Page 54 of Sweethearts and Savages
My whole body went limp with defeat. They’d found me. Even if I had my gun, or my blades, I wouldn't have been able to kill both of them. It wasn’t in my nature to just gently accept my death, but a part of me, the part that kept feeding me those nightmares, believed I deserved what was coming to me. And maybe that part was right.
“I’m ready to die,” I said hoarsely, making the crazy one holding me grin.
“Ah, but I’m not ready for you to die yet. The fun has only just begun.”
Nico looked at him, frowning slightly. “Mmhmm, my brother is mostly correct. We aren’t ready for you to die yet.” He sat down on the side of the bed, his cold skin touching mine. “I think we should have a little conversation first, before we get to the tearing and rending.”
Lucius huffed and let me go. “Always were a killjoy,” he grumbled, wandering back to the shadows in the corner of the room. I might no longer be held down, but I didn’t fool myself into thinking I wasn’t still a prisoner. They could move faster than I could see. Still… I looked at the nightstand. I had a stake in there. Maybe I could take down at least one.
Nico looked at me with disappointed eyes. “I wouldn’t bother. Lucius is looking for an excuse to snap your neck, and we gathered all your weapons up while you were sleeping.” The idea of them being in the room while I slept made chills break out across my skin. Surely they hadn’t found…
“Yes, even the one beneath the mattress.”
Air hissed out through my teeth. I was royally fucked. This was my end, and instead of going out in a blaze of glory, I was going out filled with regret in a shitty motel in a shitty village in a shitty country in Eastern Europe, the kind where people don’t ask questions if guests just disappear.
I sighed, sitting up in bed. If I was going to die, I preferred not to do it on my back. No one turned on the light, and I was at even more of a disadvantage. Their faces were cast in shadow, and the shades of grey made them look even more monstrous. “Let’s get this over with.”
Lucius barked a laugh from the corner. “So eager to be cut into tiny pieces. Maybe I’ll be kind and only cut you into four. For every day you stole her from us.”
I wanted to apologize, but I wasn’t really sorry for my actions. I was just sorry it had been her.
Nico looked over his shoulder. “Calm, Lucius. This will be over soon and we can return to Raine.” He turned back to me. “Excuse him. He’s been off his meds for a few months as we tracked you across Europe. It makes him… unstable.”
I’d felt his hand flexing around my throat. I had a feeling he wasn’t particularly stable on his meds either.
“I, however, took a vow not to kill humans. Though I might make an exception for the man who stole my daughter.” That tiny glimmer of hope disappeared. Nico laid a hand on my arm, and I tensed. “Tell me, Kell Arborson, son of Stephen and Astrid Arborson, why did you steal our Enit?”
“I didn’t mean to,” my mouth said before my brain even had time to catch up. I snapped it shut, and the look that Nico gave me was incredibly shark-like.
“Explain? It's not like you tripped and fell, then accidentally tossed her into the back of your pickup truck, did you?”
I ground my back teeth, trying to keep my mouth shut, but I couldn’t. He was compelling me to speak and I couldn’t fight it. “She was meant to be a guy. If she’d been a guy, I could have pressed for information about Eden with more, uh, hands-on methods.”
“Torture,” Nico prompted.
“I think he had his hands on her more than enough,” Lucius growled, and I knew that I wasn’t coming out of this alive. They knew I’d slept with Enit. I knew how it would have looked, like I’d forced her, raped her. I mean, I’d had her chained to me with silver in a cabin in the middle of nowhere. Consent, I guess, was a dubious concept right there. I deserved what they dished out, I knew it.
Lucius was suddenly in front of me. He leaned forward until his lips were beside my ear. “I am going to tear off any part of you that touched her.”
I just nodded.
Nico huffed, tilting his head at his twin, who obediently went back to his corner. “What information were you after?”
I dropped my chin, turning away from his face like that could numb his effect, but it did nothing. Words tumbled out of my mouth, betraying everything I’d worked toward. “Information about Eden, the key players, easy ways to get in and out of the Academy. Weaknesses.”
Nico made an absent humming sound, like we were having a therapy session rather than a little mental coercion. “And what were you going to do with that information, Mr. Arborson?”
“Kill the monsters. The Lycanthropes.”
Lucius laughed. Like, really laughed, to the point of hysteria.
“You and what army?” Nico cooed.
“The Hounds.”
Their laughter stopped abruptly. Lucius snarled. “Even with The Hounds, you wouldn’t stand a chance. However, there are no Hounds left in North America. They are dead,” he said wistfully. “That was quite a good day.”
I tensed. His words rolled around and around in my head. He’d been there for the destruction of The Hounds facility fifteen years earlier, the day my father…
