“We have to get him down.” Roger stepped into the room. He tugged on a wire, and it pulled taut against Dmitri. The sizzle of skin started immediately, and Dmitri cried out, jostling into other strands. Instantly, Roger let go. In order to break it from the wall, he’d have to use more force, which would increase its tension against Dmitri. “Tell me one of you thought to bring wire cutters.”
Amber slipped her backpack off her shoulders and dug into it.
Thomas had his enchanted blade in one hand and a stake in the other. He examined the room. “Is this Takashi?”
“No,” Roger said.
“Then we need to move. Amber?—”
The rage inside Roger whipped into a violent storm, and he grabbed Thomas roughly and shoved him against the wall. A note of thunder rolled into his voice. “We are not leaving him.”
Sternness filled Thomas’s eyes, the kind that came from having to make life and death calculations too many times. “We don’t have the resources to rescue inconsequential?—”
“That is Dmitri, he who has been by my side longer than anyone else on this Earth. That is the man who has kept me sane, though I have never been able to do the same for him,” Roger snarled. “If you need atacticalreason, he has been in charge of Seamus’s finances for over a hundred years. He has a wealth of knowledge that I am sure he wouldloveto share with hunters.”
During Roger’s speech, the soft sound of snips of metal began. Amber continued cutting away the silver as she said, “Also, this is too fucked-up to not do something, Dad. And we don’t have time to argue.”
Concern entered Thomas’s expression before Roger mentioned Dmitri’s knowledge. Upon his daughter’s words, Thomas made a gesture. That tiny flick of movement brought Roger’s attention to what was going on beyond them. Cal had the shotgun aimed at them, likely not taking any shot so he wouldn’t wind up shooting his own father, but clearly prepared to blast them both if he had to. He glared intently at Roger before nodding to his father and carrying on down the hall.
“We’ll keep searching,” Thomas said. “Work fast.”
Roger nodded and released Thomas. He stepped back into the room. Amber had dismantled enough of the wires that hecould approach Dmitri. Using an abundance of caution, he did so. Gently, he cupped his face. “Dmitri, it’s me.”
Dmitri lifted his head. His dark eyes were layered with rings of exhaustion and dried bloody tears. His voice broke with pain as he asked, “Roger?”
“Yes, sweetheart.” Roger looked for a mechanism to lower him from the ceiling, but it was through more wire. He pointed it out to Amber.
“I know,” she murmured under her breath and kept cutting. Roger was about to tell her to hurry, but he noticed that she wasn’t dawdling in how she cut the silver. She was taking a few extra seconds between snips because she was ensuring that whatever she cut next wouldn’t whiplash across the room and hurt Dmitri.
“I’m going to get you out of here,” Roger whispered.
Dmitri began to cry. Fresh, bloody tears coated the old ones.
“I love it when I’m right,” Anton said with a joyful sigh.
Roger spun. The shadows in the corner of the room thickened, and Anton walked out of them as if he were walking through a door. He was pale as white marble, his eyes were deep red, and his platinum hair was tied back for a change. He dropped the jacket of his pinstripe black three-piece suit and began to roll the sleeves of his white dress shirt.
“I told Seamus that Josefina’s visit was terribly convenient, but he insisted that we both go meet her. Luckily, I had alarms set on my favorite toy.” Anton grinned wickedly.
Dmitri whimpered, and the overwhelming anxiety pouring from him sparked a chain of lightning into the impending storm of Roger’s rage.
Relying on every ounce of speed he had, Roger grasped one of the silver threads hanging loose in the room and weaved through the remaining strands in his way. Anton started to extend shadowy tendrils to catch him, but he countered by usinghis own shadow as a blade against them. He wrapped the thread around Anton’s throat.
Anton managed to get his hand between his throat and the wire. The bastard was laughing.
Cutting off his hand would work. Roger pulled as tight as he could, even as Anton attempted to yank the wire free. With effort, Roger managed to wrap the wire around a second time. He shoved Anton against the wall and hissed in his face.
Desire oozed from Anton, a sickeningly thick sensation against Roger’s mental shields. He murmured, “You’ve always been pretty, but now you’re fucking hot.”
“Fucking die,” Roger snapped.
“We have the wrong energy going here.” Anton’s dark red eyes flared a brighter red.
That thick, invisible, mucus-like desire crept over Roger, but he had long known where his own wants lay. He had manipulated other’s emotions with the same power Anton was wielding.
And he had a burning wish for vengeance. He pulled that into a mental wall so thick that Anton’s attempt to control him slithered off.
Anton’s smile turned slyer, and he rolled up against Roger. He purred, “Honestly, this way is hotter. It’s been a while since I’ve wanted a spanking, but you have me yearning for all kinds of nasty punishments.”
