Atria pressed her lips together and drew them between her teeth, fighting the urge to argue with him.Don’t bother. You don’t want him to know you’re onto him.
She had to adjust her plan as they stepped into the elevator. She’d hoped he’d give her a bit more space away from the crowd, but if anything, he gave her less. There were a handful of other people in the elevator with them, but he didn’t seem to want them to even look at her. Kazimier crowded around her, boxing her in against the wall so all she saw was a great fortress of beautiful orc flesh. Anyone who looked her way got a dead-eyed stare that somehow managed to convey so much acidic menace, it could peel paint.
By the time the chimedingedand the doors slid open to reveal a sweeping parking lot lit by regularly spaced street lamps, he’d made every other passenger almost as desperate to escape as she was.
He waited for them to scramble out, the wheels of their suitcases click-clacking over the warning pavers that marked the edge of the sidewalk, before he began to slowly guide her out. Atria’s gaze flicked up to watch his hard face as he scanned the nearly deserted parking lot.
“What are we—”
“Shh.”
Indignation sparked in her belly. She checked the impulse to snap at him with sheer force of will and the understanding that she didnotwant to piss off the seven-foot-tall orc currently holding her captive.
And that’s another thing,she thought, confirming her suspicions about him with righteous logic.Didn’t he say that he’s Margot’s brother-in-law? He must think I’m as dumb as a box of rocks. Margot’s married to an elf, not an orc.
Clearly he had more beef than brains.
He was as big as a house, but Atria wasn’t powerless by any stretch of the imagination. As long as he didn’t actually have his hands on her, she could hold her own. Besides, how difficult could it be to slip out from under the nose of a man who was obviously missing a few vital spoonfuls of brain matter?
After a handful of minutes, he appeared to judge that the other people in the parking lot were mostly headed in one direction — toward the rental vehicle and shuttle area. Atria felt him relax a bit. He even allowed her to step a few inches away from his side.
Eyes roving over the massive, night-swathed parking lot, he began to guide her in the opposite direction of the rental vehicle area and toward the darkest, most vacant part of the lot.
Atria’s breaths sped up as they walked farther and farther away from the help of strangers and into the deepening darkness. In the distance, she could see one of the streetlamps had gone out, casting a whole chunk of the lot into shadow.
Abso-fucking-lutely not.
There was no way she was going to allow him to lead her into a dark, deserted part of a parking lot. She was not going to end up a headline on a newsfeed, nor the focus of some fucked up internet fixation. She could practically hear the narration as she forced her feet to keep moving.
A witch and former Bonded was found dead in the parking lot of the Denver international airport. The killer has never been found, but the clues have enthralled amateur sleuths…
She understood and accepted the fact that, should the gods really exist, she’d probably pissed at least one of them off enough to warrant punishment, but she was not about to willingly walk into her untimely demise.
Peeking at her captor through her lashes, she found him scanning the lot as they walked, his eyes on the vehicles that had been left there by travelers.Or maybe he’s looking for witnesses.
They were at the edge of the darkest part of the lot. She could almost feel the dull glow of the last working street lamp behind them. A few more steps and she’d leave that protective, if watery, ring of light.
He began to slow, his gaze fixed on a small, dusty vehicle that appeared to have been left in the lot for a while. The hand on her back slipped away to dig in the right pocket of his jeans.
Her heart stuttered and then lurched up into her throat as her fear ratcheted up another notch. Instinctively, she reached out for his emotional state and found nothing reassuring: cold determination, banked, icy rage, and…lust.
And that was her line.
He took a few steps toward the car, apparently unaware that she’d begun to slow down, putting her behind him when he stooped to inspect the lock on the passenger’s side.
Atria didn’t think. There wasn’t time. Dropping her suitcase, she sucked in a deep breath, mustered her will, and lifted her right hand. With one sharp gesture downward, she mimicked the act of slamming his head into the frame of the door.
The impact was immediate. The orc grunted with surprise as he was shoved down under an invisible hand a thousand times stronger than she could ever be. His head hit the door with a terrible crunch — ofmetal.The orc’s hulking frame crumpled to the asphalt, leaving a sizable dent in the roof of the car.
She didn’t stay to examine the damage. Leaving her suitcase behind, she fisted her hands in the thin, sheer fabric of her skirt andhauled ass.
She was nearly at the elevator bank when she heard him bellow,“Atria, stop!”
If she wasn’t absolutely certain that those long legs would catch up to her, she would have turned to give him a completely incredulous look.
What, did he actually expect her tolistento him?
Rather than do something so patently stupid, Atria picked up her speed. Her strappy sandals were not the best running shoes, but she had spent much of her life doing yoga and intense physical labor around the Sanctuary. She was soft, certainly, but she could push through a stitch in her side better than most.
