10. Briar
brIAR
A hiss interrupts the heavy silence.
I freeze, every muscle going taut, as a mist curls from the vents overhead.
My chest squeezes and my body locks up. No . Not again.
It pours down the walls in lazy spirals, pooling across the floor like a living thing reaching for me.
The last time mist touched me, it melted my skin from my bones and dragged me under for a week.
“Stop!” My fists slam the barrier, frantic, and useless as no one moves to save me. “Don’t–don’t!”
The mist swirls up around me. My lungs clamp down as I hold my breath, starving for air that won’t poison me.
On the other side of the glass, two figures stand stiff and silent. Callum. Elias. Their shoulders squared, hands tucked neatly behind their backs. Not a twitch. Not a glance.
Perfect little guards.
They make me fucking sick.
A third shape is suddenly there, staring at me as the mist begins to obscure my vision. He’s taller and broader than the brothers, but still as stone, like them. A gold chain catches the light against the hollow of his throat.
My eyes begin to feel heavy as I try to lock onto his face, but all I notice are his eyes. Dark brown and unblinking, following me as I slide down against the glass, curling into a ball.
The mist thickens until I can’t see any of them and I gasp once. And then a second time.
“Stop, please!” The words rip from my throat, thin and broken as I inhale the mist.
Through my panic, I briefly note that I don’t feel any pain, just an overwhelming exhaustion seeping through my entire body.
My vision blurs and the sounds around me seem to echo as I struggle to fixate on them.
The barrier releases with a hiss after the mist is sucked out of the room, disappearing back through the vents in the ceiling. A rush of cold air rolls across my bare skin, and then he’s there.
The newcomer steps through without hesitation.
His arms scoop beneath me, and suddenly I’m airborne, swung up against a chest so solid it might as well be carved from stone.
My head lolls uselessly, cheek pressed into the heat of him.
The mist has stripped the fight clean out of me, leaving me limp and trembling in his hold.
I should hate every second of it, but the scent that clings to him slips in anyway, spicy and grounding.
He carries me like I weigh nothing. His chest is all hard planes beneath the thin stretch of his shirt, and I can feel the steady rise and fall of his breathing. My eyes snag on the small gold chain at his throat, the only flash of color against the white world blurring past.
Ridiculous and reminding me of the image of what I thought a guy in the mob would have, maybe, but I like it. A small piece of personality attached to the all black cargo pants and shirts the brothers and him wear.
Maybe a small act of defiance from him, or maybe it’s just the only thing I can manage to focus on pressed against his chest.
I try to lift my head, to track the path through this place, but my body refuses me. My skull tips back against him no matter how I fight it. All I catch are fleeting pieces of shining chrome fixtures, the gleam of seemingly endless sterile floors, and the blur of light above us.
There are footsteps behind us and I manage to glance over the enormous shoulder propping my head up.
Callum and Elias.
Their presence scratches along my freshly healed skin and I let my eyes fall back to the gold chain, not wanting to give them a second more of my effort.
The words tumble out of me before I can stop them, thick and bitter.
“Pussies,” I mutter into his neck, the words feeling like sludge to my heavy tongue. “They’re lucky I can’t…beat their asses right now.”
For the briefest moment, I think I hear a low rumble deep from the body holding me.
Not words or a breath, but a…chuckle?
My lashes drag open, my sluggish gaze tipping up to catch his face. Sharp jaw, dark eyes, mouth cut into an unyielding line. Blank and empty as if he’s never made a sound in his life.
The chain at his throat glints once in the light, mocking me, and I can’t tell if the laugh was real or if the fog inside me has started to invent kindness where there isn’t any.
The stranger doesn’t slow. His stride is steady and unbothered, as if carrying me is no different than carrying a sack of flour. The rhythm of his boots echoes down the corridor, and every step thuds through my fog-soaked brain.
When he finally stops, the silence is somehow worse, causing anxiety to bubble up in its wake.
A biting cold seeps into me as I’m lowered onto a metal table. The surface pebbles my skin, stealing any warmth out of me, and sinking into my spine until I’m left shivering. Somehow the stark temperature change helps me focus, though, shocking me from the warm haze.
I watch the man who carried me move without hesitation, guiding my wrists to waiting metal cuffs.
They close with sharp mechanical snaps, one after the other.
Despite my mind feeling slightly less fuzzy, my body refuses to answer my plea to resist. My ankles follow, legs pinned with metal biting into tender skin.
Footsteps join the silence, slow and unhurried as they track closer to me.
Their uncle’s presence fills the space suddenly, his fingers trailing across the metal restraints.
“This alloy,” he croons, rapping his knuckles against the cuff biting my wrist. The sound rings through my bones. “Meticulously tested. Years of trial, error, and expense. Vampires are durable, annoyingly strong monsters. But this,” another tap, “this you won’t break.”
The words crawl under my skin as I picture how many vampires he’s held captive and harmed to get to this point. Did they deserve it?
The answer isn’t as cut and dry as I’d like.
I can admit there used to be strays that left our realm, tempted by the taste of human blood before the travel between realms was tightened.
Once here, they turned humans at will, creating an infestation.
I’m not blind to the reason hunters came about in this realm and the slayers in our own.
But ever since safety regulations were tightened and my parents united the slayers and vampires in Sanguis, we’ve paved a path toward peace.
A peace this man and whatever this organization is clearly wants to dismantle.
Heat stirs in my veins, searing through the chemical fog. My vision sharpens with its usual strength, noting the gleam of his cufflinks and the smudge of blood on his white sleeve.
So, I’m not his first victim of the day.
My muscles twitch, then seize, fighting before I’ve even decided to.
I jerk against the metal restraints, ignoring the pain of them biting into my tender, new flesh.
“She’s already fighting through the sedative.” His voice is suddenly pitched higher, the smoothness breaking for just a breath, showing me his fear of me beneath the facade. Pale blue eyes widen and I note the way his pupils dilate and his throat bobs. “Secure her head.”
The silent guard obeys, locking down a metal collar at my neck. The collar forces my chin up until I’m staring into those dark brown eyes. His gaze quickly jerks away as he pulls back, disappearing from sight and leaving me with the man running the show.
I know whatever comes next can’t be good.
A desperate laugh claws its way out of me as I note any trace of panic is suddenly gone from their uncle. His gaze is sharp and sure of himself once more.
“How do you manage to think yourself superior when you need all this?” My voice shakes at the unknown of what comes next, but I let the venom I feel pour through the cracks. “Sedative mist and metal restraints. Without them you wouldn’t last two seconds against me and you know it.”
His eyes narrow and I bare my fangs, refusing to fall to silent under the weight of his stare. “You’re a small, small man, and when I have the chance to break you, it’s your ego I’ll enjoy shattering first.”
He forces a smile to his tight lips, but I see the small fissure in it, the faint quiver of his jaw where I’ve hit a nerve. He doesn’t rage or snap like I anticipated, though.
“Up,” he murmurs to the room.
The word is quiet, but it sets the machinery to life beneath me. The table groans and tilts, rising slowly and dragging me upright with it. My stomach lurches as gravity shifts. My shoulders pull taut and my neck strains against the press of the collar I can’t escape.
White light shines from above, merciless in the clarity it provides me of what’s about to occur.
Blades gleam from a tray, lined in perfect rows. Hooks, clamps, and other steel instruments I don’t know the names for.
My pulse stutters as I try to prepare myself mentally. I’m left grasping at straws, unsure of how the hell to do that.
I’ve never had to look torture in the face and smile at it before.
The metal tightens at my throat with every uneven breath, reminding me of what little movement I have left.
He steps into my line of sight again, his eyes drinking me in the way someone admires a vintage wine bottle. The exact way he looked at me from inside that SUV.
How the hell had he been able to decipher what I am that easily?
A shiver rolls through me, but I force my chin higher.
“You think all this makes you untouchable,” I rasp out, low and steady, “but without your toys you’re nothing. All of this? It doesn’t make you powerful. It makes you pathetic. You’re as small as an ant and ants get crushed.”
My bravado fills the air between us, but inside my body, fear uncoils.
Yet my chin stays lifted and my stare just as sharp as his. I will not let him see it. I will not give him that.
I wrench my gaze off him and turn my head as much as I can to try to find an exit. Instead I find Callum and Elias standing with folded arms against their chests next to the door, eyes fixated on the space behind me.