Sarita glanced around at the yard inside the fence. The towers were all manned with armed men as they had been the first time, but this time they had noticed their arrival at once and were watching them.
“They’ll shoot if you make a break for it,” the winged man said idly.
Sarita snorted at the suggestion. “I doubt it. Dressler wants me for something. Some kind of experiment.”
“Yes, he does,” he agreed easily as he marched her toward the first building, the one where the immortal had been cut in half and put back together. “But you don’t have to be in good shape for what he wants. Just not dead. They can shoot you in the leg without angering him.”
When Sarita glanced at him narrowly, trying to decide whether he was telling the truth or not, he added, “What do you think we were headed to the island for? It wasn’t to bring you fresh linens.”
Sarita faced forward again, her mind racing, and then asked, “What does he plan to do with me?”
He hesitated and then shook his head. “Father wouldn’t like it if I ruined his surprise. You’ll find out soon enough. But let me give you a little advice,” he said as they approached the lab. “Don’t fight him. You can’t win and he’ll just make things unpleasant for you. On this island my father is God.”
They had reached the door and on the last word, he pulled it open and shoved her in ahead of him.
Sarita stumbled inside and glanced swiftly around the lab, relieved to see that the table was empty this time and there wasn’t some poor tortured immortal on it cut in half or missing limbs. She was less happy to see Asherah sitting at the desk Dressler had used, writing something in a notebook. The woman glanced up with a start at their entrance.
“I have a gift for Father, Asherah,” the winged man announced, pulling the door closed. “Where is he?”
“Sleeping,” Asherah said, eyeing Sarita with an odd expression on her face.
“Well, wake him up. He’ll want to know we have the girl.”
Asherah shook her head and closed her book before standing. “He said not to wake him unless we had them both.”
“But—”
“That’s what he said, Caelestis,” Asherah said firmly, coming around the desk.
“Don’t call me that—you know I hate that name,” the man holding Sarita snapped.
“Fine. That’s what he said, Cael,” she said impatiently and then arched an eyebrow. “Better?”
“Yeah, but—”
“No, buts,” Asherah interrupted irritably. “You know how miserable he gets when he’s woken up from sleep. We don’t wake him up until the vampire’s caught too.”
Cael released a resigned breath. “Fine. What do we do with her, then?”
“Lock her in the cells until the vampire is found,” Asherah said with a shrug, retrieving a large set of keys from her pocket.
“I thought the cells were full?” Cael commented and Sarita turned slightly, getting her first good look at him in the light. He was almost a dead ringer for Thorne. He had the same high cheekbones, the same full lips, the same pale gold eyes and the same coloring to his wings. He was also just as gorgeous as the other man. But he was on the wrong side.
“They are full. I’ll have to put her in with Colton,” Asherah said absently as she led them toward the refrigerator, sorting through the keys on her chain.
“Is he still alive?” Cael asked seeming surprised.
“Just,” Asherah said and paused next to the refrigerator to unlock . . . a door, Sarita saw when Cael urged her closer. She hadn’t noticed it the last time she was here because it was hidden by the protruding refrigerator. She should have expected it existed, though. This lab didn’t take up a fifth of the building. There had to be a door to whatever lay behind this room, which, as it turned out, were cells from what these two had said.
Sarita glanced around curiously the moment Cael marched her through the door. All there was to see was a hallway with white walls and white tile on the floor like the lab they’d just left. There were also five white doors off it. Two on either side and one at the end. Asherah led them to the end door, unlocked it and stepped in, flicking on a light switch next to the door as she went.
Sarita got halfway through this door and then froze. The white walls and white tile floor were gone, replaced by metal walls and a bare concrete floor. There were also six barred cells here, three on either side, all of them occupied. A wide aisle ran down the length between them, leading to a door at the far end of the room. Since the lab, the hallway, and these cells probably only took up half the length of the building, Sarita suspected the far door led to more cells and more prisoners.
She slid her gaze over the occupants of the first two cells. There were two women in the one on the left. They stood as still as statues, faces expressionless as they watched them enter. A lone man was in the cell on the right. He was huge. Even sitting slumped against the wall, Sarita suspected he was almost as tall as her. Standing, she doubted she’d reach halfway up his upper arm. He was also bald and extremely pale, almost blue. His eyes were closed, his head down, his chin resting on his chest. She wasn’t sure he was breathing.
“Move.” Cael shoved her forward with his hold on her arm and Sarita reluctantly followed Asherah down the aisle past the first two cells, aware that the women tracked them with narrowed eyes.
“You should have moved Colton to the front cell instead of leaving him surrounded by these monsters,” Cael said tightly as Asherah stopped at the second cell on the right and began searching through her keys again. “At least then he would only have had them on one side of him.”
Asherah shrugged. “They can’t reach him in the center of the cell and he’s not moving until we carry him out.”
“What about her?” Cael asked, thumbing toward Sarita with his free hand. “They might bite her.”
Asherah selected a key and stuck it in the cell door. As she turned it, she glanced at Sarita and her mouth twisted. “Judging by the footage from the island, she seems to like vampires. She’ll be fine.”
Sarita felt heat rush into her face at the woman’s words as she realized Asherah had obviously watched the camera footage of her and Domitian. They’d been careful to not do anything outside the cocooned bed once Domitian had created the little shelter, but before that there had been the incident in the bathroom that first day. There was also their interlude by the pool. It was possible that a camera had been placed in the trees by the waterfall and caught that action. Though she’d been covered by the towel when Domitian had given her pleasure, it wouldn’t have been hard to tell what was happening. And there had been no towel covering Domitian’s erection afterward, just her mouth.
Her soul shriveled at the thought of this bitch witnessing those intimate moments between her and Domitian, but as Asherah opened the cell door, Sarita raised her chin and asked sharply, “Did you enjoy the show? Or were you jealous?”
Growling, Asherah caught her by the arm, nails digging deep into Sarita’s forearm as she dragged her from Cael and shoved her through the open door. Sarita stumbled several steps, nearly stepping on a figure on the floor before catching herself. Freezing, she stared down at the boy she’d nearly trampled. He was young, perhaps six, and he was lying on the cold concrete with only a blanket wrapped around his bulky shape, leaving just his thin face visible.
“Let’s go,” Asherah snapped as the door clanged shut.
“No. We can’t leave her here. If they drain her dry, Dressler will be pissed,” Cael said and Sarita glanced over to see him eyeing the inhabitants of the other cages warily.
“Fine,” Asherah snarled and pulled a gun from her pocket.
Sarita took an instinctive step back, pausing when she stepped on something. As she glanced down to see that she’d stepped on the boy’s blanket, not any part of him, she heard two soft pffts of sound, and glanced back to the woman. She then followed the gun point to the cell next to the one she was in as the two men inside suddenly dropped like puppets whose strings had been cut. There were darts sticking out of each of them now, she saw.