Chapter 4
I heard Grim first. Everyone had left me alone in my cage wondering how the hell I was going to get out of here. I’d lost my connection with Grim the minute Roman realized what we were doing. And it had felt like an eternity before there was movement in the hallway again.
“Hey, slow down there, big guy!”
A man’s voice shouted at my dog a second before a ball of black fur skidded to a stop outside the door and yipped when he saw me. Grim bounded toward my cage, his leg seeming to be miraculously healed already. Either that or he didn’t want to show weakness in front of our visitors.
I only recognized the two men from Grim’s memories at first. The one on the left with the shaggy hair, trimmed goatee, and tattoos covering most of his arms was the wolf.
The big white wolf who’d hurt my dog. I narrowed my eyes at him, ignoring how his muscles pushed against the tight black tee shirt or how his green eyes promised loads of mischief if we ever had any time alone.
Grim grumbled beside my cage and I sent him a silent apology for letting my libido take control.
But in all fairness, that wolf screamed sex from the moment he strutted into the room.
And the guy behind him? Holy hell, where did Roman find his workers?
I remembered him from last night. The one with the Scottish accent and wicked smile.
His wisps of light, blond hair hung free of a ball cap today, but he still had those chiseled jaw bones covered in stubble and eyes that mesmerized me the second he caught my gaze.
He winked and I blushed ten shades of red.
“Would you smell that?” the wolf said as he sucked in a huge breath of air. “Maybe I’m starting to understand why Roman wants to keep her around.”
“She is pretty, Dorian,” the blond agreed. He sauntered closer to my cage, Grim surprisingly quiet as he approached. “Is your hair natural?” he asked me with a smirk.
“Is yours?” I shot back.
“I am all natural, baby doll.” He disappeared from in front of me, and I screamed when he suddenly stood behind me inside the cage.
“What the…?” I whispered, placing a hand across my heart to hold it in my chest.
“Stop showing off, Aiden,” the wolf sighed. “I’m sure she’s not impressed.”
“What are you?” I asked, smashing myself against the iron bars and as far away from him as possible.
“What are you, Kitty Cat?” the wolf answered instead.
Aiden stepped closer to me and sniffed the air. “Not a witch,” he mused.
“I could have told you that.” I tried not to look at his mesmerizing turquoise eyes while he smelled me.
“Not fae,” he continued.
“Fae are real?” I whispered.
“Aiden, why don’t you leave her alone?” Pasha had returned and while I still hadn’t quite figured out the dynamics between all the men in this house, Aiden and Dorian gave him respect. “Katarina, I have permission to take you to your room—”
“We will take her,” Dorian cut in, smiling at me in that totally feral and totally sexy way. I squeezed my legs to stop the rush of attraction from hitting me again.
Pasha shook his head and then focused on Aiden, still standing beside me in the cage. “Aiden, how did you get in there?”
He flicked the bars a couple of times. “Not real iron.” He bent forward and whispered in my ear like we had a special secret between us. “Made of steel. Harmless to the fae.” The hot breath sent shivers to my core, and I swear I heard Grim whimper as a way to beg me to protect my thoughts better.
How embarrassing.
Aiden pulled back, a wicked grin on his face. He licked his lips and let his gaze travel down to my cleavage. “Whatever you are, little cat, it’s working.”
“What…what do you mean by that?” I asked an empty space in front of me. Aiden had transferred, or teleported, or whatever it was called, back out of the cage so that he was standing beside Pasha and his desk. He winked at me and then tossed Dorian a set of old-looking keys.
The wolf snatched them out of the air and stepped closer.
Grim growled and Dorian let out a sigh as he crouched down to be at eye level with my dog.
“Look man, I’m sorry for last night. You were a surprise and I had orders to keep you occupied.
” Grim flashed his teeth and chomped at the air in front of Dorian’s face.
To his credit, the wolf didn’t even flinch.
“Again, my apologies. But you’re going to have to let me open this cage so you both can see your room. ”
“Why am I getting a room?” I asked. “I just need a bathroom and then we’ll be on our way.”
Pushing back to his feet, Dorian shook his head. “No can do, Kitty Cat. You aren’t allowed to leave just yet.”
“You can’t keep me here!” I shouted. “I have rights!”
“You do realize that you stole from Roman Zarka, right?” Aiden asked, lifting his gaze from the monitors that Pasha was focused on.
“Technically, I didn’t steal anything,” I said with a huff. “You caught me before I left.”
“Good point,” Pasha said, his face hidden by all the electronics.
Aiden clapped his hands together as Dorian flung open the cage door. “Doesn’t matter. You’re staying here for a while and Roman would like us to show you to your room.”
“Am I a prisoner?” I asked, stepping down off the platform and running my hand through Grim’s fur. He pushed his body tight against the outside of my thigh, not lifting his glare from any of the men in front of me.
“Technically, you are our guest,” Dorian said.
“So, I can leave?”
He smiled. When did he get dimples? “No.”
“So, prisoner it is,” I said with a sigh. “Does this room have a toilet?” I asked with a hint of snark.
“Oh, we think you will love the bathroom,” Aiden said from the doorway. “Come on, let’s go.”
Dorian waved his arm in front of his chest, encouraging me to pass him by.
I wondered if he wanted to be behind me so I couldn’t make a run for it, or if he just wanted to look at my ass.
I hated myself for hoping for the latter and couldn’t stop from swaying my hips just a little bit more than normal.
I thought I heard him growl and that sent another wave of arousal to my core.
Holy hell, I needed to get a hold of myself.
I followed Aiden around the winding hallway, through the dining room that Grim had shown me, and toward a set of double doors on the other side of the large table. They reached nearly twenty feet high, and the intricate wood carvings showed scenes of a forest and animals and…were those wolves?
“Roman thought it would be funny,” Dorian whispered in my ear from behind. I couldn’t hide the goosebumps that rose on my arms.
Instead of replying, I just hugged myself and continued through the doorway into a formal welcoming area where two sets of stairs flanked the entrance into the house…
or whatever this place was. It looked like something out of the old antebellum period, and I could just see the women with their hoop skirts waltzing down the stairways.
“Come on Kitty Cat,” Aiden teased as he bounded up one side of the double stairway.
“You can stop calling me that now,” I grumbled back at him.
I suddenly felt a slap on my ass and turned with pure evil in my eyes. Dorian held up his hands in surrender. “Just checking your cat-like reflexes.”
“Hands off the goods,” I snapped, despite the rest of my instincts telling me how nice it was to actually be touched by a man. It had been a really long time.
“Understood,” he said with a smile. “I won’t touch you again until you beg me for it.”
I whipped my head back around, mostly to hide my flushed cheeks. Son of a bitch, this guy. Aiden laughed as he looked down at us from the second floor. “Don’t tempt him little Kitty Cat. You don’t want to play with the Big Bad Wolf.”
“You can stop calling me that!” I shouted up at an empty space. Again. “Does he do that a lot?” I muttered.
“All the time,” Dorian answered. He pushed past me so he could show me the way. “I’m guessing he’s already in your room, drawing a bath for you.”
Well, that would be…very nice.
“What’s with all of you guys, anyway? Do you all live here? Together?”
Dorian laughed and the sound vibrated my bones with pure desire. He seemed so easygoing and so…easy to talk to. I needed to remind myself that I was a prisoner here and not on a date with Dorian.
“We all live here. Together.” He winked and ushered me down a wide hallway with white and black tile, ending with a large window and a fainting couch. We reached another set of wood doors several feet before the couch. “This is the blue room,” he said like I should understand the importance.
“The blue room?”
Grim pushed past me to scope out the space, but I waited until Aiden and Dorian flanked me and dramatically pushed open the double doors leading into the room.
“Okay, I get it,” I said. The blue room was…
well, all shades of blue. It was also larger than most houses in the city and had a view of nothing but manicured landscaping out the windows that made up the entire far wall.
Ceilings twenty feet high, chandeliers hanging above each area to mark several different spaces, and a canopy bed so large I wondered how they found bedding for it.
The walls were a mixture of light blue paint and floral wallpaper.
The ceiling was marked with white crisscrossing Tudor-style beams that played off nicely with the dark wood floors.
On the far right side was a built-in desk and bookshelves filled with old tomes. On the left was another set of double doors that must lead to the bathroom because I could hear the water running.
I looked at Aiden in surprise. “Did you really start a bath for me?”
He reached forward, grabbed my hand, and pressed his soft lips to the tops of my fingers.
Quickly sucking in a breath, his eyes widened when he made contact and I saw a hint of something, fear or lust, pass over his face as he released me.
“Anything for our very special guest,” he said with a mock bow.
Grim jumped up on the bed and turned around several times before plopping down on what I assumed was a very expensive and dry-clean-only comforter. I should tell him to get down, but I didn’t have the heart. We both deserved a nap.
“Dinner is at six. Clothes are in the closet,” Dorian said.
“Clothes for me?”
“They should fit.”
“Is this a fancy dinner?” I asked.
“No, just us tonight. Tomorrow will be a different story.” Dorian leaned forward and kissed me on the cheek. I’ll be honest and admit I had no intention of pulling away from him. But when he hissed in a breath and shared a look with Aiden, I knew we would have more to talk about soon.
Was I doing it again?
“See you soon, Kitty Cat,” Dorian said as they left the room and closed the doors. I didn’t miss the sound of a lock clicking into place. Or maybe it was all in my head. I mean, if I was going to be a prisoner somewhere…this surely didn’t seem too horrible.
Grim started to snore and I laughed to myself.
This had not been the plan yesterday. The plan had been for me to collect the necklace, finish my obligations to the coven, and leave town.
Somewhere in the northeast in a city not full of vampires and witches.
Grim wanted to run amongst the pine trees and I wanted to…
well, I wanted a chance to finally live a life that was all my own.
With a sigh, I walked through the other set of doors leading to the bathroom.
But I stopped in my tracks the moment my feet hit the marble floor.
This was a bathroom made for a queen. On one side sat a built-in double vanity at least ten feet long.
The faucets were made of gold and had dragons carved into them so that the water would flow from their opened mouths.
Every pull on the white, wooden cabinetry was gold and looked like a row of scales.
At the end of the vanity sat an extra-large shower.
Covered with the same marble as the floor, the grey veins of the stone gave the whole décor a hint of masculinity.
Double shower heads, a rain shower, and some kind of electronic panel that must have controlled the temperature…
it was stunning and so very extravagant.
I thought it couldn’t get any better until I spun around to see the custom claw foot tub that had to have been created just for this space as it was about three times the size of a normal tub.
The gold feet ended in talons that reminded me of the dragons on the vanity and an honest-to-goodness gargoyle perched on the wall and served as the faucet for the water pouring in.
I could see the steam from the hot water and I silently thanked Aiden for knowing exactly what I needed.
But before getting into the tub, I had to steal a peek from the next room.
It had no door, but I could see the glimmer of light reflecting off a large chandelier in the middle of it.
Flicking on the light, I sucked in a breath and honestly thought about staying here forever.
Prisoner or not. It was a closet. But not just any closet.
Oh, no. Once again it was designed for a queen and served as a full-on dressing room.
White built-in shelving and drawers flanked the walls.
A dresser with a marble top in the center below the chandelier, and a separate nook carved out as a place to put on makeup and do my hair, complete with all the necessary accessories.
“I think I could get used to this,” I mumbled to myself, stepping forward and looking at all the dresses hanging around the room.
The ones closest to the entryway appeared to be more casual—sundresses, cocktail dresses, and a few posh dresses that someone might wear to the country club.
On the far side hung the gowns. Zipped up in plastic dress bags, I could only imagine what they must look like.
“Too bad I can’t try on any of those.”
I turned the light off and stepped back into the bathroom. A fluffy white robe hung next to the shower, so I indulged myself. Stripping out of the leather felt good and I spun around a few times in the large space, feeling like a princess instead of a prisoner.
Maybe I should have let Roman catch me years ago.