“There’s also the matter of your name.”
He frowned.“What about it?”
“Drake is another name for dragon.”
“It’s also the name of the male duck,” Ranulf derided.
Wallis’s face darkened angrily.“Don’t try and fuck with me!I know who you are.I knowwhatyou are.”
Ranulf sensed Sephie’s questioning gaze on him as Wallis repeated the same words she’d said earlier, but in her case, they had been a question.“If you truly know what you’re talking about, then you must also be aware of how much danger you are currently in for daring to threaten my brothers and me.”
“Not when I have the Malcolms and their beautiful daughter as collateral.”
Ranulf could feel his dragon’s rage deepening.
He was angry too, furious, in fact, that this bastard even dared to breathe the same air as Sephie.The fact that he had hit her, touched her, was touching her still, made Ranulf want to rip the man’s throat open and watch as the life bled out of him.
Knowing that their plan was for Ranulf to keep this man talking was one thing; carrying out that endeavor without giving in to the increasing rage he felt to end this man was something else entirely.
At this point, the only thing holding him back from doing exactly that was the threat to Sephie’s parents.
What he really wanted to do was move with his preternatural speed, release Sephie, and cut Wallis’s throat with his talons.
The man’s thumb hovering threateningly over the red detonator button prevented him from doing any of those things.Because Wallis was right—if anything happened to Sephie’s parents because of him, she would never forgive him.
He also believed that his brothers, and Belle and Zoey, deserved to see that justice was served for the lives Wallis had taken.
“And in exchange for their safe release, you want us to…?”Ranulf encouraged the other man to keep talking.
Wallis smiled.“I want you to give me as much of your treasure as I can carry away from here in a helicopter.”Behind his glasses, his eyes glittered with the fervor of the true fanatic that he undoubtedly was.“Nothing second-rate, but the very best of the gold and jewels the three of you bastards have been accumulating and hiding for centuries!”
* * *
What the hell did Ranulf think he was doing?
The tape across her mouth prevented Sephie from speaking, so instead she had to scream her protests inside her head.
Her parents, all of their lives, depended on their complete compliance.Instead, Ranulf was angering Wallis so much that he looked more than ready to press the red button and blow up the inn with her parents inside.
Also, what on earth did Wallis mean by “I want you to give me the treasure, the best of the gold and jewels the three of you have been hiding forcenturies”?
She had already known Edgar Wallis’s mental state was deteriorating quickly when she had returned to the inn and he had punched her in the face for not doing exactly as he had told her to: namely, delivering the letter to Ranulf and immediately returning to the inn.She was not supposed to have engaged in conversation with him.
Wallis began muttering to himself as he pulled Sephie to her feet and then tied her to another chair.He then slapped a strip of tape over her bleeding mouth before going down to the cellar for her mother.
Her mother, like her father, was still only wearing her nightclothes.Her face, after spending several hours in the cellar not knowing what was going on above her, was deathly pale, her hair tousled.But her gaze brightened with relief when she saw her husband and Sephie were safe, even if they were also both tied to chairs.
Wallis didn’t speak to any of them as he then untied her father and, keeping that gun trained on both her parents, gave them a bathroom break before once again securing them to the two chairs opposite Sephie.
As far as Sephie knew, her parents hadn’t had anything to drink or eat since yesterday.No wonder their faces were so ashen.But with tape over all their mouths, Sephie wasn’t able to say anything to reassure them.
Reassurethem?
Of what?
That they would all be safe?
That Ranulf would rescue them?
