Like heaven and hell, perfect and wicked and sure to be her downfall.
On and on she sucked, drawing the liquid decadence into her mouth, down her throat. With every swallow a little more of her strength returned. The ache in her wounds began to ebb, the tissue weaving back together. How had she ever lived without this? Thankfully, blood didn’t have to be stolen to be enjoyed. It was a source of medicine, not food. She should have thought to drink from Sabin before.
Through it all, Sabin remained still. Between her legs, however, she could feel the hard length of his erection. His fingers had fallen to her hips and were digging deep, holding her immobile.
She could hear his breath raging in her ears, could even hear a few of his thoughts:
“Don’t drain him, baby girl,” Bianka said, breaking through the mire of Gwen’s new addiction. “We have a few questions for him first.”
Nails dug into her scalp, and her head was torn away from Sabin’s neck. She yelped, blood trickling from her parted lips.
He snarled low in his throat, glaring over at Bianka while tightening his grip on Gwen. “Touch her like that again and you’ll be saying goodbye to your hands.”
Grinning, Bianka twirled a strand of black hair around her finger. “Now there’s the Lord of the Underworld I’ve heard so much about. I almost believe you’ll do it, demon. Well, try to do it.”
“I never make a threat I don’t intend to see through,” he said, turning Gwen and smashing her against his side once more.
She almost moaned. Her sisters never—never—backed down from a challenge. “I’m so glad you’re here,” she said, hoping to distract them.
“The big guy not taking care of you?” Kaia strolled around the room, lifting knickknacks, opening dresser drawers. “Oh, sweet. Black briefs are my favorite.” She even crouched in front of Sabin’s weapons case, broke the lock with a twist of her wrist and flipped open the lid. “Hmm, lookie what I found.”
“He’s taking care of me,” Gwen said, oddly defensive of him. He’d released her from captivity, guarded her, planned to teach her how to defend herself. The Hunter thing was her own fault. She should have stayed in the car. She couldn’t regret that she’d emerged to help, though. He was alive. Safe.
“Sorry,” Sabin muttered.
Good thing he’d shut that stupid demon up, because the Harpy had started squawking the moment its voice had filled her head.
Bianka joined Kaia at the chest, and they oohed and ahhed over the guns and knives. Weapons were their kryptonite. Taliyah stepped to the edge of the bed, staring down at her, expression blank, emotionless. No one was more beautiful than Taliyah. She possessed white hair, white skin, eyes of the palest blue. She was like a snow queen—and many a person had actually accused her of having ice in her veins. Not that they’d lived long afterward.
“I know your situation with the Hunters,” she said to Sabin. “I’ve heard tales of your viciousness and have admired you for it. I’ve even hoped to meet you. But now I want to kill you for bringing my sister into this mess. She isn’t a fighter.”
“She could be.” Several seconds passed, but Sabin didn’t add anything else. Didn’t try to defend himself.
He was going to leave it at that? Let them think she’d shacked up with him and he’d placed her in danger for no reason, rather than tell them the truth, that she’d been stupid, caught and caged? That he’d saved her. If he told them the truth, he would guarantee their participation in his war. A war he placed above everything else in his life, even love. Why would he do that? For her?
Tears suddenly burned her eyes, threatening to spill over. Well, she could do something for him. “Actually, the
“Gwen,” Sabin said. A warning.
“They need to know everything.” For his sake, and her own. Gathering her strength, she told her sisters about her confinement, leaving no detail out. As she spoke, the tears fell freely. Only a few minutes passed, but they were the most mortifying minutes of her life. Sabin, like her sisters, admired strength. Ferocity. Yet here she was, broadcasting her weakness to the only people who mattered to her.
He surprised her by tenderly wiping away the salty beads that cascaded down her cheeks with the pad of his thumb. That made her cry even harder.
When she finished, silence encompassed the room. Tension thickened the air, creating a crackling suspension of time.
Taliyah was the first to speak. “How did they get you?”
The cold tone of her voice sent a shiver through Gwen. “Tyson forgot his cell phone one morning when he left for work, and I knew he’d want it. But he was too far down the road for me to catch at human speed so I…” She gulped. Such a stupid mistake, one she’d regretted every day since. “I used my wings and beat him to his office. Hunters saw me when I stopped, thought I had magically appeared, though I didn’t know it at the time. I guess they followed me home, waited until later that night when Tyson and I—” she gulped “—fell asleep.”
“You slept in bed with Tyson?” three female voices said at once.
“What’s with you Harpies and sleep?” Sabin stiffened against her. “Not that I think you’re wrong to be disgusted by anyone in bed with chicken man. It’s that bastard Tyson who needs to die. He didn’t protect her.”
“Neither did you,” Taliyah said flatly.
“I’m alive because of Sabin.” Gwen offered him a shaky smile. “And Tyson’s not a bad guy. He tried to save me before they knocked him out.” Even though he’d been upset with her.
When he’d come home from work that evening, he hadn’t wanted to talk about what had happened. She’d utterly freaked him out by beating him to his office—because he’d already begun to notice other, weirder things about her.
She’d hidden her dark side as best she could but sometimes it had emerged despite her, and he would come home to holes in the wall, ripped sheets, smashed dishes. Once, during a silly argument about whose turn it was to pick what DVD they’d watch, she’d even shoved him into a wall and the plaster had collapsed on him. They’d kissed and made up, but that had been the beginning of the end.
“Anyway,” she continued, “I found myself wrapped up, unable to move, barely able to breathe as the Hunters flew me to Egypt. They locked me up and twelve months later Sabin and the other Lords set me free and brought me here.”
“You killed the men responsible for her torment, of course?” Taliyah asked Sabin.
He nodded. “Gwen killed one. I killed some of the others.”
Her powder blue eyes flared in anger. “Why not all? And good job, Gwen,” she added with a nod of approval.
Before she could admit it had been an accident, Sabin said, “The survivors are being held in my dungeon and tortured for information.”
Taliyah’s shoulders relaxed somewhat. “That’s all right, then.” She turned back to Gwen. “Have you eaten?”
Gwen cast a sideways glance at Sabin. Very clearly she recalled stealing his sandwich and stuffing it into her mouth. “Yes.”
Thankfully, he gave no reaction. With Tyson, she’d stolen their food from nearby restaurants and passed it off as her own cooking. He’d never known. He would have rebuked her. Would Sabin? She didn’t think so. He’d smiled at her when she’d taken things from the store.
“You ready to go home, then?” Kaia jumped onto the side of the bed, causing the mattress to bounce. “’Cause I’m more than ready to blow this joint. I know you like your demon, so you can bring him if you want. Whether he wants to come or not. We’ll get you tucked safely away and come back for the Hunters. They will pay for what they did to you. Don’t worry.”
“I—well…” Did she want to go home? Hidden, safe, everyone else taking care of things? Hadn’t she gone to Georgia in part to escape just that? And while she liked being with Sabin, she knew he would be miserable trapped
