Thief of Hearts (Elders and Welders Chronicles Book 3) Page 16

  Hex’s body seemed to slump with relief.

  Netherfield huffed out a disappointed breath and looked apologetically in Theodora’s direction. “You’ll have to wait, then, my dear. It seems that we still require Miss Bartholomew.”

  Well, thank hell he hadn’t tried to lie.

  “However, I believe our trip shall have to be slightly postponed in light of your very unexpected visit,” Netherfield said, turning back to Rowan. “My benefactor returns to the city tomorrow, and I’m sure he shall be delighted to meet you.”

  “I’m not interested in your games, Netherfield,” he snarled.

  Netherfield smirked yet again. “You haven’t a choice but to play along nicely, I’m afraid, if you value Miss Bartholomew’s life. Besides, you doubtless have questions. My benefactor can answer them all.”

  “Can and will are very different things,” Rowan retorted.

  Netherfield just laughed. “At least your memory loss has not affected your intelligence. You always were rather clever. Of course, nothing near to your cousin. But then again, he too had his weaknesses.”

  Taunting Rowan with his past was getting very old very quickly. “I shall cooperate,” he said through gritted teeth. “Though I doubt you can contain me.”

  Netherfield’s grin grew to entirely new proportions, and Rowan only just restrained himself from charging the man and pummeling him into the floor, consequences be damned. “That sounded like a dare, Mr. Rowan.”

  No, he didn’t like this man at all.

  Chapter Eight

  THE CHAMBER BENEATH the palace was as dry and dusty as a pharaoh’s desert tomb. Hex struggled to walk, much less breathe, in Theodora’s death-grip, her skin slick with sweat in the suffocating heat, her eyes struggling to adjust in the flickering torchlight.

  The trip through the palace had been silent and awkward, everyone they passed turning a blind eye to her bound hands and obvious distress. Netherfield and his mysterious benefactor had undoubtedly put the fear of God into the khedive to be allowed such carte blanche. It wouldn’t have taken much, though, just a flash of Vasily and Theodora’s fangs.

  Even if she had managed to escape with Rowan, she doubted she would have made it far, between the vampires and the palace guard. Rowan could have gotten away, but he seemed determined to cooperate. She didn’t know how to feel about his blithe acceptance of their current circumstances, but she knew as soon as they began to descend the winding staircase beneath the palace that they were done for. Every step downward severely diminished both of their chances of escape.

  When she saw the giant cage in the middle of a large, musty storage room, bars crisscrossing each other on all sides, her last hopes began to dwindle. And when Rowan, the damned fool, walked right into the cage and let Vasily lock it down without even a token protest, those dwindling hopes faded to dust.

  She’d not expected to be separated from Rowan, and from the troubled look on his face, neither had he.

  He gripped the bars and tested their strength, and she could tell from the small furrow between his brows that he would not be breaking free of his prison as easily as he had broken free of the tomb. His powers would not stand up to whatever the cage was made of, which was no big surprise to Hex. Netherfield seemed to know what Rowan was. He’d not be so careless as to underestimate his strength.

  “It’s a special steel alloy an associate of mine developed. Strong enough to withstand even your strength,” Netherfield explained casually.

  Rowan tried to look undaunted, but the knuckles that gripped the bars were white with strain. “Your word that Miss Bartholomew will remain unharmed?”

  “Of course,” Netherfield answered smoothly. Too smoothly. “We, alas, need her to navigate to the tomb.”

  Vasily, who was standing just out of Netherfield’s line of sight, gave Hex a chilling smile.

  She was certain of only one thing in that moment: she could not be separated from Rowan.

  Rowan, the oblivious, noble-hearted man, just nodded at Netherfield’s promise, however, as if he trusted the villain to live up to some gentlemanly code of conduct.

  Perhaps Netherfield did intend to keep his word, but Vasily surely didn’t. And Hex had no desire to find out what the madman might do to her. But he would do it to her at the first opportunity, despite Netherfield’s orders otherwise, of that she had no doubt.

  She was asset enough to Netherfield for him to keep her alive, but there were levels of “unharmed”. In the end, she highly doubted Netherfield would care if Vasily had his fun, so long as she was functional enough to pilot them to their thrice-damned tomb afterward.

  Hex assessed her meager options in the seconds left before Netherfield grew tired of bantering with Rowan. The only advantage she had left was the fact that Theodora had released her from her chokehold now that Rowan was in the cage. But Vasily and Netherfield stood in front of the one exit to the room, so escaping was right out—though she doubted it had ever really been an option with the speed at which Vasily and Theodora moved.

  She needed to do something to force Netherfield to leave her with Rowan, but anything she tried would be risky. Netherfield seemed to have some modicum of control over Theodora, but Vasily, with his hungry eyes and carefully maintained distance from his employer, was a wild card.

  Not even Netherfield seemed to realize this yet, but Hex did. Growing up, she’d known many men like Vasily who’d had that same irrationally focused look in their eyes. He would never be controlled, especially if enough temptation was placed in his path.

  She would just have to be that temptation. She’d rather be dead than suffer through whatever he had planned for her once he got her alone, so she’d take her chances on her half-assed plan. She just hoped to hell that she came out the other side of it with her throat intact.

  Netherfield threw out yet another snide taunt aimed at Rowan—the man was way too pleased by his own cleverness—and when Theodora’s attention strayed to her employer as he laughed, Hex made her move. She ran full tilt at Vasily, pushing aside the part of her that screamed she was a lunatic for doing so.

  The brute's eyes widened in disbelief when he noticed what she was doing, then narrowed in anticipation. He crouched down, his body tensing in readiness, a hunter focusing on his prey. His eyes began to glow their eerie glow and his fangs descended, and Hex’s steps almost faltered at the thoroughly disturbing smile that lit his thin lips.

  He lunged at her, quicker than she could blink, and she felt his powerful arms wrap around her. They fell back, his body weight crushing her just this side of too painful. Something sharp and cold pierced her shoulder from behind as he pushed her down, and she cried out in agony.

  This only seemed to spur Vasily on, his nostrils flaring as if he could scent her leaking blood. He began to tear at her clothes, his amber eyes focused on her bleeding shoulder, his body brutal and hard against her own.

  It was nearly impossible to fight back with her hands literally tied together, but even if she could have, she wouldn’t have done much damage. She might as well have been battling a lion. Though with a lion she suspected she would have had more of a chance.

  She heard someone screaming her name—Rowan—followed by a shriek, and then suddenly Theodora was on Vasily’s back, tearing him off of Hex. Hex scrambled out of the way as quickly as she could, clutching her injured shoulder and watching wide-eyed as Vasily and Theodora ripped into each other with their fangs and fists, brawling their way around the room.

  Vasily’s attention seemed to focus entirely on Hex, a rabid dog fixed upon his bone, despite Theodora’s attempts to divert him. Every hole in Theodora’s defense sent him charging back in Hex’s direction to finish his assault. She just hoped that Theodora could hold him back, for she knew that she was dead if Vasily got another chance at her.

  She’d never witnessed such a horrific fight, and had the two of them been human, they would have long succumbed to their debilitating wounds. Bones crunched beneath their fists, skin
ripped beneath their fangs, and the walls of the room were fast disintegrating to rubble.

  At one point, Theodora managed to shove Vasily’s face against the same bit of protruding metal that had cut into Hex’s shoulder. It slashed clear through his jaw line, and Hex felt her gorge rise at the sight of bone and soft tissue being ripped away. In just seconds, however, Vasily was back on his feet, shaking away the blood and gore with a growl, the wound to his jaw already healing.

  Hex eyed the empty path to the doorway and calculated the odds of trying to make a run for it after all. They were still appallingly low, but she decided to try her luck anyway while the vampires were distracted with each other. She didn’t get very far before a furious-looking Netherfield dodged past the fight and straight into her path. He gripped her by her injured shoulder, the bastard, and she cursed in pain. He was surprisingly strong for such a soft-looking man.

  He dragged her across the chamber and fumbled at the locks on the cage. She made a show of struggling, though inwardly she was rejoicing. He was playing right into her hands. He lifted the bars and shoved her inside with a stern glare before locking them back in place.

  Vasily caught sight of her in the cage and howled like a dog. In a frenzy, he swiped a hand down Theodora’s face, ripping away the skin and digging deep into sinew and bone, then picked her up and threw her against a wall so hard it crumbled inward, stone and dust raining down on her head. Theodora lay stunned, the gruesome wound to her face healing too slowly for Hex’s stomach’s sake.

  Vasily threw himself against the cage and reached through the bars for Hex, his face set in a rictus of fury. She backed away as far as she could, though that didn’t seem to discourage him. He was determined to reach her, no matter how hard Rowan pounded against his arms with his boots.

  The sound of bones snapping beneath Rowan’s blows reached her ears over Vasily’s rabid snarls, and her stomach churned even more, her vision whiting out with her terror.

  Finally, Netherfield snuck up behind Vasily, who seemed blind in his bloodlust, and jabbed a syringe into his neck. The vampire immediately fell to his knees, the fight going out of him, his broken arms retreating from the cage. His glowing eyes dimmed and rolled back in his head, and he slumped to the ground. She couldn’t tell if he was in pain or bliss, but whatever Netherfield had given the creature had worked.

  Netherfield jerked Vasily’s limp body to his feet and barked at Theodora to help. He flashed an annoyed glare in Hex’s direction, but she didn’t even flinch. She’d gotten precisely what she’d aimed for, aside from the wound to her shoulder. But a cut was a damned sight better than the thousand other things that could have gone wrong…or what Vasily would have done to her had she not acted when she did.

  “You’re a very lucky woman, Miss Bartholomew,” Netherfield snarled. “Next time I will just let Vasily have you.”

  Bastard. He’d known Vasily’s plans all along and had had no intention of interfering.

  “You need me yet,” she managed to say through her breathlessness.

  “Not for long,” he muttered. He jerked a shockingly compliant Vasily toward the exit. Theodora trailed after them, her wounds healed but her fancy dress quite ruined. Hex took perverse satisfaction in that small victory.

  “Have a lovely evening!” she shouted after their retreating backs.

  Theodora glowered at over her shoulder. Hex just sent a rude gesture back with her bound hands and grinned at the disgusted snarl on Theodora’s face.

  When she turned to face Rowan, her grin faded. He was staring at her as if she’d grown horns.

  “What were you thinking?” he cried.

  Suddenly, she didn’t feel so good. The rush of chemicals that had kept her fighting without feeling were quickly fleeing her system, leaving her shoulder on fire and her nerves completely shot to hell. She leaned against the bars of the cage and gripped her shoulder with her bound hands, trying not to let the pain show. But she couldn’t hide the tremors passing through her body.

  Rowan’s anger fled completely at her distress, and his brow creased in concern. He ripped off her restraints, shrugged out of his jacket, and wrapped it around her shoulders. She didn’t realize how cold she was until the light musky wool enveloped her.

  “I shouldn’t be cold,” she muttered.

  “You’re in shock,” Rowan said grimly, untucking his white undershirt and tearing strips of fabric from the bottom. Hex tried not to look at the hard, toned, naked abdomen he inadvertently revealed as he did so, but she soon lost the battle with herself. It wasn’t like she hadn’t seen him in his altogether already.

  “I’ll be fine in a minute,” she finally managed, frowning when he let his shirt fall back down, covering the view. “I’ve been in worse spots before.”

  And Hex Bartholomew did not do shock. She was stronger than that.

  “That is not at all reassuring,” he muttered. He started to reach for her injured shoulder, and she jerked away with a hiss.

  “I need to look at your injury,” he said.

  She sighed and pushed the jacket off of her shoulder. She undid the buttons on her waistcoat, then slid it and the collar of her shirt down just enough to expose the wound.

  When she glanced back up at Rowan, he was looking everywhere but at her bare shoulder, a faint pink staining his cheeks. The man was blushing. She would have laughed out loud, but she was too exhausted and in too much pain to manage much more than a snort.

  “Well?” she prompted.

  He cleared his throat and focused on her shoulder, the blush spreading to the tips of his ears. He dabbed at the wound with one of the strips from his shirt, and she grimaced from the sting. He immediately gentled his movements.

  “Well?” she demanded once more when he continued to hover silently.

  “It’s just a shallow cut. I think you’ll live,” he murmured.

  He finished cleaning it and bound the fabric around her arm.

  “That…thing almost killed you,” he said as he tied off the dressing. She slid her sleeve back into place and buttoned up her waistcoat. She flexed her shoulder experimentally and immediately regretted it. It may have just been a small cut, but it sure as hell stung.

  “That thing was going to attack me the first chance it got. So I took my chances,” she retorted.

  Rowan looked thoughtful for a long, silent moment. “You wanted inside the cage,” he finally deduced.

  “Hell yes, I wanted in the cage,” she said with exasperation. Was he really too naïve to have caught onto Vasily’s agenda? “I figured it works both ways. It might not let you out, but it won’t let them in.”

  “It was a massive risk,” he said disapprovingly.

  “Well, I would rather be dead than endure whatever Vasily had in store for me,” she muttered.

  He looked pained by her words. “Don’t say that.”

  “It’s true, and you know it. You saw Omar. Vasily might not have killed me, but he sure as hell would have come close.”

  He looked a little sick at the reminder of the former interpreter’s violent end and tucked the coat around her once more before stepping back.

  She just caught herself from doing something outlandish like thanking him. Instead, she pulled the lapels together, trying to regulate her body heat enough to stop shivering. She slid down the bars and sat on the metal floor of the cage, surveying their prison. She kicked the heel of her boot against the floor to test its strength, but the cage remained entirely unmoved, not even a miniscule tensile quake spreading out from the impact.

  Rowan saw what she was doing and kicked at the bars experimentally. This time, the cage actually shook, but only a little. He kicked again and again, until the cage was shuddering all around them, but he didn’t leave a single dent in the metal.

  He finally gave up and turned to her with a sheepish expression. “I can’t shift it, sorry.”

  She sighed and switched on her watch in case Simon needed to reach her. Rowan observed her curiously. “It�
��s a communication device, not a watch,” she said.

  “Yes, I know. Simon explained it to me. He is very clever,” he said rather grudgingly.

  “Smartest man I know,” she said.

  “You two are not…?” Rowan trailed off, and once again his cheeks looked a bit pink. He avoided her eyes.

  What the hell was he…

  Oh. Oh.

  She felt her own cheeks heating in response, though she didn’t know why she should be so embarrassed. “What? No!” she scoffed. “Simon’s like a brother to me. Ugh.”

  He nodded shortly. “That’s what he said, but I wanted to be sure.”

  She tried to fight back her blushes. The man was so painfully obvious. A month on his own, and he still hadn’t gained the ability to hide every single emotion he felt. And while she could admit to herself that she found Rowan quite appealing—what red-blooded woman wouldn’t?—she was still going to do her best to keep her distance. Perhaps a little honesty from her was in order—a novel idea indeed.

  “Look, Rowan, I’m…flattered that you are infatuated with me…”

  His amber eyes practically bugged out of his head, and his cheeks went from pink to scarlet. “I am not…”

  “Please. I know when a man’s interested, okay? I was married.”

  His eyes grew even wider, if that was possible. “You? Married?” he sputtered. “But you’re so young! Too young to marry, surely!”

  She fidgeted with the edge of her gloves and looked away. She never liked speaking of her short, failed marriage. She had been too young. She was still too young. Yet sometimes she felt as if she were centuries old. She’d done a lot of living in her eighteen years. “Yeah, well. I was sixteen, he was twenty. It lasted six months.”

  “Did he die?” he asked hesitatingly.

  She snorted. She sort of wished Edgar had, on her worst days. “Divorced,” she muttered.

  He looked even more upset by this than he had at the thought of Edgar’s death. “I’m sorry,” he said gently.

  She shrugged and once again regretted it. The cut on her shoulder throbbed at the movement. “I’m not. I learned a valuable lesson.”