“Would you like some tea?” Arthur asked.
“Children . . . ?”
“Safe,” he said and she believed the sincerity of his words even though she had no reason to do so.
Arthur rose, took a small blue mug from the shelf behind him, and poured steaming tea into it from a large kettle on the stove. He set the cup in front of her. “Please drink. It will steady your nerves.”
Karina looked at the cup.
He drank from his own cup and smiled in encouragement.
She picked up the cup and took a sip. Green tea. Odd taste, slightly sour.
Maybe she was still dreaming. The whole scene had that slightly absurd wrongness found only in dreams.
Karina looked about the table. The man who had offered her the chair, Henry, sat to her right. He was tall and whipcord lean. His face, serious with somber intelligence, lacked Arthur’s magnetism, but its sharp angles drew her all the same. His tawny hair was cut close to the scalp, but still showed a trace of a curl. His green eyes regarded her and she read pity in their depths.
The man on her left was model pretty. Strong masculine jaw, deep, dark blue eyes, high cheekbones, a mane of golden wavy hair dripping down to below his waist, hiding half of his face . . . His eyes flashed with wild humor. He gave her a wink, grinned, exposing even white teeth, and tossed his hair back. An ugly scar ripped his left cheek, almost as if something had taken a bite out of him and his flesh hadn’t healed right. She fought an urge to look away. He reached for her hand . . .
“Daniel.” Arthur’s voice gained a slight edge. “That’s extremely unwise.”
Daniel sat back.
“Just because she didn’t scream when she saw your face doesn’t mean you get to touch.” Henry refilled his cup.
“Please forgive Daniel. He doesn’t mean to be rude. He’s just forbidden to speak for the time being. Your tea is getting cold,” Arthur said.
“He tends to cause problems when he speaks,” Henry said.
Daniel gave her a smoldering smile.
She faced Arthur. “What did I agree to?”
Arthur sighed. “I see.”
Henry leaned forward. “Perhaps we should mend this.”
“Yes. The sooner, the better. Lucas might return and that would make things considerably more complicated.”
Daniel laughed softly. If wolves could laugh, they would sound just like him.
Henry held out his hand. “It’s easier if you hold on to me.”
Karina hesitated.
“You do want to remember, don’t you?” Arthur asked.
She put her hand into Henry’s. His long warm fingers closed about hers. The world tore in two and she was back on the landing of the fire escape at the not-motel, cradling Emily. Her whole body burned with a terrible ache.
Arthur leaned his head to the side, looked at them for a moment, and plucked Emily from her arms.
“No!” Karina struggled to hold on, but her hands had lost all strength.
Emily didn’t kick. Didn’t scream. Her face was completely blank, as if she had turned into a doll. Arthur turned and handed her to someone behind him on the stairs.
“Emily!” Karina tried to crawl after her but her body refused to obey.
Arthur touched the hem of her black top and edged it upward. His fingers touched her stomach. Pain pierced her and she cried out.
“Ah. Now see, this isn’t good.” Arthur shook his head mournfully. “All of this must seem terribly confusing to you and our time is short, so I will keep the explanations simple. This is the house where monsters live. We are the killers of monsters. I suppose that also makes us monsters simply by necessity. I don’t know why you’re here. It’s probably a pure coincidence. An unlucky roll of the dice. You and your children were caught in the cross fire. One of the monsters poisoned you with her throat dart. The wound is fatal. You’re dying.”
Fear shot down Karina’s spine in an icy rush. She didn’t think she could have gotten more scared, but his tone, that patient, pleasant, even tone, as if he were discussing lunch, terrified her. It’s not a dream, she realized. It’s happening. It’s happening to me right now. God, please let Emily be okay. Please. I’ll do anything.
“I can smell your fear,” Arthur said. “It rolls off your skin. A better man would feel discomfort at your pain. But I’m not a good man. I feel nothing for you. We rarely have to deal with innocent bystanders and when we do, we strive to send them back unharmed, not out of some altruistic impulse, but because we dislike attention. If you hadn’t been injured, Henry here would wipe your memory and the five of you would go merrily on your way. As it is, however, you will be dead in the next thirty minutes.”
The words refused to leave her mouth. Karina strained and forced them out. “Why are you telling me this?”
His ice-cold smile made her heart jump. “I’m talking to you because I’m about to offer you a deal. You have something we want, my lady. Your body has a genetic predisposition toward producing certain hormones one of us desperately needs. Your subspecies isn’t unique, but it’s rare enough to make you valuable. I suspect that’s also how you were able to find this place, and that’s why the yadovita, the redheaded woman, took the time to poison you instead of defending herself from us. Listen carefully, my lady, because I won’t repeat myself.”
She stared at him, committing each word to memory.
“The creature behind you requires your blood. He will feed on you. His venom will counteract the poison that’s killing your body. In return, he will consume the chemicals your body will produce. You will give yourself to the House of Daryon. You will let the beast feed on you. You will live in quarters of our choosing. You can never leave. You can have no contact with the outside world. For your agreement to this, we will spare your life and the lives of the children.”
The thing on the windowsill let out a low whine of anticipation. That . . . that beast would feed on her. Forever. Oh, dear God. I can’t do it . . . I can’t . . .
Arthur leaned forward, his face showing no emotion beyond the pleasant, calm composure. “Consider carefully before you answer. I don’t offer this deal to you because I like you or because I’m moved by some noble emotion. I do it because we need you. What I propose won’t be pleasant for you. You won’t enjoy it. In fact, many would say you’re better off dying now.”
Fog gathered on the edge of her mind, threatening to smother her. Karina clawed at reality, trying to remain conscious.
“My daughter . . .”
The beast growled on the windowsill.
“He guarantees her safety,” Arthur said.
“The children . . . will be returned to their families?”
“Yes.”
“I agree.”
A gentle hand seized her mind and pulled her back through time and space to the reality of the round table and the hot tea mug in her hand. She looked at Arthur.
“My daughter, Emily?”
He didn’t answer.
“You promised me the children would be returned to their families. Her father is dead. I’m the only family Emily has. Where is she?”
He smiled, a flat curving of lips without any emotion. “She’s at the main house for the time being.”
No, she wasn’t, Karina realized. He was lying. “I want my daughter. We made a deal. Bring me my daughter, or I am leaving.”
Daniel rocked back on his chair and laughed. A door slammed. Footsteps echoed through the house. “Cooperate with Lucas and your daughter will be brought to you,” Arthur said.
A man walked into the kitchen. Tall, corded with muscle that bulged his T-shirt, he dwarfed the doorway. He wasn’t just large, he was massive and wrapped in menace, as if he were a whirlwind of violence, barely contained in the shell of his body. Black hair fell on his hard, aggressive face in long strands. He glanced at her, his eyes green and merciless. She met his gaze and gulped. It was like looking into the eyes of a tiger. His stare promised death.
Recognition sparked in his green irises and flared into rage.
He lunged forward, inhumanly quick, and hit the table with his palm. She jerked back.
“Get your hands off of her!” His voice rippled with a snarl.
Henry raised his hands in the air. The man grasped the chair, Henry still on it, and tossed it aside. Steely fingers grabbed her elbow and pulled her up. He swiped her off the floor with ridiculous ease, locking her in the crook of his arm, and snapped like a rabid dog, “Mine!”
“We have no intention of taking her from you.” Arthur sipped his tea.
“Don’t any of you f**kers touch her!”
She flailed in his arms, trying to break free, but it was like trying to push back a semi.
“You must forgive Lucas,” Arthur told her. “He tends to be overprotective of his food.”
A familiar scent of heated metal invaded her nostrils. Panic squirmed through her. She fought harder, but her feet kicked only air. He carried her away out of the kitchen back to the bedroom where she had awakened.
CHAPTER 2
Lucas dropped her on the bed and went to lock the door. “Stay away from Arthur. He’s a sick f**k.”
He turned and strode toward her, enormous, overwhelming in his sheer size. Karina shrank back until her spine hit the wall.
He looked her over, a long, lingering stare that made her want to cover herself, frowned and ducked into a doorway on the left. Water gushed. Lucas reappeared with a tall glass of water and handed it to her. “Drink this. It will help.”
She drank.
He sat on a chair across from her and pulled off his socks. Only now she noticed that he wasn’t wearing any shoes. He balled the socks into a clump and tossed them into the room where he’d gotten the water, then shrugged off his T-shirt. Karina’s breath caught in her throat. Faded ragged scars crisscrossed his massive back. His legs were long, his waist narrow in comparison to his vast shoulders. His lines were almost perfect. As he squared his shoulders, muscles rolled under his skin, forming hard ridges. He didn’t move—he stalked and prowled, like a huge predatory animal, menace cascading from him in waves along with his hot metallic scent.