The fear was harder to handle. It was a helpless, awful kind of feeling. Seeing Sloane desperately try to make his way through the throng to get to her, like all the rifles pointed at him didn’t matter, was an image that would cling to her for the rest of her life. It colored every thought and every fantasy of what he was going through at that very moment.
Is he being beaten? Did they hurt him so badly that he’s in danger? Would they really kill him if they knew he’d found his mate? No, he said they’d only do that if we couldn’t be separated. Right?
She cursed herself for not asking more questions, and she felt like the world’s biggest asshole for dismissing Sloane’s warning like she had. If she hadn’t blown her top about him leaving her, they wouldn’t have gone to the rest stop. They might’ve made it to the border.
If he dies, I’ll never forgive myself,she realized, eyes stinging. Her throat felt swollen and lined with glass when she tried to swallow her tears.
Before the dam could break, the back doors of the van opened. Cecilia squinted into the glare of the midday sun, herexposed skin prickling as San Francisco’s signature wet air rushed in, carrying the sharp, medicinal scent of eucalyptus. Standing in front of the open doors were two masked figures who made her hair stand on end.
It took her only a moment to realize why.
The differences were subtle, but they were there. The helmet shape was different. Their armored clothing was ever-so-slightly more severe. And when one of them pushed their side of the door open wider, she caught a glimpse of a dark, round symbol on their bicep.
Sloane hadn’t worn his official uniform. His clothing was armored, yes, but nondescript. He looked like a member of Patrol, but there was no badge number, no unit symbol, or identification on it. Obviously, he would’ve been pretty reckless to wear his official uniform to stalk her, so she hadn’t thought much of it.
But the helmet…
The helmet was exactly the same, and there was something indefinably familiar about how they held themselves as they stared her down.
Breathing hard, Cecilia squared her shoulders and demanded, “Take me to my boyfriend.Now.”
The masked figures shared a look. Unfortunately for them, Cecilia had recently come into a fair amount of experience interpreting stunted elvish soldiers’ body language.
“Hey!” she snapped, banging her heel on the floor of the van. “You’re gonna take me to see him or I’m going to besucha pain in your ass, there isn’t a healer in the world who will be able to help you sit right!”
A flat, modulated voice came from the slightly taller figure to her right. “You are very loud, Cecilia Marcella Warren.”
Blowing a sweaty lock of hair out of her eyes, she grunted, “Call me Cece.”
“Cece,” the figure to her left announced, “you are being remanded into our custody for questioning. It is in your best interest to come quietly.”
Despite the fact that her hands were cuffed behind her back, she lunged fearlessly at the faceless elves with a snarl. “What are you gonna do to me, huh? I don’t have to cooperate with you or anyone who thinks Sloane did a single fucking thing wrong!”
There was a pause. The figure on the right seemed to hesitate for a moment before they leaned slightly into the van. “If you come quietly, we won’t have to handle you much, which means Sloane is less likely to pull our jugular veins out and turn them into a belt. Your assistance in this would be greatly appreciated.”
Cecilia blinked. “Um…”
The one on the left reached for her arm. For the first time since everything went to shit, she didn’t struggle. Together, the elves helped her out of the van and down onto a gravel lot. All around her were massive, creepy-looking trees strung with pale moss leaning down from a circle of hills, and nestled in the center of the natural bowl was a stark military-looking building.
Staggering a little as she got feeling back in her legs, she let the elves support her as they began walking her past the small group of Patrol officers who’d escorted her there.
“Transfer complete,” one of her new friends announced, nodding toward the group. “You are dismissed.”
The man in charge, who’d taken the brunt of her ire, cleared his throat. He wore a mask, too, but it was nearly see-through and didn’t have the voice modulator. That made it easy to hear the relief in his voice when he answered, “Understood. And word of advice? Don’t uncuff her.”
Cecilia cast him her biggest, sunniest grin as they marched her toward the building.
CHAPTER
THIRTY
She expectedto be thrown into some sort of interrogation room, or at the very least be sat in some sort of Patrol office for questioning, but once they bypassed the intense security at the door, she was led into a… living room.
It was a weird one, to be sure. A bit sterile, and large enough to accommodate far more than the average family. It connected to a large, open-plan dining and kitchen space. The table was large and everything was impeccably clean. It seemed a bit like a club house, if the only members of the club had zero personalities and couldn’t be trusted with cutlery unsupervised.
Nonplussed, she let her escorts guide her to the head of the long dining room table. She’d only just began to sit down in the chair they pulled out for her when more helmeted elves appeared like phantoms in the doorway that led to what she imagined was the communal torture chamber.
Settling her butt slowly into her chair, she looked around with growing unease. Raw human instinct buzzed in her veins, like some unused part of her brain recognized that she was now surrounded by predators who could strip her bones in a matter of seconds. It was something more primal than even her danger sense.
