35. Louise
“ Y ou know, I feel like I could start one of those travel blogs about dungeons and captivity spaces,” I groan through my bloody nose and split lip before spraying a mess of blood and snot onto the white tile before me as Susan Lowry and Ed Compton stand back in disgust.
Neither of them is versed at this kind of work anymore—but you can tell that they took my little escapades on the Yacht personally; they wanted to get a few punches in before they bring the big dogs in.
Fine, let them bruise their knuckles on me. I’m not going to talk to them or the dogs.
“I could be the Tony Bourdain of torture chambers,” I laugh to myself, my right eye already half swollen shut.
“We didn’t want to do this, Louise, but you left us no choice,” Lowry tuts regretfully as she uses a small white cloth to wipe the blood off her hands.
“Sure, whatever helps you sleep at night, Suz.” I give Susan a bloody grin and a gallows laugh.
She shakes her head, as if she just can’t understand why I wouldn’t roll over for a couple of fucked up fascist’s like her and Compton.
That’s when her eye finally catches on my hand—my wrists bound in my lap—my arms bound to my sides and around the back of the chair.
I see Lowry’s eyes widen as she finally takes in the bonding bite wound.
“That’s right Susan,” I laugh slowly, the gleeful malice rising in me like an old friend.
“You and Eddy really fucked up this time. I’ve got four of the most batshit crazy vigilantes out there searching for me—architecting all sorts of ways to make you pay—to deliver you the most sublime pain that they can manage. ”
Emboldened by the pause this gives her—I press on.
“Right now they’re working on locating me through the mating bond—they’re pooling all their resources to put together a rescue mission.
They will stop at nothing until we are no longer parted.
” I don’t waver—because none of it is bluster.
I know that my bonded Saints will come for me—that they will rain retribution down upon Lowry and Compton in equal measure.
Even though I didn’t give him my bite, nor did I accept his—I know that Frank will answer my call.
Frank—who lost his first love, one of our fated mates, to an accident in the field as an FBI agent—who has been given his second chance at a fated partnership with our pack; will not let the Saints down. He won’t let me down.
“You better be prepared for the full force of the Saints and Francis Stone to come to bear.” I lift my chin high, holding fast to my pride—even though I can see a good amount of my blood draining into the metal grate at the center of the room.
I don’t want to think how much more I’ll see circle down that drain before my time here is through…
“I bet you they are, right at this very minute, planning your personal itinerary to hell—Frank is one hell of a travel agent,” I threaten—using up the last of my courage in this show of bravado.
“Is that so?” Susan’s lips curl, and something in my stomach goes cold.
“You’re the one eye fucking my bonding bite, Susan,” I snipe back.
“Is it from Frank?” She dangles the question in front of me like a cat playing with its prey.
“What do you think?” I sit back, blood dribbling from my nose down the front of my shirt; intentionally avoiding an answer to her question.
“I think not,” she grins. The loud squealing of the metal hinges on the single door in and out of the room echo behind me.
My blood runs cold as I hear the slow and deliberate footfall circle from behind me, around to my side—my bindings prohibiting me from turning to see.
“Well, if it isn’t little Lucifer,” a familiar voice purrs as a clean shaven man, with well coiffed black hair, in a pair of suit pants and a white button-down shirt, the cuffs rolled up to expose his toned forearms—approaches.
Though I’ve never seen the square angle of his jaw without a thicket of dark beard, and I’ve never seen his hair combed—much less styled carefully without a single coal-black hair out of place; there is no doubt about it. The clean-cut man before me is none other than Francis Stone.
“Welcome to the Windmill!” he beams as he leans down and takes my chin tenderly between his thumb and forefinger—his voice silky smooth and sweet as pie as he makes his vow.
“Nobody is coming to save you, Sweetheart .”
TO BE CONTINUED IN LUCIFER AND THE SAINTS, BOOK 2: ALL SAINTS DAY