Chapter 8 #2
If only I could lower my hands. I’d grab the gun out of my boot and blast a hole right through that perfect smug smile of hers. But since Lash’s hold on my leash was as unforgiving as ever, that plan still had to wait.
So instead, I just let out a caustic laugh.
“Now who’s the liar?” I said. “We both know you’re going to kill me eventually. So what reason do I have to make your life easier?”
“Aren’t you a brave one?” Nelissa said, her eyes widening as her perfect brows arched up in surprise. “Though I’m curious to see how long that courage will last once I start peeling off your skin with my claws.”
Her eyes sparkled with cruel delight as she slowly raised her hand to the side of my face.
I did my best to meet her stare, swallowing down my fear as razor-sharp points started extending out from her nail beds.
I hissed in pain as one of the tips pierced the skin near my temple.
A warm trickle of blood started down my cheek before I could snap my face away.
“That’s what I thought,” Nelissa mocked me with a satisfied laugh before hooking another equally sharp nail under my chin.
But before she could stick me with that one, Lash yanked on the tether attached to my wrist, jolting me to the side and away from the woman’s claws.
Nelissa didn’t look happy to have her new toy snatched away. She slowly lifted her cold green eyes, piercing the alpha with a critical stare. “I wasn’t done with her, Lash.”
“Apologies, Lykaon. I didn’t know you planned to begin her interrogation now. I assumed you’d want her sealed up for the rest of the night,” he said, before quickly adding, “so you can get back to bed.”
Nelissa’s sharp gaze flicked from Lash to me and back again, the corners of her eyes crinkling with suspicion. “That’s very considerate, Lash,” she noted. “And very unlike you.”
Damn. Apparently, even his own people thought he was an asshole.
But if Lash was offended, it didn’t show. His eyes didn’t narrow. His jaw didn’t twitch. His flat, unconcerned expression stayed steady.
“This kirre has been a thorn in my side for hours now,” he answered. “I’m ready to be rid of her and find my own bed.”
To my eye, Nelissa didn’t look totally convinced, but after a moment, she reluctantly nodded in agreement.
“Take her to the hold and have Silvan keep watch over her for the rest of the night. Tell him I’ll be there at daybreak to finish with her.”
Lash nodded, already tugging at the belt attached to my wrists.
Despite the pain rushing through my limbs, I somehow managed to pull back my shoulders and shoot the bitch one last defiant stare. Not that it did me any good. The corners of Nelissa’s mouth only pulled up higher as I stumbled behind him.
“And Lash,” Nelissa said, stopping us before we could leave.
“Yes, Lykaon?”
“Since you’ve come to know this kirre so well, I’d like your help with her interrogation tomorrow,” she said. “That won’t be a problem, will it?”
The leather leash shook with tension between us—the first sign of unease I’d seen from him since we’d walked into the tent. “Of course, not.”
“Good.” Sounding satisfied, Nelissa pulled back the curtain that hid her bed—the only warm and comfortable one in the entire camp. “Then I will see you both at sunrise.”
Lash didn’t look back as he led me back out into the dark night. I didn’t ask where he was taking me. Both of us were too worn down to argue as he marched a path away from the camp. Too physically and emotionally drained to do anything more than surrender to the inevitable.
Still, I was a little surprised when about a quarter mile later, the trail we were on came to a dead end against a sheer, rocky cliff. A single worn lean-to was propped against its side. Lash nudged the sleeping alpha underneath it awake with his boot.
“Silvan, get up,” he demanded, his usually booming voice oddly flat.
“What the—?” The alpha snapped his head off the ground. But the instant his tired eyes focused on Lash, he plopped it right back down again. “What do you want?”
“I have a prisoner for the hold,” Lash answered.
But the other alpha didn’t seem to care.
“So?” Clutching the corner of a deerskin blanket, he rolled over, turning his back to us. “The cave’s right there. Toss her in yourself.”
I looked over my shoulder to see a narrow opening in the side of the cliffside, just barely big enough for an alpha to slip through sideways. That was where they kept their prisoners? Encased in cold, dark granite? It was barbaric.
But it also made a strange kind of sense. What else was strong enough to hold an alpha? I’d watched Lash break a tree in half with a single blow. Someone like him could tear through a conventional holding cell in seconds. It only made sense that it would take a literal mountain to contain him.
Still, for a prisoner like me, it was the definition of overkill.
A shudder ran down the length of my spine as I realized I’d be spending the last few hours of my life alone in that cold, pitch-black, claustrophobic space.