Page 51 of To Claim A King
It was the smell, the nauseating stench of death in between the stages of decay and debris hanging pungent in the air like a thick blanket over my mouth and nose. A fierce gag overpowered my tired body, pushing burning bile up my throat and onto my chest. Scorching drops of the internal lava splashed my cheeks and dribbled on my chin, reducing me from triumphant Queen to the constrainedhostage.
I was hanging by my wrists crossed behind my head and bound by cool metal. The position arched my shoulders forward in a painful bow. My feet, now shoeless, barely touched the ground. My pantyhose-clad toes could just touch the surface, unable to take any pressure off my spine. My thigh had gone numb, and the only comfort I could claim was they hadn’t removed my clothing.
Even if my suit was soaked in the blood of at least five men and a good portion of my own.
Being drugged brought back the incapacitating muscle memory of terror. The last time I’d been dosed, I’d been forced to watch Alec steal my lover's life and body from her. The overwhelming sensation of shame forced trickles of tears to stain my cheeks, mingling with the remnants of my stomach.
Trickling water and the incessant buzz of what could be a beehive were the only sounds in the dank space. Trepidation kept my eyes closed for the briefest moment before I dared to open them and take in the surrounding landscape of hell.
My desperation to confirm proof of life for Aaron and Kellan gave me the strength I needed to peel my eyelids open and frantically search for them in the dim light of the space.
Suspended in a concrete cell, the only light came in from a sole opening in the top of the wall. It was impossible to tell what time of day it was from that tiny permeation, but I used the gray wash to scan the room around me as best I could with my constricted neck.
I couldn’t contain an audible gasp when my eyes landed on Aaron, his face so beaten and bloodied he was almost unrecognizable in the dark, save for the remnants of the expensive wool suit he still wore. The garment was slashed in several places, but from this angle it didn’t look like stab wounds—more like he was dragged behind a truck through rockyground.
His arms were suspended over his head in the same way mine were, his head hanging against his chest in the quiet constraint of unconsciousness. My heart only resumed its own beats when his chest rose and fell in a continuous rhythm. Relieved tears replaced the fearful stream. My Dark Knight was alive.
Slowly, I swung my neck in the opposite direction. More tears fell at the sight of Kellan’s hulking form dangling several feet from my left side. The side profile of his face reflected the brutality on Aaron’s. Crimson crusted along the bristles of his beard, long having dried from a gash along the crown of his head. He too, was unconscious, with the tiniest rise of his chest against his chin. Both men hung from the ceiling at a higher height than I was, so their feet could barely kiss the concrete.
Dread settled in my gut why that was. What torture was waiting for us when Antonio or his goons returned? Several other questions raced through my mind as I took stock of our situation.
How long had we been here? Was Lucky still alive? Had he gotten help? Did my men have any internal injuries? It didn’t feel like I did. I was sore, stiff, and woozy from whatever drug cocktail they’d injected me with, but I hadn’t been stabbed, just the original bullet wound from my skirmish with Evil 1 and Evil 2. A small mercy.
And what was that smell? The air was moist and held onto the stench with a tight fist. Mountain air was not humid—had they taken us out of state?
I used my toes as leverage to twist my entire torso in the hold of the bindings, only to wish I had remained ignorant. A male corpse, dressed in a navy pullover and tan slacks, was spread out on the ground several feet from Aaron’s position, its face barely recognizable with several patches of flesh missing. The bloated belly had been slashed open, loose intestines cascading down the torso and onto the earthlike a waterfall. Flies buzzed around the body, hungrily feeding off the buffet.
Vomit rocketed up my esophagus and spewed from my mouth, only this time I had enough sense to project it forward to miss my body completely. The exorcised grunts of my retching echoed around me in a cacophony, disrupting the sadistic silence of what was to become our tomb.
Aaron stirred beside me first. A slow grunt escaped through swollen lips before an equally puffy eye cracked open to stare directly into mine.
“Mi Reina,” he rasped, pain clear in the waver of his voice. “Are you hurt?”
Trust Aaron Rodriguez to think of me while grappling with his own agony. How I loved this man.
“I got shot in the thigh on my way here, but I’m okay. Just sore,” I admitted, forcing a deep breath into my lungs to relieve the strain on my shoulders as I turned to look at him properly. “What did they do to you?”
He twisted his hands above his head, and a sharp grimace tugged at his cheekbones. “I believe my wrist is broken, and my face may have scarred, but I am alright.”
“Ladies dig scars,” I joked, my quip a poor attempt at levity. No longer the sole person conscious in the bowels of hell brought a wave of adrenaline-soaked relief, especially knowing that, temporarily, my knight was okay.
“As long as you ‘dig’ scars, I will be fine.” The tiniest smile tugged at his lips. “Do you know where we are?” His gaze scanned the room, stalling on the body too close to his position for comfort. The muscles in his shoulders tensed as he stared a bit too long at our guest.
“I don’t know where we are,” I admitted, drawing his attention back to me. “Or how long we’ve been out. I—”
A sharp intake of breath on my other side interrupted me. I spun on my toes in Kellan’s direction to see his head lolled to the side, the crazed glaze of a madman pervading his crisp blue eyes. He spat a large wad of bloodyphlegm on the opposite flank of his hanging body before raising his gaze to meet mine.
“Killer.Guapo. Are you okay?” His nose wrinkled at the stench of the corpse and the unbridled aroma of the acidic puke just a few inches away from his feet.
When his eyes landed on the body on the floor, his eyes widened to saucers. “Maverick,” he murmured, a familiar knowing embedded in his tone. “What the fuck did they do to you?”
Maverick. Kellan’s number two for many years in the FBI. I hadn’t recognized him without most of his cheeks and chin, but Kellan did. My insides clenched, knowing Antonio had done this to a well-known and high-up FBI agent. He had ordered hits on the men beside me, and it was unlikely he cared much about the connected billionaire hanging between them. If Lucky didn’t come through, we didn’t have a chance in hell of surviving this room.
“We’re alright,compañero.” Aaron pulled Kellan’s attention back to us, his tone somber but measured. “I am afraid we have limited options of escape, however.”
“How’d they capture you?” Kellan’s eyes looked rabid, a combination of fierce anger and despair.
“I ran late with the FBI interview,” I admitted, knowing if I’d only been a few minutes earlier, none of this might have happened. “Your brothers were waiting for me. We fought, and I won. I’m afraid you don’t have any brothers left—well, except Cam.” I released a caustic laugh, so bitter it burned my throat. “When I finally got outside, I saw Carmen and a bald man loading your unconscious bodies into a van. I tried to stop them.”
