Page 11 of Villains and Vengeance
Maybe they didn’t come to the Mountain for me, but now that they know I’m here and they’ve ensured that their survival depends on my capture, it hardly matters. That’s a helluva lot of incentive for that bloodhound demon clan.
I try to ignore everything else I hear, but they’re taunting me. They don’t even care that I know they’re going to hunt me. They’re sure that, even with me in hiding, they’re still going to be successful.
Fuck. That.
I might be scared, but I grin darkly as I retreat. They might think this will be easy, and maybe theywillfind where I am, but they won’t be counting on Siggy. They’re not going to catch me. They’re not going to give me to Dante. And they’re not going to get their lame revenge either.
I return to Siggy’s web and, once I’m in the comfort of the White Bunker, I start to plan.
I can’t leave for thirteen to fifteen more days and I won’t know the specifics until closer to the time. That means I’ll need to stay here as much as possible, maybe not leaving at all. Then my scent won’t be anywhere.
Emptying my backpack, I take inventory of the food I have, frowning when I realize it’s worse than I thought. I’m going to need to go back to Dante’s hoard and grab more very soon … unless I start stealing from the inmates. They don’t typically have much though, so I’ll be forced to spend even more time in the open, leaving my scent in places for Jayce to potentially track me with.
I stare at the white web of my bunker in thought. Jayce is my biggest problem right now. His nose is freaking legendary and he’s crazy as hell just like his brother, Krase. Two peas in a pod, those twins, even if they don’t look completely identical what with Krase’s copper curls and Jayce’s shorter, dirty blond ones.
I need to make his nose work in my favor somehow, turn his advantage into a hindrance. Maybe I’m thinking about this all wrong. Maybe I should be doing the opposite of hiding my scent. An idea starts to form and I grin, leaning back against the comfy web.
I should rest now. They probably won’t start looking for me properly until tomorrow, so I have a little wiggle room before I need to get busy. Come tomorrow though, I’m going to have to spring into action.
I turn off the flashlight, plunging the place into pitch black. The dark soothes me. It always has. Maybe it’s because I can’t see anything so, like a child, I assume that no one can see me either.
Too bad that’s not how it works.
* * *
Maddox
I stareup at the holes in the ceiling, combing my shoulder-length hair through with my fingers absently as I consider how the next few days are going to unfold and the female we have to find.
There are small openings everywhere. So many places for her to spy from.
Why hasn’t she been caught yet? You’d think a few hundred supes who hadn’t seen a female in years would be a bit more motivated.
‘Is she still there?’ I ask Axel and Jayce.
Between them they have the best nose and ears in the clan.
Jayce shakes his head. ‘Not for a while now.’
Axel smiles. ‘She was absolutely terrified when she realized we knew she was there though. Her heartbeat was through the roof.’
‘Good. She should be afraid.’
‘Are we really going to give her to Dante?’ Iron asks me from where he’s sat at a whet stone, sharpening a piece of metal into a point.
The authorities took our weapons when they caught us, and he likes to have something on him at all times. We don’t have much to trade in here yet or else I’m sure he’d be hanging around down in the orc levels at their blacksmiths haggling for swords and the like. Until then we’ll have to make do with whatever he can fashion from scrap he finds.
‘Why shouldn’t we?’ Jayce asks. ‘Bitch deserves what’s coming to her after what she’s done.’
‘Because,’ Daemon waltzes through the main door, ‘this is the highest security prison there is, but some little human somehow got in?’ He scoffs loudly. ‘No way she snuck into the Mountain with the regular prisoner transport, or the supply shipments. Too many checks and magickal wards in place for that.’
I nod. ‘There’s a portal in this mountain and the chit found it somehow, which means she’s our only ticket out of here.’
‘So we catch her, make her show us how to escape, and then throw her to Dante,’ Jayce shrugs.
‘Sounds like what she deserves,’ I murmur, hardly able to contain myself.
I didn’t think I was going to get revenge. This morning when we learned our fate for our parts in helpingthe Iron Incubiescape the Mountain, Victoria Styles was the last thing on my mind. But, every cloud, I suppose.
