Chapter 14 Treacherous
TREACHEROUS
Rin held her phone between cold, trembling fingers as she typed out a text to Lucien:
Hey. I’m sorry. My phone died.
She drew in a sharp breath when Valkar’s shoulder nudged hers as he sat beside her on the bed. He was watching her every word, monitoring her, just as he had said he would.
Lucien had called and messaged endlessly.
She’d slept for hours, and her eyes had grown wide when she saw the time and day displayed on her phone screen.
She had been in Valkar’s hold for over twenty-four hours.
He had burst into Scourge Motel in that strange time between morning and night and taken her and Cyrus both.
Between the moment he first drugged her and the time she’d rested after her episode, a full day had passed.
It was morning now, the lamp casting a soft glow on the two males crowding her on the small bed.
She bit her lip, tapping the side of her blood-speckled phone case, as bubbles popped up as Lucien typed a reply. As if he’d been waiting, with their chat already open.
Vesperin Vox, the message read.
She winced, and Cyrus smiled against her shoulder, his cheek nuzzling her. All it took was her name, and she felt herself shrinking back as if scolded.
Lucien’s contact photo flashed on her phone. The sudden ringtone made her nearly drop it, and Valkar’s hand landed on her shoulder.
Rin turned her head, staring at the vampire.
"Take the call," Valkar said. "But watch what you say, wife. Just because we’re allies now doesn’t mean shit."
Rin’s finger hovered over the accept call button, but just before she clicked it, Valkar spoke again. "Put it on speaker."
She answered the phone and placed it on speaker, laying it on her lap, with the two dangerous, immortal males anchored on either side of her, while the very mortal Lucien listened on the other end, none the wiser.
"It’s been a day, and all you have to say is, I’m sorry?" Lucien snapped. "Vesperin, I’ve been worried sick over you. I was minutes away from forgoing everything to come find you, and you say your phone died?"
She hated the lies she’d told him, but the truth was even more dangerous. She wanted to trust him—she really did.
"I—" Rin closed her mouth, unable to think of something to say. Anything. All she wanted was to scream for help and cry for understanding.
Valkar’s fingers tightened on the soft, vulnerable spot where her neck met her shoulder.
She couldn’t do any of that. "Lucien," she whispered, so aware of Cyrus’s eyes on her.
He had never seen her interact with Lucien directly, had only heard through the crack under the door, or second-hand stories of the man who had lifted her shattered pieces from the ground and glued them back together with golden adhesive.
Something in her voice made Lucien pause, and that soft tone she loved so much—the one he’d used when he whispered praises into her ear as he made her come undone—filtered through the phone’s speaker. "Vesperin, did something happen? Are you okay, sweet girl?"
Her lower lip trembled, and she scratched a nail over the dried blood on her shirt. "I’m fine." Her voice wavered. "I’m just tired. And I, um, miss Kit." It was the only thing she could think of saying that would make the wobble in her voice understandable.
"My V girl, I’m so sorry. I wish I could be there for you. God…"
Rin sniffled. "It’s okay." It wasn’t. "I miss you, too."
"When do you think you’ll be able to come home?" Lucien asked, his voice strained with held-back, concerned anger.
Her eyes met Valkar’s, and her words stalled. She had made a bargain, and she had to meet it—for answers. She wouldn’t go home until she knew the arms she fell into weren’t those of a villain.
Besides, she was in no state to drive home, regardless.
Her eyes burned with exhaustion, and her head pounded with the remnants of her episode—they had always taken a lot out of her.
Combined with the gas the vampire had thrown into the motel room.
Just the memory made her wrinkle her nose—the sour fog had clung to her lungs, burning no matter how hard she’d tried to breathe it out.
"Soon. I should know more in the next few days. Hours, I hope." Rin’s focus was ensnared by Valkar, and it was like she was speaking to him instead. "As soon as I know more, I’ll call you. Promise."
"You better," Lucien replied. "If I don’t hear from you…" The threat trailed off.
"You will," she vowed, staring into Valkar’s eyes. If I don’t get killed first, she finished in her mind.
His rough exhale filtered through the speaker. "Vesperin, please take care of yourself. I lo—I’ll be waiting for your call."
"Bye, Lucien," she whispered, taking a deep breath of her own.
He murmured a goodbye, and the phone beeped as the call disconnected.
Valkar held out a hand. "Phone."
Rin wrapped her fingers around it, unwilling to let it go. "I’m not going to tell anyone, Valkar. If I were going to, I’d have done it by now. All I had to do was scream, just one word, and Lucien would’ve known something was wrong, and he’d come for me," she said.
He didn’t retract his hand. "The same man you think is illegally experimenting on Aetherborns? You put your trust in him easily, considering."
"You know nothing," she seethed. "I would bet my life that he’s not behind this. He’s being used. I’m sure of it."
And she was. More than she had ever been sure of anything.
There was no way the man on the phone who spoke so quietly to her, every word dripping with care, could hurt someone else.
And the notes… My V girl. Only the second time he’d called her that in person, but it meant something.
He cared for her, maybe deeper and longer than she had ever known.
From her side, Cyrus tapped the tip of her nose, making her flinch back. "Don’t bet your life. It’s not yours to bet, anyway. I believe you, Ves."
At the very least, she had Cyrus in her corner.
"That’s enough. Give me the phone. I’ll let you have it back to check in with your keeper," Valkar drawled.
"I don’t have a keeper," Rin retorted, but didn’t she?
The vampire arched a brow, red eyes lazily drifting to Cyrus, who was curled around her body like a large cat. Maybe she had more than one.
"Here," she said, handing the phone to him—might as well choose her battles.
Valkar pocketed her phone, standing from the bed and going to the small table in the corner.
A glass of water sat near the lamp, and he held it out to her.
"I’ll send some of my people out to do recon on LunCo and get some information," he supplied.
"It might take a few hours—even a day." He held up a hand when she started to protest. "They’ll go as fast as they can.
LunCo has been hard as fuck to crack." His lips twitched with a smile.
"And they’re dealing with a little… issue right now, so it might be just the perfect time to pick up a straggler for questioning. "
"You’re not going to torture anyone, are you?" Rin was only just realizing what asking the vampire to find information might entail.
"How else do you expect me to get information? Hold their hands and ask nicely? Maybe take them out to dinner first? Fuck that. Everyone there is culpable. They know what they signed up for when they worked with LunCo. These are traffickers. Not goddamn workers with fucking happy families."
He was wrong. Some of them did have families, but that didn’t mean they didn’t know what went on in LunCo.
"Don’t tell me, then. I don’t want to know." Rin’s chin lifted as she stared up at him, wrapping her hands around the lukewarm glass of water.
"Deal."
Cyrus tapped the side, urging her to drink. "You need to hydrate, Ves. Drink up." He wrapped his hand around hers, forcing her to lift the glass and drink.
It was awkward, and she spluttered when he tipped it back too far, pressing the glass against her bottom lip, water dribbling from the corners of her mouth. She pinched his thigh to make him stop, and his pleased hum reverberated through her as he tugged the glass back.
Rin roughly wiped the back of her hand over her mouth, finding Valkar and Cyrus both staring at her with heated eyes. "What now?" she asked, searching for anything to dispel the tension in the air.
"Sleep." Valkar settled back against the chair next to the bed, crossing one leg over his knee as his arms splayed out against the armrests, getting comfortable. "I’ll wake you at dusk, and we can work on fulfilling your end of the bargain."
It was Cyrus who questioned, "Dusk?"
Valkar tugged his phone out of the side pocket of his leather jacket, his rings shining. He glanced up, the low light from his phone casting shadows on his severe features. "Most of us are vampires here. We work at night."
"What about… the other room?" Rin remembered the room she had first woken up in. She didn’t want to go back there, with the bloodstained sheets and empty drawers.
Fangs gleamed in the blue light from the vampire’s phone screen. "That was my room."
"Oh."
Where had all his possessions been, then? For a crime lord with many riches, Rin assumed, he had next to nothing. Except the jeweled hairpin…
"Sleep," Valkar repeated.
Cyrus took the glass from her and shifted until he was hanging off the side of the bed, his shirt falling to hook beneath his arms, revealing his pale stomach, as he placed it on the floor.
"I could’ve put it on the table," Valkar said slowly, eyes lingering on how comfortable Cyrus was with her.
Cyrus sat back up, red hair falling into his eyes. "Here, Ves, scoot down. Let me hold you."
The incubus moved her, even with all her half-hearted protests, warily watching Valkar as she lay down on the bed. Cyrus tugged the thin sheet up to her chest, ensuring she was completely covered, leaving him with a tiny strip of blankets.
A yawn threatened to crack her jaw as she let herself find comfort in Cyrus’s arms. He was on one side, wrapping around her, and just a few feet away, Valkar sat, watching her.