Page 43 of Mikhail
When she came around, her head was pounding. She moaned as she reached up to touch the back of her head with her left hand. It came away sticky. She blinked in the dim light and saw dark blood coating her fingers. Her right wrist ached. She lifted her hand to see what was wrong, but it jerked to a stop with a loudclunk.
She gasped at the sight of the thick iron manacle there. A heavy chain connected her right wrist to a bedpost. She sat up and realized she was on a bed in a dark room. A window was partially open, and the strong scent of the sea came throughit.
Where was she? What had happened? The man with a flat tire… He’d knocked her out.Why?
“Oh God…” Had she been picked up by some serial killeror—
The door to the room opened. A man flicked a small light switch by the door, and two lamps beside the bed came on. She got a better look at where she was now. It seemed to be the upstairs room of a smallcottage.
“Where arewe?”
“Boscastle,” the man said as he approached the bed. There was something familiar about him, sherealized.
“Where’s your son?” She had no idea how she’d ended up here, and if he wasn’t afraid to kidnap her and tie her up, what would he do to his ownchild?
The man chuckled. His dark hair fell over his eyes as he stared at her. “That was an illusion. A simple trick. I doubt you would have stopped for a single man on the road, but I knew that if you saw a child, you’d be more likely to trustme.”
An illusion?She stared at his eyes, feeling an almost hypnotic pull in his gaze. She’d only ever experienced that before with Mikhail. “Wait…you’re adragon?”
“Very good!” His praise was sardonic, and it made rage stir beneath herskin.
“Then…” Piper struggled to figure something out. “Why knock me out? Why not just hypnotizeme?”
“Unlike Barinov, I like to causepain.”
Piper flinched as he caught her chin in his hand. He leaned down until their faces were mere inches apart. Then he closed his eyes and inhaleddeeply.
“Blood and fear. Two scents that heat a dragon’s blood. But not…not a virgin, not any longer. Pity,” he murmured as he opened hiseyes.
Piper peered at his face. She was sure she’d seen him before, but she couldn’t figure outwhere.
“I waited two hours for you to come around, so forgive my lack of patience now. It’s time we had a little chat, Ms.Linwood.”
Piper tried to ignore the stabbing pain in her head. “How do you know myname?”
“How I know doesn’t matter. What matters is what you tell me in the next ten minutes.” He leaned back against thedoor.
“What do you want to know?” she asked. Her voice was surprisingly steady, despite the fact that she was shaking on theinside.
“I had expected to find Mikhail Barinov with you. I was on my way to see him, in fact. But my connections at Scotland Yard told me he made a call to Thorne. I realized he—or rather, whoever had his phone—was on the move, possibly with the jewels. Imagine my surprise when I then learned that Mr. Thorne was headed this waytoo.”
The pieces began to connect. “Is he… Did you…” She was too afraid to ask if something had happened to the olderman.
“He’s driving back to London, unharmed, but befuddled. He no longer remembers that he was coming here to meet you. We need to be alone, you and I, so I decided to take care of everyone in thevillage.”
She could barely breathe. “Take careof?”
The man laughed. “Dragons have other talents besides transforming. The village is in a deep sleep, which will leave us undisturbed while I conduct mybusiness.”
Asleep?That didn’t sound bad. Piper let out a breath, but the man chuckled. “Don’t relax just yet. I still need my questions answered, and I have means at my disposal to make sure you answer if you choose to hold yourtongue.”
She said nothing, but held still on the bed, her wrists aching from the heavy ironmanacles.
“Now, as I’ve been told from a reliable source, Mikhail Barinov stole the jewels. And you.” The man didn’t seem to require an answer from her yet, so she didn’treply.
“I had every intention of taking both you and the jewels, but now I understand who I’m up against. We’ve crossed paths before, though he doesn’t know it, and once again he has put a wrinkle in my plans. So when you came along, it was almost too perfect an opportunity. I plan to trade you for thejewels.”
Piper shook her head. “He won’t trade me for the jewels.” She knew in her heart it was a lie—Mikhail would do that, assuming he forgave her for leaving him, but she didn’t want him to have to face thatchoice.
