Swearing at the unexpected attack, the Were lifted his head to stare at her in blatant disbelief. “You.”
Brigette smiled, pointing the crossbow at the center of her heart. “Did you miss me?”
His jaw clenched, his eyes glowing as his wolf struggled to burst through his skin and rip out her throat.
“You’re just full of surprises, aren’t you, bitch?” he spit out.
“Better than what you’re full of,” she taunted.
He snapped his teeth together, the air heating from the force of his fury. “How did you escape?”
She shrugged, not about to reveal anything about Xi or the fact that he was currently keeping an eye on Maryam.
“I have skills you can only dream of possessing.”
He curled his lips in disgust, no doubt assuming she was referring to her defunct powers from the Beast.
“You call them skills. I call them evil.”
“So says the male who just killed his own brother,” she countered.
He jerked in surprise. “How did you know Stewart was my brother?”
“He looks just like you,” Brigette smoothly lied. “Oversized head with no neck. Lots of muscle without much power.”
Roban hesitated, his breathing labored. The silver was sapping him of his strength.
“I couldn’t trust him,” the male grudgingly confessed. “I could see in his eyes that he was going to betray me.” His lips curled. “Just as I could see it in your eyes.”
She narrowed her gaze, not entirely believing his claim. He’d been arguing with Stewart before he entered the hidden tunnel. It’d been more than a fear of betrayal that had caused him to end his brother’s life.
Now, however, wasn’t the time to worry about the fratricide.
“Some people might call that paranoia,” she drawled. “Seeing betrayal in everyone’s eyes.”
He scowled. “Are you claiming you didn’t run to the vampires and rat us out?”
“Of course I did.”
“I knew it,” he hissed. “I told Maryam you couldn’t be trusted.”
“Don’t give yourself any props. It didn’t take a lot of brains to guess that I would turn on you. I am evil, after all.”
He turned his head to spit on the cement floor. “Bitch.”
“Original.” Brigette rolled her eyes before glancing toward the nearby stairs. “What is this place?”
“You don’t know?” he mocked.
Brigette slowly turned her head to meet the male’s taunting sneer. Just as slowly, she tightened her finger on the trigger of the crossbow.
“Maryam might let you be a smart-ass around her, but I’ll carve out your tongue and chop it up for my dinner. Talk.”
The sneer remained, but Roban couldn’t hide the genuine fear in his musky scent or the sweat that coated his bald head.
“It’s the royal household of Salvatore,” he reluctantly admitted.
“The King of Weres,” Brigette breathed.
Hatred smoldered in Roban’s eyes. “The one and only.”
That explained the obscene size of the house, as well as the curs. Salvatore was rumored to have a vast army of the creatures as his personal guard. It didn’t, however, explain why they were there.
Surely, Styx would have warned Salvatore about the cursed explosives and the need to have the local witch coven provide a dampening spell, wouldn’t he? Of course, Roban couldn’t know what exactly had happened in Chicago. He might believe that the bombs had gone off as he and Maryam had intended.
“Did you plant an explosive here?” she demanded.
“Naturally.”
The word came too easily not to be a lie. If there was a bomb, he would do whatever necessary to keep her from finding it.
She shook her head. “You wouldn’t be within a hundred miles of this place if it was ready to explode,” she murmured. “You must have brought it yourself.”
Eying him up and down, she tried to determine if was carrying some sort of explosive device. He was obviously hiding all sorts of nasty surprises under that jacket.
Then again, maybe the device was already planted somewhere in the house.
Which meant she couldn’t kill him until she discovered exactly what was going on.
“Enjoying what you see, bitch?” Roban jeered.
Brigette made a loud gagging sound. This male was cruel and sweaty with a sour scent that made her shudder in revulsion. Just the opposite of Xi’s cool, sleek perfection. The vampire was a male that a female could enjoy ogling.
For an eternity.
“You disgust me, but this won’t be the first time I’ve had to hold my nose and do what was necessary to get what I want,” she muttered.
He tried to snarl, but it ended up more as a whimper. The silver was not only causing him pain, it was draining his skin to a weird shade of ash.
“What do you want, traitor?” he demanded.
She shrugged. “I wanted to be left alone in my deserted homeland, but you just couldn’t let me be.”
“If you wanted to be left alone, you would never have come to Chicago.” He ground his teeth. “What do you want?”
Xi…
Brigette hurriedly squashed the dangerous thought. The delectable vampire was the one thing she could never have.
“To forget.” The words were out before she could halt them. “To sleep without nightmares.”
“I can help.” He leaned forward, as if willing her to believe his sincerity. “We all have demons to battle.”
“We do.” She met his fierce gaze with a humorless smile. “I battled mine and destroyed everyone I loved. What you offer is a temporary sense of victory, followed by endless regret.”
His brows snapped together. “I’m not destroying my family.”
Brigette deliberately glanced toward the motionless form across the basement. “Again. You just murdered your brother.”
“I told you. He was going to betray me.”
“And the king?” She tried to urge him to reveal his plans for Salvatore. “Why would you want him dead?”
“We have no need for leaders. The Weres were meant to roam free.”
Brigette snorted. For a male who’d managed to manipulate hundreds, maybe thousands of demons, he was terrible at lying.