“How did he know I was here?”
“The note was on the desk, and the flower was in a vase.” He smiled at me. “I recognized the gesture. I explained it to him.”
“I’m going to go find our idiot mate,” Roran said. He studied the broken door on the way out and shook his head. “I’ll send someone to put up a new door.”
Rilen held my gaze for a moment after Roran left the room. “I’m going to go help him. But,ilati, know that he doesn’t speak for us.”
He touched the back of his hand to my cheek. I pressed against his skin. “I know, Rilen. I’m not property. He doesn’t have a right. Not even if he had claimed me as a mate, not even if we’d had a sealing ceremony.”
“I know. We’ll get his head out of his ass.”
“Thank you,” I said.
Rilen turned to Aiko, and I saw Aiko swallow hard.
“Master Rilen, I will try not to ask for her favor again. Not if Master Dorian is this angry. I just need time and direction to find someone willing—”
Rilen stepped into him, grabbed his chin, and silenced him with a hard kiss.
He was gone the next moment.
Chapter Nine
GWYNNORE
I groaned under my breathas my eyes started to open. I blinked hard, my thoughts muddled in the subdued sunlight poking at my blue peepers. Red velvet tickled my cheeks and caught on my long eyelashes. My brows shot together. I shook my head hard and tried to sit up—my last memories starting to unravel in my mind.
I had been kidnapped.
I was still in a bag.
And a train whistle flirted with my eardrums.
Apparently, I had been moved from the wagon to a locomotive if the shuddering vibration under my palms was any indication. I released my claws, more than happy they were working properly again, and carefully began to cut myself free of my confinement—staying as silent as I could, still incredibly dizzy.
I poked my head out of the bag.
Blurry vision assaulted me. I squinted hard.
Two individuals sat with their backs to me. One was sleeping with his head falling to the side, a small snore slipping from the man. The other person was staring out the train window, trees passing by at a decent clip.
I liked my odds—if only I could see correctly.
I grabbed for my guns…but they weren’t there.
Fuck.That was right.
My captor had disarmed me.
Perhaps, I didn’t like my odds.
I would need to run in my addled state.
I…kind of…wished I hadn’t taken the necklace off. I would never tell King Belshazzar that, though. I would quietly take it back from him, clip it back on, never to be removed again. I didn’t particularly enjoy being kidnapped.
I shimmied the bag over my shoulders, catching it gently as it fell, lest the heavy fabric thump on the ground. I curled my body up, slid my legs out of it and turned silently on my hands and knees.
I crawled with delicate movements, shaking my head again and again as I tried to clear my vision, toward the back of the train cart—where a beautiful door was located. It would be a bumpy fall, but my ass was jumping off this train pronto. If my captors wished to follow, my claws would be waiting for their necks as they landed.
