He was right.
I had to go.
But not before I got to do one more thing.
Inching forward, I braced a hand on Drex's chest as I went up on my tiptoes, then pressed my lips to his.
We'd been intimate in various ways, but somehow had never kissed. Maybe that wasn't something he did. A lot of people considered it more intimate than sex. I guess I never understood that before. Not until Drex's lips came alive under mine, that is.
It was like the world fell away. Like we were no longer standing in a cold, dark basement. Like there wasn't danger all around.
It was just the two of us, lost in each other.
I swayed into him, into his warmth, into the promise on his lips. And I let myself fantasize about feeling this very feeling again sometime in the future. Without shackles. Without fear. Just the two of us, lost together.
But this was not the time.
I pulled back with a small whimper, watching Drex's eyes flutter open.
"Go, babe," he demanded, voice soft, a caress of a sound that washed over me.
The moment I took a step back, a shiver racked my system at the absence of his warmth. And I made a solemn vow to myself that I was going to stick with my original plan. I was going to get him out. No matter what.
But I had to go back up.
The staff would be showing up any moment.
"Drex?"
"Yeah."
"Thank you," I told him, then turned and ran before I attacked the stubborn shackles like a madwoman, trying to break him free, and getting us both into more trouble with my efforts.
I sprinted back up the stairs, quietly closing the door, then refastening all the locks.
My heartbeat and breath were still too fast as I made my way through the kitchen, back out toward the front of the house where the staircase would lead me back up to my room.
I'd been lost in my thoughts, in my plans for escape.
I missed it until it was too late.
The shades I'd pulled open were all drawn.
"Well well well..." a voice said, making a different kind of shiver course through me. "What did I tell you, Renwick?" Davor asked, moving down the hallway toward me with Renwick a few feet behind.
Oh, God.
I was caught.
Chapter Twelve
Nova
"From where I am standing, Davor, the girl is guilty of walking around the house in the daytime," Renwick said, not convinced.
"All the curtains were opened," Davor insisted, turning back toward Renwick.
Taking the opportunity, I took a couple small steps toward the side. Closer to the front door.
If they so much as suspected I was going to try to escape, they would be able to get there before I could. I needed to be careful. I needed to wait for an opportunity where they were distracted.
Then throw open the door.
Once it was open, and I was bathed in sunlight, they couldn't come and grab me.
Then I would run.
I had to run.
Drex was right.
Sometimes you had to be selfish.
Because they would kill me if they found me out. Then there was no helping Drex either. Since his people might never learn that he was being held captive by the vampires.
"Yes. Humans do enjoy the daylight from time to time."
"Does she look like she enjoys the sun?" Davor shot back, waving a hand at me.
"I'm tired, Davor. I've had a busy week. The thralls aren't kept under lock and key. If they choose to be awake while we sleep and open the curtains while they walk around, that is their prerogative. You're wasting my fucking time with your bullshit."
"This is how you speak to a guest in your home?"
Guest?
At this point, he was a freeloader at best.
True, all of Renwick's friends came to visit for long stretches of time since their lives were everlasting, so to them, a short stay was a few months or so.
But Davor had been around for a long while. And no one seemed to actually enjoy his company. I'd never thought to wonder why he was around then. Aside from wanting to stay to torment me, that is.
"When they are disrupting my sleep, yes, yes it is."
"Look, just question her. She can't lie. So ask her what she was doing. I'm telling you, she's up to something. I know her better than anyone else," he added, charging toward me.
I waited.
I waited until I felt his hand reach out.
I grasped his wrist in my hand.
Then I swung open the door.
His yell of shock was quickly drowned out by his screams as his body caught fire, making me snatch my hand back. And then, within seconds, the fire was gone, and there was just ash all around my feet.
It was over.
He was over.
He couldn't hurt anyone ever again.
My head lifted from the ash on the ground, my gaze landing immediately on Renwick from his safe position just out of the light.
I don't know what I expected to see on his face.
Shock.
Horror.
Anger.
But all I saw there was a sort of curiosity I didn't know how to interpret.
I didn't have time even to try.
I had to go.
Before the staff showed up.
If the staff showed up, they could pull the car into the garage where Renwick could climb into the back with its heavily tinted windows, and they could chase me down.
I had to go.
I had to leave Drex.
There was that slicing sensation in my chest at that idea.
But I couldn't stay.
He wouldn't want me to.
I had to go.
I had to get reinforcements.
I turned.
And I ran.
I ran like I'd never run before.
Barefoot down the path, the driveway, the grass, the road, trying to rely on my shaky memory of the night we went to Sanctuary, so I could get myself there.
Drex's plan hinged on finding a woman named Thysa.
It took me nearly an hour and a half to get there, finding myself drenched in sweat and dying of thirst when I finally did.
Only to find no one around.
With the kind of desperation born out of pure need, I went around the building, finding the hose hookup, and turning it on.
I let the hot water run out before the blessedly cool stuff came out. I gulped handfuls of water, then splashed it on my face, scrubbed some down my neck, between my breasts, then, cringing as I saw the damage, over my sore and bloodied feet.
It was right then that a car pulled up a few feet away, catching me rinsing off my feet.
I had to have looked a wreck with my sweaty hair and flushed face and busted feet.
"Well now," a female voice said, drawing my attention to a pretty, brunette, curly-haired woman dressed in a black dress and gladiator sandals. "If it isn't the woman worth going to war over," she added, eyeing me. "Why are you here, stealing my water instead of having lots of sweaty, possibly kinky sex with a hot, bearded biker?"
"I need help," I admitted, turning off the water.
"It sure looks like it," she agreed. "Come inside. I'll get you something for those feet," she added.
The something she had for my feet ended up being a heavy pour of vodka over the cuts to clean them out.
"Yeah, that's the spirit," she agreed when I let out a string of curses. "Here, take a long swig, then get to talking," she said, moving behind the bar to start slicing lemons and limes as if this was the kind of thing that happened all the time in her club.