Page 57 of Kissing Danger

Sucking in a deep breath, I patted Nathan’s hand and nodded.

He still didn’t seem convinced, probably because he could feel how hard I was shaking. Instead of letting me go, Nathan kept one arm around me and handed me the little box.

“Deke? Do you mind?”

I accepted the box, always keeping one eye on Zaur. The man was now staring at me with as much fear as he’d directed toward Nathan.

The box was even smaller than I thought, and extremely fiddly. I nearly dropped it as I struggled to slip my nail under the latch. When I finally got it open, I found a single red pill inside. Carefully pinching it between two fingers, I held it up to the light for everyone to see. The round, slightly iridescent surface made it look like a bloody pearl.

“What is this?”

“It doesn’t have a name.” Nathan took the pill from me with the same gentle firmness as the arm around my waist. “As far as the rest of the world is concerned, it doesn’t exist. Only one of these pills is ever made at a time, and it’s the most expensive thing I’ve ever bought.”

“Okaaay.” I eyed the pill with confusion. “But what does it do?”

Nathan looked like he was about to answer, but then he stopped and turned to his brother. “Zaur? Do you want to answer that?”

With a deep sigh, Zaur turned his head away and refused to look at anyone else in the room.

“It’s a paralytic. Anyone who takes it will lose complete control of their body. They’ll still be able to breathe, but they won’t be able to move at all. Even their vocal cords will be affected, so they’ll be mute as well.”

He flinched just from recounting the symptoms, and I was certain he knew about the drug from personal experience.

Nathan’s arm slid up from my waist to circle around my shoulders. “To put it more poetically, it’s a way to imprison someone within their own body.” He then gave Zaur a very pointed look, which made the other man flinch again. “This isn’t the first tantrum my brother has thrown. A few years ago, I decided I needed a better way to keep him in line, so I slipped him this pill. There’s an antidote, but it only works for a month at a time, and the recipe is a heavily guarded secret. If Zaur wants to keep walking around freely, he has to do what I say.”

Zaur’s hands were balled into fists at his sides, clenched so tightly I could see a drop of blood leaking between his fingers. “Bastard,” he hissed under his breath, though not quite enough to go unheard.

Nathan just laughed. “That insult doesn’t work on me, Zaur. We have the same parents.”

Zaur’s lips pulled back to reveal his teeth in a poor imitation of Nathan’s intimidating snarl. “One of these days I’m going to find the recipe for that antidote, and then you’re going to pay for this.”

“But today is not that day.” Nathan held the pill up again, presenting it to the eyes of everyone in the room. “However, you are right about one thing. There’s no point giving this to you again. A second pill has no more effect than the first. This was just a reminder.”

He turned, bringing me with him, so we both faced Caprice Vidales. She still stood in the corner of the room, looking like a lost tourist in a foreign country with only her single personal bodyguard for support.

“What?” Caprice gasped when she realized Nathan’s implication. “No. You can’t do that.”

Nathan finally released me, but he didn’t go far as he stalked a few steps closer to Caprice.

“You’ve been a thorn in my side for too long and gotten too bold. You need to be controlled, for your own sake as well as mine.”

“No,” she shouted and backed away until she hit a wall. “Just kill me if you dare.”

Shaking his head, Nathan tutted at her like he was scolding a child. “No. If I kill you then someone else will just take your place, and nothing will change. This will be much more effective.”

I squirmed where I stood, hoping no one was paying attention to me. Something about Nathan’s condescending attitude was activating a kink I didn’t know I had. It would be different if he spoke to me that way. I could never find such humiliation sexy.

Watching him humiliate other people that I despised was a different matter. My blood ran hot through my veins and a familiar excitement twisted in my gut.

It hadn’t even been an hour since our rendezvous in the bathroom downstairs, but my hormones didn’t seem to have gotten the message. They were screaming at me as if I were a desperate virgin who’d never known the touch of a man before.

I would definitely be getting Nathan alone as soon as possible.

Nathan ordered Caprice to be captured. There was a moment of confusion where the various bodyguards stationed around the room weren’t sure whether to obey or not. With both their figurehead leader and their real leader in the room, the chain ofcommand was a bit muddled. However, Zaur solved the problem by supporting Nathan’s order. He seemed relieved that Nathan’s attention was off him for now, and happy to throw Caprice to the jaws of The Wolf.

Caprice’s lone bodyguard put up a valiant fight. It was the same woman who had guarded her before and managed to survive going toe-to-toe with Nathan.

Unfortunately, she was significantly outnumbered, and Caprice was still injured, so the other woman wasn’t much help. The bodyguard was soon restrained, and Caprice was forced to kneel on the ground in front of Nathan. Multiple hands held up her head and pried open her mouth for Nathan to slip the pill inside. He pushed the pill so far down her throat that she gagged, then held her mouth closed to ensure she didn’t try to cough it back up.

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