But of course, I already knew why. I knew it all too well. It was the reason I was in this mess in the first place, after all. I just really,reallyhadn’t wanted to see it in person. Was Adrian’s eleven-year-old sister trapped in that room with the rest of them?
Gage’s expression closed off, the anger disappearing behind a stony mask. “Nothing to do with you. And they’re not locked—” He cut himself off with a sharp shake of the head, as though he’d just realized he was arguing with his prisoner. “Come on,move.”
We passed what looked like the main staircase, and ended up at the back of the house. A second, much narrower set of stairs hugged the wall there. I had a vague notion from reading Agatha Christie novels when I was a kid that some old houses had servant stairs, presumably so the rich owners didn’t have to see all the work being done to keep them pampered and comfortable.
The steep steps looked dangerous as hell, even without stiletto heels. Clenching my jaw, I followed Gage halfway up, hishand around my wrist to keep me from bolting. Then I stopped without warning, braced as best I could, and threw my whole weight backward in an attempt to engineer a hopefully fatal accident for my alpha captor.
Mind you, there was a decent chance that I’d get dragged along for the ride and end up breaking my neck as well. I just wasn’t sure that was any worse than the alternative, at this point.
Gage cursed and stumbled down a step before catching himself. The gun clattered from his grip, bouncing off the stairway and falling through the banister railings. It hit the floor below with a loud metallic crash.
We both froze for an instant, but it didn’t go off. Jammed onto the narrow step with my kidnapper, I snarled and tried to stomp his foot with my sharp heel. When that didn’t work, I tried kicking again.
“Jesus Christ!” Gage snapped, but instead of pushing me away, he hauled me close and bent down, lifting me over his shoulder as though I weighed nothing. “You got a death wish or something, woman?”
I shrieked in frustration, trying to hit and kick. One shoe flew off as my foot hit the staircase railing, the sharp pain jolting through me. Gage carried me upstairs, grumbling—completely unfazed by my struggles. We went up two more flights, terminating in a tiny landing with a single doorway set in the wall.
Gage paused only long enough to open the door; then he squeezed through the doorway with me. Surprisingly, he managed not to knock any part of my body into the frame. On some deep level, I wondered why he’d bothered.
He tossed me down on a soft surface. I bounced, sneezing when a small cloud of dust rose around me, and scrambled upright.
It was a bed.
I tensed, but he’d already backed off, his bulk blocking the doorway. A light clicked on, illuminating the room. I whipped my head around, looking for an escape route... for anything to use as a weapon. There were no windows, but there was a second door to my right. I lunged for it, staggering with one shoe still on and the other foot bare.
The doorknob turned under my touch, opening onto a bathroom.
No windows here, either. A medicine cabinet with a mirror had been mounted over the sink. I grabbed it with both hands, trying to pull the mirror free. The little door came partway open, the hinges creaking and twisting—but the mirror didn’t budge.
I let out a choked cry of frustration.
“What are youdoing?” Gage demanded from the bathroom doorway, in the bark of an alpha who was nearing the end of his tether.
I whirled on him. “Trying to break the glass, so I can slice the biggest shard across yourfucking throat!” I yelled.
“Why?” he shot back, his voice rising. “Why did you try and kill Knox?Why are you doing this?”
“Because of the kids downstairs!” I shouted back at him, terrified and enraged in equal measure. “The ones who are ‘nothing to do with me’! Just like I’m ‘not something they need to worry about,’ apparently!”
He shook his head slowly. “You’re not making anysense. How could you even know—” Again, he cut himself off. He dragged a hand over his face and let out a slow sigh. “Never mind. Give me your other shoe.”
He held out his hand, palm up.
I knew what he was thinking—take the prisoner’s shoes so she couldn’t run away, in case she got loose. Slowly, I bent over with a sneer and pulled off my remaining stiletto. I straightened and stepped forward as though to hand it over. At the lastmoment, I hauled back and swung with all my might, aiming for his face with the pointy end.
A hand closed around my wrist before I could blink; it was like slamming my arm into a brick wall. The stiletto heel came to an abrupt stop, inches from his eye. He wrestled my arm down and twisted the shoe free of my grip without a word.
Gage stepped back, putting space between us as I stood there, barefoot and disheveled, panting hard.
“I’ll bring you up some food,” he said in a monotone. “And, um, some pillows and blankets and stuff, so you can make a nest.”
I stared at him in disbelief.
A harsh, high-pitched bark of laughter tore free of my throat.
A nest? He was going to bring me stuff to makea nest? Inside the locked-up crazy-woman attic?
“Are youshitting meright now?” I demanded, hearing the hysterical edge return to my voice. I’d never had a nest in my entire fuckinglife. Not unless you counted cardboard and crumpled newspapers in an alley.
