I didn’t feel the pull of my mate but as I looked at him, I knew that I still longed for him. I wanted to push the hair out of his eyes and touch his lips to mine. He looked like a homeless man and he’d infuriated me with a nickname, but I still wanted him.
“Do you feel me?” I asked, almost sadly. “From your cell, can you feel me close by?”
“I felt you before you even walked down the stairs,” he replied. His tone was reverent, loving. “They brought me down here not long before you.”
So he wasn’t here the first time Alec brought me down. Michael Ironshot was nothing if not cunning and cruel. I wondered what he had in store, giving me my mate but keeping him out of reach. Was this like the blood? Another form of torture that looked like a gift?
“Can you do magic?”
A few seconds passed before he answered, “No. It was taken away some time ago, just after our last meeting. It’s a very powerful spell to take away a caster’s magic. Do you have yours?”
“No.”
“What about your beast?”
It took me a second to realize he meant Soleil.
“No. Alec suppressed my dragon and my vampire when he captured me. I’m a vampire now too, by the way.”
“I heard the rumor that you were turned. Do I have more competition now?”
I smiled wistfully, thinking of my vampire mate.
“Matias Alvaro,” I told him. “That’s my vampire mate’s name.”
He thought for a second then awareness crossed his eyes. “Fuck me. The Butcher?”
I lightly laughed and nodded my head.
“You really are something special to be bonded with that maniac,” he chuckled.
“You’d be surprised. He’s actually one of the kindest, most thoughtful men I’ve ever met.”
“Seriously?” I nodded my head again. “Fuck me, she tamed the Butcher,” he muttered, making me laugh out loud.
“How did the beast take it? You bonding with another?” he then asked.
It was a valid question, especially since Ronan was meant to bind himself to me too. I sighed, remembering everything I went through before claiming my vampire mate.
“It was bad for a while,” I admitted, “but they’re both okay with one another now.”
I still couldn’t believe they got along. Both Matias and Xan knew I needed to take Ronan as a mate too, but I also knew it would be harder on Xan because of his history with Ronan. To say the two men disliked one another would be putting it mildly.
“That’s good, then,” Ronan said.
I couldn’t tell if he meant it in a hopeful way for himself and the future, or if he was a tad bit jealous. Probably both for all I knew. I didn’t know what to say after that. What could I say?
“I bet they’re both going out of their ever loving minds with you gone.”
I slowly closed my eyes and tilted my head back. “I’m sure they are,” I told him and closed my mouth. I was ready to tear shit apart just to be closer to them again and I was the one taken, not them. I knew what happened but they didn’t. The unknown is always harder to deal with. I missed both of my men so fucking much.
Seeming to understand how uncomfortable the conversation had become for me, he immediately changed the subject and began talking about his family back in Scotland. He talked about his mother and little brother, who wasn’t so little anymore, and what it was like growing up there.
I fell asleep to the sound of Ronan’s voice talking about a time when he was happy.
Chapter Nineteen
“You look better, my dear. Is everything more to your liking?”
As per usual, I only slept for a few hours the night before, waking during the middle of the night. Ronan was still fast asleep, so I made sure not to make too much noise to wake him. He didn’t say it but I could tell he’d been put through a lot since he’d sacrificed himself to let me get away from Dev’s cabin during the battle.
I didn’t know how long I sat there in the dark before the asshole guards came for me. Their loud taunts woke Ronan up and when they roughly hauled me up toward the stairs, he yelled at them to leave me alone. They both laughed but completely ignored him as we three marched up the stairs.
I prayed he’d still be down there when I returned, if I returned. Nothing was ever guaranteed when it came to Michael Ironshot, except for lots of pain.
Instead of bringing me back to Ironshot’s office, I was led toward an opulent dining room. My captor was sitting alone at the head of a large oval shaped table, and he had a plate of food in front of him and a steaming mug of coffee in his hand when I sat down in the chair to his left. It all looked and smelled delicious. I averted my eyes away from his plate and up toward his face.
He sat his cup down and looked at me expectantly as he waited for my response to his question.
“Yes, thank you,” I gave him a forced smile. I wanted to seem less hostile and more grateful. Oh, I was far from giving up, in fact, since seeing Ronan again, I had a renewed sense of hope.
“Good. That’s good.” The councilman smiled genuinely and picked up his fork.
He dug into his breakfast, taking his time and savoring each bite. In between forkfuls, he would do things like look out the window, smile at me, glance down at his phone, all so he could draw it out as long as possible. In all that time, he never said a word or acknowledged the loud growling that came from my stomach until every last bite was consumed, the prick. The way he was torturing me was subtle,
