“Finally,” a sing-song voice said from the corner of the room. “You’ve been hobbled.”
Jezebel.
The two guards muscled him around to face her, and Killian glared, wishing he’d thought to ward the hotel room the previous night.
“Delphine didn’t call you here, Killian. Thea did.” Jezebel stepped close enough Killian could smell her perfume, something floral and harsh. “It seems she and I had a common enemy in you.”
“What did I ever do to her?” His words came out garbled and unintelligible, but Jezebel appeared to understand him. With a laugh, she cupped his cheek, then reared back and slapped him, hard.
“The werewolf you killed? He was a dear friend of hers.” After a pause, she shook her head. “Don’t look at me like that, murderer. I knew nothing of Thea’s plan and I was cursed along with the rest of you. My heart is gone. I feel nothing but anger now. Before, I might have gone easy on you. Not now.”
“For every moment you do spend, bound in iron to the end, you will suffer endless pain, find no rest, from sleep abstain. Until you wish to leave this life, for which you’ll beg me for the right.”
Dark wisps of magic curled from Jezebel’s fingers and wound around Killian’s throat, all along his chest, and down his arms and legs. Fire and ice warred for dominance inside of him, each burning in their own way, and his knees buckled as tears burned his eyes.
Please, he begged his enemy as the men dragged him from the room and down three flights of stairs to the mansion’s basement, past an open crypt, and through another heavy wooden door to the dungeon.
In the third cell, they bound him to a horizontal iron rack, his arms over his head, his ankles locked in heavy manacles. When one of them turned a crank, his entire body stretched, and he groaned as the pain worsened, each breath more difficult than the last.
“The High Priestess will return for you this evening,” one of them said as he slammed the iron bars and locked Killian’s cell. “If you last that long.”
Bound, spelled, and with a pile of celestial sand in the pocket of his trousers, Killian screamed obscenities at them through the gag, but the two of them only laughed as they left him alone.
Fuck. What was he supposed to do now?
C H A P T E R S I X
MADDOX
H e had to be seeing things. Or…not seeing things. Killian had just vanished before his eyes. With the vial. Where he’d once stood, only his scent lingered. His phone still rattled on the floor where he dropped it.
Maddox scanned the room. Killian’s wallet rested on the nightstand. If there were ever a time to pry… Maddox flipped open the billfold and pulled out Killian’s driver’s license.
“England?” Well, that explained the accent. The very sexy, very addictive accent. As he rifled through the rest of the wallet, he found a couple of credit cards, a handful of bills—British and American money, he thought—and a folded image. Saying a silent apology for the invasion, Maddox spread the picture out on the bed.
Two young men stared back at him from in front of a darkened hearth. One, obviously Killian, and the other, well, he was perfection preserved in technicolor. Long, wavy brown hair, piercing green eyes, a strong jaw. Muscular, with his arm around Killian in a way that was definitely more than friendly. Despite how happy the two looked, when Maddox dragged his fingers over Killian’s smiling face, an intense wave of sadness hit him. Regret. Pain.
He couldn’t invade Killian’s privacy any more than he already had, so he folded up the picture and tucked it back into the man’s wallet.
“Don’t leave…”
Killian had been clear about his wishes. Not his reasons. And from the look on his face, he hadn’t wanted to be summoned. Was Maddox in danger if he stayed? He couldn’t simply wait around for the witches to come for him. And if they had summoned Killian, it wouldn’t be long before Killian told them Maddox had stolen the vial.
Maddox glanced down at his shirt on the end of the bed. Bloodied and ripped in several places. His pants were stained with dirt. He couldn’t go out like this. Killian was taller and thinner than he was, but perhaps…something in the closet would fit him?
He had to find the witch. And the vial. He prayed the talisman Azrael had given him would still let him back into the celestial realm. He’d already missed his appointed time to return. But he knew one thing for certain. If he did not return with the sand—his immortal life would be over, and he, like his brother, would be banished forever.
AFTER A COLD SHOWER TO help shake off the last bits of his broken sleep and injuries, Maddox stood naked in front of the closet. His various bruises and mending bones still pained him, but they’d mostly healed overnight, and after he’d hidden his wings, Maddox found a v-neck t-shirt in deep purple that would stretch enough, he thought, and managed to get it over his head with only a minimal amount of grunting.
A pair of briefs from the dresser were snug, but not uncomfortable. The pants, on the other hand, those were a lost cause. Too tight and too long.
Shaking out his stained white trousers from the previous night, he slid them on, along with his shoes, and tucked Killian’s wallet and phone into his back pocket. First stop, somewhere that sold pants. Second? Wherever the fuck Killian had gone.
KILLIAN
Jezebel’s magic ate away at his strength. The iron burned his wrists and ankles, and he couldn’t move beyond thrashing his head about trying to remove the gag. What in the bloody hell was he supposed to do now? The dungeons were spelled, so even if he could get free from the iron manacles that dampened his power and held him down, he couldn’t use his magic.
The gag was bloody painful, though. He rubbed his head harder against the iron and wood rack, trying to loosen the damn thing, and finally, the leather cord slipped, and he was able to push the bit free so it hung around his neck instead.
