"The hell kind of servants you keep, Kane?" the robed man grumbled.
"Definitely not Mary," Kane said from somewhere behind her with a put upon sigh.
She heard a rustling just before a massive male hand, too near her, too close, dropped a red-spotted cloth. Nothing in the world was going to make her turn and look at him when he felt like a towering giant at her back.
Her mind sputtered.Hold still. Play dead. Become invisible.She wasn't moving, but her body locked down, her breathing too rapid.
She felt heat at the back of her eyes. Tears. Tears were ready to burst out of her already.
Fearful eyes slid toward the bundle Kane had deposited beside her. It was a shirt and towel, both saturated in blood. Constantine Kane had been a very active participant in the mess she had been called to clean up.
Sasha couldn’t stop the sounds gurgling out of her mouth, couldn’t make her body act like nothing was wrong. Everything in her life was falling apart–the life she promised her father she would lead was slipping from her fingers before it even started.
She had been so stupid to come here.
Clean up the mess, she reminded herself. She needed to do this and get out.
A third person walked into the room, large and heavy, if his footsteps were any indication. Sasha was now surrounded by dangerous masculinity and the scent of death. Three strange alphas. Their overwhelming aggression smell saturated the room, exposing their nature. They were nothing like the drones who came to her for help, that she easily coaxed into following her orders. Nothing like the betas who taunted her breeder status, but never dared touch her. Nothing like the few alphas she had encountered.
She knew other alphas would consider Merrick young, and now she knew why. Trapped in this room with these strangers, she could compare Merrick to the three seasoned, mature males. Their indomitable will, their leashed power—especially the man known as Constantine Kane. Next to Merrick, these men were predators in their prime and the other, a puppy still chewing on shoelaces.
She'd made herself so vulnerable coming here. She felt like a rabbit surrounded by wolves.
She couldn't do this.
"Take the girl to Holding One, please."
Kane sounded bored. He knew she wasn't Mary, obviously, but what was he thinking? Was this her end? Had she risked everything to come here just to be found out the minute she walked into the room?
The heat behind her eyes leaked out, spilling down her cheeks. Those evil, treacherous tears were quickly followed by wracking sobs.
Hands clamped down on her shoulders, lifting her as easily as if she were a child's toy. Her legs were weak, vision blurred by her tears. She didn’t dare lift her head and couldn’t move for the fear.
As though he’d realized asking her to walk would be a fool's errand, Sasha found herself tossed over a man’s shoulder like a sack of potatoes.
"You never fail to entertain a guest, Kane," the administrator’s voice dripped with condescension.
"And send the right Mary this time," Kane said.
*
Holding One turned out to be a concrete room with a big drain in the floor and chains hanging from bars too high for her to reach.
A torture chamber.
Kane's man said not a word to Sasha.He did exactly as he had been told. He put her in the room, then closed and locked the door.
He could have tried to touch her. Rape her. Made disgusting remarks and vile threats. Instead he obeyed his orders like a well-trained soldier, and that filled her with more fear than if he had not.
What kind of male was Constantine Kane that other alphas obeyed him without question?
The kind of alpha warlord she hadn't even been able to look at.
Sasha always thought herself strong. She thought she was a fighter. Merrick always called her a defiant little bitch who didn't know her place in the world. But even when he threatened her with so much misery, she always felt she would survive somehow. She was sure of it.
But now? Constantine Kane was a murderer unlike any male Sasha had ever encountered. She didn't know how she was going to convince someone like that to help her. It seemed a reasonable plan, up until she walked into his office and was directed to clean up brain matter.
So much blood.
