Sarita turned a glare at the Scot. “Do you think you could just stop reading my mind?”
“I’m afraid not,” he said, not sounding very apologetic. “In truth, none of us has to read you. Like all new life mates you’re kind of shouting your thoughts at us.”
Sarita narrowed her eyes on Quinn and then turned to Victor Argeneau inquiringly.
“He is telling the truth. We are not reading your thoughts so much as receiving them.”
Sighing, Sarita shook her head, and glanced to her right now, at the two men Asherah had shot. Enrique Aurelios, he’d said. She eyed the man, noting his dark good looks, and then glanced to the second man lying unconscious on the floor with a dart sticking out of him.
“That is Lucern,” Quinn informed her dryly and then added, “Yet another Argeneau cousin of your life mate’s.”
Sarita merely nodded, recognizing the first name. She then turned her gaze to the last cell, the first one on the other side, across from Santo’s cell where the women were. Victor took over the introductions again, saying, “The lovely lady with flame-colored tips to her hair is my sister-in-law, Eshe Argeneau, and the woman with pink-tipped hair is Mirabeau La Roche McGraw.”
Eshe Argeneau snorted with amusement. “You could have just said the black chick and white chick, Victor. We wouldn’t have taken offense and it would have been simpler.”
“I would never deign to define you as simply black, Eshe,” Victor assured her.
“But you’d define me by my hair tints?” she asked with disbelief.
“Our skin color is merely something we are born with, like our hair color and eye color,” he said with a shrug. “However, the fiery tint you apply to your hair actually does reveal a great deal about you, and better reflects your personality.”
“He’s good,” Mirabeau—the white chick—said, nudging Eshe’s arm.
“Yeah, those Argeneau boys,” Eshe said with a slow smile. “All smooth talk and sex appeal.”
“Spoken like a woman mated to one,” Mirabeau said on a laugh.
“And I’m not the only one here who is,” Eshe pointed out and smiled at Sarita. “Welcome to the family, kiddo. I don’t know Domitian well, but if he’s anything like his uncles, you’re in for one hell of a ride.”
Sarita felt the blush that suddenly swept over her, but before she could even think of how to respond, the man Quinn had called Santo Notte suddenly issued a roar of pain. Turning sharply, she watched as he suddenly jerked upright and clasped his right wrist in his left hand. It was only then she noticed with some horror that his right hand was missing, cut off at the wrist.
The scream ended as abruptly as it had started, as if the sound had woken him from sleep, and now conscious, he could silence the sound of suffering. He sat panting for a minute, and then leaned back against the wall and took several long deep breaths one after the other.
Sarita swallowed the bile that had risen up in her throat at his suffering and watched with pity as he mastered his pain. She couldn’t imagine what he was going through. Wanting to help if she could, she eased the little boy’s head back to the floor and stood to move toward the bars between their cells.
“Stop!” Victor barked. When she paused and glanced around with surprise, he added, “Do not go any closer, Sarita. Santo might lose his head and attack if you get close enough for him to grab you.”
“I will not attack her.” Santo’s voice was a weary growl. “But I would appreciate it, Sarita, if you would move back to where you were. Your scent is strong and, frankly, more of a torment than Dressler’s pitiful attempts at torture.”
“Pitiful?” she asked with disbelief. Cutting off body parts seemed pretty horrific as tortures went to her, Sarita thought as she surreptitiously bent her head to sniff herself by the shoulder and armpit.
“Si. Pitiful. I have been tortured by men far better at it than him,” Santo said solemnly.
Sarita frowned, both at his words and at the fact that she didn’t smell that bad. She wasn’t fresh as a daisy, but—
“He means you smell delicious,” Victor said, sounding amused.
“Si. Delizioso, like Momma’s Swordfish a la Siciliana,” Santo said on a sigh, and then lifted his head and inhaled deeply.
Her brow furrowing with concern, Sarita ducked her head again, this time sniffing her other shoulder and armpit. She didn’t smell anything fishy, but she had been in the ocean all last night swimming here and she hadn’t had a chance to shower or anything since. Sighing, she moved back to sit down next to the little boy again.
“Is Santo the only one of you that Dressler has experimented on so far?” Sarita asked as she eased the boy’s head onto her lap again.
“Experiment? Is that what he calls it?” Victor asked, his voice stiff.
Sarita nodded. “Apparently he’s been subjecting the other immortals he has to various and sundry experiments.”
“And here we thought he just cut off Santo’s hand because he wouldn’t tell him how to turn a mortal,” Decker said dryly.
“Turn a mortal?” Sarita asked, glancing up with surprise. “Can you do that?”
Victor gave one slow nod.
“And Dressler wants to know how?” she asked sharply. The ramifications of that happening rushed through her mind. The man was brilliant, and as Mrs. Dressler had said, he thought ten steps ahead of everyone else. That was how he had got away with torturing his hybrids, holding people against their will, kidnapping immortals, and probably killing people for fifty years on this island without detection. The one bright spot her grandmother and Mrs. Dressler were looking forward to was the day he died and they would be free. But what if he discovered how to become an immortal and turned himself? God save them all then. The man could continue torturing and maiming people and immortals on this island indefinitely. The thought was a horrific one.
“But no one has told him, right?” Sarita asked anxiously. “Not even the guy he cut in half?”
“He cut someone in half?” Victor asked sharply.
“Who?” Decker gripped the bars of their cell. “What was his name?”
“I don’t know,” Sarita admitted with a frown.
“What did he look like?” Nicholas asked.
Sarita tried to think back. All she could remember was his open wounds and how gray he had looked. She couldn’t envision his face at all.
“Did you see what color his eyes were?” Victor asked.
“Green,” Sarita said at once. Domitian had asked her the same question and she remembered the man’s eyes opening as she had when he’d asked. “And he had fair hair, and—”
“It is all right, we can see the memory in your mind,” Victor said quietly.
Sarita raised her eyebrows. Domitian hadn’t been able to do that, but then he said life mates couldn’t read each other’s minds.
“It was Davies,” Decker muttered with disgust.
“Yes,” Nicholas agreed. “Christ, he’s just a pup. Barely a hundred years old.”
“But he was one of the first to go missing,” Victor pointed out. “So if he yet lives, the others might still be alive as well.”
“It wasn’t the first time Dressler did that to him,” Sarita said with a frown. “He said he’d cut him in half and left him for only ten seconds the first time and had worked his way up to two hours. If what Dressler truly wanted was to know how to turn a mortal, well . . .” She shook her head. “Frankly, I’m surprised anyone could withstand that torture and not tell.”
“Hmm,” Victor murmured, looking troubled, but then he asked curiously, “Would you let Dressler know how to live forever?”
“God no,” Sarita said at once. “I’d rather die.”
Victor nodded with approval, but said, “The problem is, Domitian wouldn’t.”
“You don’t think he’d die rather than tell him?” she asked with surprise, because frankly, Sarita couldn’t see that. She was quite sure Domitian would agree with her and die before giving such information to the man.