and sidestepped, and she let out a frustrated scream. Her next screech was loud and out of control: “I’m about to show you what happens to chicks who touch things that don’t belong to them!”
Kate, recovered from her shock, stepped into me. “Asher is mine,” she hissed. “He’s always been mine, and when he’s finally ready to settle down, he will choose me. Not a magicless human bitch.”
Kate had let her feelings for Asher turn into something dark and obsessive. I mean, I got obsession when it came to the Atlantean, but she could clearly no longer differentiate reality from fantasy.
Without warning, she swung out at me, and again, it was only my reflexes and relative sobriety that gave me a chance to dodge her palm. But it turned out she hadn’t been aiming to slap me. Her hand skimmed across my face, droplets flinging with it. The rain had stopped, so I knew it had to have come from Kate, and then a strong bitter taste hit my lips.
I shook my head as it went immediately cloudy.
“Cliffston,” Kate whispered.
I stumbled, shaking my head again. Did she just saycliffston?The herb that put supes to sleep?
I tried to back up from her and call for help, but nothing in my body was working. As I slumped forward, someone caught me in strong arms, and then I was lifted and we were moving quickly. I remained conscious as they ran, my nerves screaming at the way I was wrapped in my kidnappers’ arms. I was bound, unable to move, and it was triggering my old PTSD again.
I hated this out-of-control feeling; if I could have moved, my limbs would have been shaking like crazy. These bitches had better plan on killing me, because if they didn’t, and I got out of here alive, I was going to torture them. Then kill them.
With my last conscious moments, I attempted to free my power. I needed it now more than ever, but between Louis’s block and the herb, I was useless.
My kidnappers moved fast, and then I … I was in a car.
I lost time after that; everything was disjointed, even when I was lifted again and dropped onto a hard surface. How long I lay there on the stone ground, I had no idea, but eventually the cliffston wore off. Pushing myself up, I groaned, squeezing my eyes shut to relieve the tension headache. When I found the equilibrium to get to my feet, I looked around, trying to figure out where I was.
The room was small, with cobbled ground and a single bench along one wall. It looked like a courtyard that someone had decided to close in after the house was built. I kicked off my heels, wanting to be able to run with ease—if I got the chance. My beautiful dress was torn and dirty, and I could already see bruises forming across my thighs and down my shins. Considering supes didn’t bruise easily, it told me they’d been rough.
My gait was uneven, but I made it to the solid wood door. Rattling the handle—it was locked—I attempted to shoulder my way out. All that got me was additional bruises and anger issues. Turning, I slumped back against it. There was nothing else in the room that I could try and escape from. No windows. No fireplace. No air vents.
I started to shout as loud as I could, hoping it would annoy them into letting me go. “Let me out! Open the fucking door!”
Over and over, until I was hoarse and half slumped against the door. Either no one was here and I’d just wasted precious energy, or they were very good at ignoring their victims.
Sliding further down the door, I coughed a few times, my chest and throat aching. The door abruptly opened behind me and I almost tumbled out backward. Scrambling to my feet, I backed up, giving myself some distance.
A man stood in the threshold. He was taller than me by a few inches, and there was something vaguely familiar about him, even though I was almost certain I’d never seen him before.
“There you are,” he said, his lips quirking up in the corners. I stared harder at those lips, my sense of déjà vu increasing.
He stepped further into the room, closing the door behind him, and I backed up as far as I could go.
“How are you feeling?” he asked. “We gave you something to counter the cliffston’s effects, but you’ll probably still be drowsy for a few hours.”
