“Hehadother Sentinels. I’m not sure if he acquired more before the ones I know about. Like I said, I’m not in his confidence, and it’s not the kind of place you can just go around asking questions about Adriel and what he’s been up to.”
“What happened to the ones before?” I ask, even though I already know.
“The first he killed within a week. He lost his temper. The second lasted longer but died in an interrogation with one of Adriel’s enforcers. Adriel had the most patience with your mother, but by the time he found her, there’d been almost a hundred years between his last capture and hers. Plenty of time for him to improve at getting what he wanted.”
“Does he ever find male Sentinels?” I ask, finding it weird that he keeps stumbling upon only females.
“That’s what the hunt order is for, females.”
“Where does he hunt them?”
“Everywhere. He has teams dedicated to looking for your kind.”
I grow quiet as I think about that. I have so many questions about how Adriel’s finding Sentinels and where. Does he just let the males keep it moving? I mean, he has to have come across at least one, you’d think, in all the time he’s been doing this. I’m nervous about meeting this big bad lamia, and yet at the same time, there’s a thrill of excitement working its way through my nerves. Does Adriel have answers to the thousands of questions that sit in my chest? Can I get him to tell me what he knows about Sentinels before I rip his head off?
“So we know what the plan is once Adriel has me, but exactly what are we telling him about how you’re handing me over?” I ask, realizing that we never really worked out that part of the plan.
“I’ll tell him that you’re there to trade yourself for the two paladin we captured.”
“And he won’t find that suspicious?”
“He’ll be so focused on the fact that you’re there, I doubt he’ll question much,” Siah tells me, his tone confident and dismissive.
The road we’re on winds to the right, and we drive into an area that’s cleared of trees. The road splits the man-made clearing, and we drive deeper into the dark. I spot something that looks rock-like in the distance. We drive closer, and the rocks turn into some kind of ruin. The remnants of some ancient crumbling castle-like structure loom in front of us, and I’m instantly confused by what’s clearly our destination.
“What is this place?” I ask. I lean forward in my seat to take in the decaying structure.
“Who knows,” Siah tells me on a shrug. “Some long-forgotten fortress whose name has disappeared from history.” The brakes give a slight squeak of protest as we slow down and come to a stop in front of the decaying building. Siah climbs out of the car, and I follow him. I spin and take in my surroundings, alert and unsure of what’s going to happen now. Siah walks slowly to me and pulls something out of his back pocket. He unfolds the black square of fabric and offers me the hood.
“Where the hell did you get this?” I ask, confused, and I watch as he searches the far-off tree line.
“You’ll need to put that on.”
I open my mouth to ask him why, but a flash of movement to my right pulls my attention away. I snap my head in the direction of the movement, but I don’t see anything.
“We’re being watched by the guards. Put this on, and we’ll be escorted in,” Siah demands again, and I narrow my eyes at him.
Why the fuck do I need to put on a hood? If we’re going to be attacking this place soon, I’ll need to be able to relay as much detail about it as I possibly can. Evrin put a tracker on the car itself, so they’ll already know the location, but information about the layout inside will help them. Doubt claws at me, but out here in the middle of nowhere, I’m not sure what to do about it. I take a step back from Siah, and he tenses.
“What the hell is going on?” I ask him, suspicion saturating every syllable.
“What do you mean?” he asks, taking a step in my direction, and I immediately flash a short sword and longsword into my hands.
“Vinna, what are you doing?” Siah demands, but I’m no longer focused on him, I’m focused on my surroundings, waiting for whatever it is that’s making my skin crawl to happen. I tap into the runes behind my ear and reach out to the guys.
“Something’s wrong,”I begin to tell them and then immediately fall silent when laughter starts to bounce around the crumbling walls of the dead building around me.
The hair on my arms stands on end, and I don’t miss the cringe that flashes quickly over Siah’s face before it’s replaced with stony features and soulless eyes.
“Will you just look at her. She’s magnificent!” a deep voice slithers out at me from the darkness. A shadowed figure steps out from behind a disintegrating wall and casually strolls toward us.
“I wondered how far your misplaced trust would take you,” the figure tells me, the deep bass in his voice trying to tempt me into a sense of warmth and calm. It’s like I can feel the tendrils of his timber caressing over me and trying to sink in. I ready myself, my feet shoulder width apart, my eyes trained on the being I can sense is the biggest threat to me. My Chosen bombard me with questions in my mind, but I can’t answer them right now. I know if I take any focus away from the figure slowly stepping out of the shroud of shadows, I’ll regret it.
Adriel steps out of the cloak of darkness, and the blackness of night falls away from his face like a hood he just pushed back. He smiles at me sweetly, and it lights up his face and sets his eyes aglow. He’s gorgeous in the way that all lamia seem to be, and yet his coloring is completely unique and different from anyone I’ve ever seen before. His hair is modern and styled like he just came from a salon, each follicle in place as it’s quaffed voluminously up and just to the side. The shade is a very dark brown that leans to red, and for some reason, it has me picturing blood mixed with rich soil.
He has a beard that’s short and neatly trimmed and freckles that have been generously sprinkled all over his face. The strange shade of his golden-red eyes is what probably sets him apart the most. They’re luminescent like a cat’s, and the molten glow seems to threaten to suck you into them and promises to never let you go. Fair skin with just a kiss of a tan rounds off his unusual coloring. He’s complemented the red tones in his hair, eyes and freckles with a navy blue suit that fits his lean yet muscular body like a glove, and a crisp white shirt that’s casually unbuttoned at the collar tries to make him look less a threat but fails.
He takes another step closer, and my grip tightens on my weapons.
