That should have brought me a little bit of relief, not seeing my traitorous mate and his even worse team member. But it only made my anxiety worse.
The hallway came to a stop at a set of doors. I frowned, surprised when the stone parted to reveal the sleek interior of a metal elevator. Dante stepped in first and motioned for the guards to drag me in after.
“You really made sure you had all the comforts here,” I muttered, watching as he pressed a button. There weren’t any numbers, just symbols. The one he pressed had three curved lines overlapping.
Dante chuckled darkly, leaning against the metal wall. “I had to make sure we were prepared for anything.”
I raised a brow. “So, you installedelevators?”
“Be glad I’m not forcing you to take the stairs.” He rolled his eyes before pulling out a comms device. He kept it on a notch on his belt; I hadn’t noticed it before, but now the other objects strapped to him were far more obvious thanks to the light.
He had a gun at his hip, small, so maybe a pistol. It looked like the ones Thea and I stole when we were kidnapped. I knew how to use one of them. If I could get my hands on it…
The elevator came to a stop and dinged. Dante put the device back, walking in front of me.
Kick his legs out, I thought,drop him.
But the two Fae soldiers would prove harder to get away from. They might not actually be interested in hurting me, butif they were really brainwashed by Dante, then they would do as they were told. Dante might not want me dead, but he could still command them to break my legs.
I bit the inside of my cheek. The hallway beyond was stark white, endless. The total opposite of where they held me. There were doors made of dark metal at intervals, with what looked like comms or landline telephones beside them. I couldn’t see any other guards, so it was just me, Dante, and the two Fae soldiers.
Dante stepped out of the elevator without looking back, striding into the hallway, hands still behind his back. The guards pushed me into following, my legs only half complying. Each step felt forced, like I was walking through jelly. That didn’t stop them, though.
I gritted my teeth and kept moving without complaint, waiting to feel any brush of magic coming from the small stones embedded in the ceiling. But I felt nothing.
Shuddering, a lump forming in my throat as I tore my eyes from the witch lights to stare at Dante’s gelled hair.
He came to a stop at a door and pressed a button on the comms device beside it.How thoughtful, I thought.He knows how to knock.
A voice came through a moment later, feminine and bright, allowing him entrance into the room. Dante didn’t even bother looking over his shoulder before walking in.
The guards pushed me into action a moment later. The room we entered was sterile. White, like a hospital room. It even had a hospital bed in the corner, with a curtain around it. There were trays of surgical instruments nearby.
What the hell is he planning?I tensed, trying to push back against the hands holding me, but they thrust me into the room, slamming the door shut behind us.
A tall, thin woman appeared wearing a white lab coat and round glasses. She had on a tight black dress beneath the coat, stilettos that seemed impractical given where we were, and she clutched a tablet in both hands. The smile she gave me wasn’twarm or inviting. It was dead, like the two males either side of me.
“My King,” she greeted, almost falling to her knees in greeting. He offered her his hand, but rather than helping her stand, she rested her forehead against the top of it. She said something else, but it was too quiet to hear. Dante, however, said nothing.
She rose without issue, though I couldn’t imagine how sore my knees would be if I had to do that every time the arrogant bastard entered the room.
I turned my eyes away from the pair. There still weren’t any windows, so I had to wonder if we were underground. That would explain a lot; why no one had found anything before. And the Luna Court was so large, a lot of it wasn’t mapped due to their own stories and lore.
Dante could be anywhere, and no one would be able to find me.
“Let’s get her on the bed,” the female, drawing me out of my thoughts.
My eyes snapped back to her, and I found not just her, but Dante, watching me. “What?” I asked. “I’m not getting on there.”
The look she gave me was one of fake sympathy. “There’s a lot of work we need to do. And we cannot waste any more of our King’s time.”
“I don’t know what you’re doing, Dante, but I’m not interested,” I replied, looking to him. “Take me back to my cell or whatever. But you arenottouching me.”
Dante chuckled, while the female scowled. “This is for your own good. And Adrian’s. You don’t want to hurt my brother, do you?”
At the mention of my mate, I stopped. The fight within me became something else. Part of me wanted to struggle. To show him I wasn’t afraid.
But another wanted to know what it was Dante had planned. There was a chance he was using Adrian to keep me complacent. What were the chances of Adrian getting Dante out of his head? I had no idea what happened to him or theothers; they could still be trapped in the Old World for all I knew. They could still be in danger. Or Dante could have captured them. Brought them back here, and all of this…
