Page 38 of A Velvet Kiss After Dark

They didn't have time for discretion. Didn't he understand that?

One by one the crowd departed to create a narrow passageway to the center of the festivities.

It didn't matter anyway, not one of these strange beings understood a word he had spoken anyway. The music returned and the crowd turned their backs on them.

However, something did begin to happen. This music was different and turned into one word with only two syllables. A chant, he realized. They were chanting. "Jkakob! Jkakob!"

"Can you get a mind read on them, Alexis?" Kane said, his fingers engulfing the hilt of his belt and gently grasping the hilt of his gun. Even his bullets were special made. He didn't know how many rounds it'd take to slaughter a demon, but he'd sure like to find out.

At the center of an enormously elaborate dais covered in leis of fragrant flowers and smoking pots of scented incense, was a man adored with a silver crown. It looked cheesy and cheap, like something frugal and dismally crafted. The man's attire reminded Kane of a snake-skinned salesman, someone who dressed in quality and sold pretty lies for a living. He didn't like the looks of it.

Alexis said, "It appears to be the name of the man on the throne that they're chanting. They're intimidated by him, but also beholden to him. I see the exchanging of coin in my mind's eye surrounding his energy field. He may be a landlord, mayor, or governor of sorts."

"Great," Kane said loudly. "Let's introduce ourselves. Time's wasting, and the sun is declining overhead. I want to get out of this bloody hell realm sooner rather than later."

Kane marched up to the dais and stopped before the Lord of this town. He spoke plainly and clearly. "I have lost a member of my party. Forgive the intrusion, but have you seen a petite human female?"

The man eyed him shrewdly. Kane had seen such looks before, as if the man were assessing what Kane was worth. It was the same gaze of a diamond thief, eying up a prize for cash. This man was a robber if he had to hazard a guess. So, why he was at the center of attention?

Kane gave a sharp whistle, and the rest of his team backed him up. "Alexis, any thoughts you can pick up on?"

"The crowd seems to pay homage to this man or else. They don't fear him, yet they dislike him. I feel that they would rather please him than get on his bad side."

"And what of the king's thoughts?" Kane said, uncaring if the alleged "king" understood him or not. This man looked like no real king to him. "Anything about Tabitha?"

Alexis sucked in a sharp breath. "As a matter of fact, yes. He sees her associated with monetary value, a great and rare commodity to be sold."

"It is an egregious misstep, king, to take my betrothed," Kane said, flashing his canines in a facsimile of a smile. His werewolf was itching to claw his face off and smash this party to bloody pieces.

The king laughed and spoke, but the language was gibberish to Kane's ears. He eyed Kane's entourage as if scoping out dollar signs for each of them. Kane recognized a slave trader when he saw one. After all, he'd once been enslaved.

"Tell me where she went," Kane demanded.

The king tossed back his head and laughed, the sound mocking and grating to Kane's nerves. He shrugged and gestured to the crowd, which sung in softer lilts, their little tambourines clambering and echoing in the plaza. The song ended and the plaza became engulfed in silence. In Kane's mind a vision swept through him of swiveling his ax, which sat slung across his waist strap around, and taking off this "king's" head in one foul move. He almost smiled at the thought.

The king shrugged and pointed down.

"The king's thought are revealing a cage," Alexis said rapidly.

"Why is he pointing down?" Graham asked.

They had only a moment to gasp, when suddenly the square stone pathway they stood upon opened up, and down he and his entourage dropped into a trap door, darkness encompassing them.

11

Crack.

Kane's face smacked hard against a stone floor. The coppery twinge of blood from a busted lip slid across his tongue. He spat the blood out and pushed himself up into a push-up position.

"Fecking hell," Graham gritted out beside him. "I hate this fecking place."

They were caught in a corridor far below the lively marketplace above. Filth covered every inch of the place like that of a thousand rotting corpses. A decrepit tunnel with green sludge moistened the interior, and tiny insects slithered and squirmed like maggots across deceased, dead corpses. The stench of fetid flesh and bones fogged the air making breathing an abominable task.

Growls, deep and bellowing, emanated from down the long, dark corridor they'd fallen into. Their group had been dropped inside a trap door by the tricky, so-called king. They seemed to have dropped five hundred feet, if Kane had to hazard a guess.

The odor of mildew and exotic demons filled the air, like nothing he'd ever smelled before, but he knew the sights and sounds of a prison when he saw one. Voices screamed deliriously in the background. The crack of whips and bubbling sound of a tar pit accompanied the grotesque scene.

Kane tucked his lips inward to keep from gagging as his eyes teared at the putrid odors that covered him from head to toe.

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