Page 102 of No One’s Daughter

I felt locked in place, unable to breathe. “She really is quite the specimen. I can see why you tried to keep her to yourself.”

​Up close, it was impossible to ignore his looks, he looked like a fucking Greek God. He smiled, slow and deliberate, the sharp tips of his fangs catching in the light and reached out a hand, stopping just a hair’s breadth away from my face. For a moment, I thought he might touch me. Instead, he pinned me with his terrifying gaze.

​My body locked. Every instinct screamed at me to move, to run, to do something. But I couldn’t even breathe properly, my lungs refusing to cooperate as the sound of my own heartbeat thundered in my ears.

​“Get the fuck away from me.”

​“If only I could,” he sighed, pausing a moment before turning away from me, bringing his attention back to Davien.

​What the fuck was that supposed to mean?

​He walked up to Davien who was still on his knees, struggling against the restraints he was now under. He brought his hand to his chin, forcing Davien to look up at him. And he studied him with a similar curiosity as he had me. “You’re not what I imagined. I’ve been watching you for a while now, and you’d always seemed so controlled, aloof… boring really. But here you are, full of vigour, ready to fight, I like it.”

​“What do you mean?” Davien asked. Had this creep watched the two of us together all this time?

​“I had left you and your little partner so many clues,” he exhaled as though he was disappointed. “But alas, you never did catch me, did you?”

​My brows scrunched together as I tried to catch up to what was going on. Marlette’s glassy eyes widened and her face paled as she tried to step back. “You’re the one we’ve been hunting since summer,” she whispered so low. I only just about picked up the words.

​“What are you?” Davien scowled.

​The man—or whatever the fuck he was—placed a hand over his heart, feigning offence. “You can’t just ask people what they are, Davien.”

​Was this related to the case Davien had been on before I appeared? I remembered the notes I’d gone through, something about unsolved murders that had been unusual.

​“I’d be offended, but then again I was placed into a forced sleep for over a millennium," he paused, letting the words really settle and the hairs on my spine rose at how still everyone went. The fear in the room was palpable. Even Davien seemed paralysed. “You may have heard of me in your bedtime stories,” he said, with the sort of self-satisfaction that made my teeth itch. “I am Besian Durnin, one of the old Princes of Arveri.”

He straightened as though the title alone should bend the room to him, as though we were all meant to drop to our knees in reverence.

I blinked at him.

“Sorry, never heard of you,” I said, my tone dry as dust. “Though I can't say I ever imagined a king doing lackey work.”

A sharp intake of breath rippled through the officers around us, their discomfort immediate and palpable, but Davien’s grin—brief, feral and completely inappropriate, given the situation—flickered in my periphery, and for some reason that only encouraged me. “Shouldn’t you… I don’t know, be lounging in your palace with someone feeding you grapes?”

Besian chuckled so earnestly that the entire situation could have been mistaken as friendly, then his voice dropped dangerously low. “Are you offering?”

“Like hell she is,” Davien snapped, answering for me, rage seeping from his every pore.

“Urgh,” Besian sighed, dusting his sleeves as though we had all become terribly tedious. “I’m bored of this now.”

​Then he clicked his fingers and everyone sprang into motion

​Everything moved at once.

​Hands grabbed me from behind, forcing my arms back before I could even think to resist. Cold metal snapped tight around my wrists, biting into skin that felt far too human, far too fragile. I twisted instinctively, but it was useless. My strength was dulled to the point where I couldn’t break free.

​Across from me, Marlette was seized just as quickly, her protests dissolving into broken sobs as cuffs were locked around her wrists as well.

​“Move,” one of them barked, shoving me forward.

​“Get your hands off—”

​A sharp shove cut me off, forcing me to stumble.

​“Don’t touch her!” Davien roared.

​I turned just in time to see them dragging him back, four—no, five—agents struggling to restrain him as he fought. A baton cracked hard against his ribs, then another blow followed, and another, but it hardly slowed him.