His dark laughter floated over me, and I swallowed past the knot in my throat. A thousand voices whispered my name until it echoed all around us. I hadn’t expected him to shove me away, so when he did, I ended up sprawled on my ground for the second time in one night. Unwilling to allow humiliation to steal my small gift of freedom, I stood and started to back away from the males.
“Run, princess. I’m giving you a ten minute head-start. I suggest you use it wisely. I’d hate for you to end up broken, and defeated before I reach you.”
My body felt bruised and battered already from endlessly bouncing off surfaces. Pegging him with a withering stare, I planted a palm on my hip. “I’m not Humpty Dumpty, motherfucker. I sure in the fuck don’t require the king and all his men to put my ass back together,” I announced as the increasing darkness rushed up to swallow him. “And may the goddess have sympathy on you because I won’t.” I rounded on my heel, flipped off him and his posse, and sauntered away.
Chapter Nine
The endless laughter rang from every direction. I had no awareness of how long I’d been running or where I was. There were no symbols this deep within the endless tunnels I scrambled through. My thighs burned, and my lungs wheezed from exertion. I was so focused on the single objective of getting away that I almost missed the slightest sensation of airflow. It had me skidding to a halt before I shuffled toward where it was coming from. My third step had my foot meeting open air, and I pitched myself backward, scrambling away from the drop.
Igniting my inner light, I rolled onto my hands and knees and forced myself forward, needing to see what I’d almost tumbled into. Over the edge was a lethal drop into a dark abyss. At the bottom were sharp crystals that pointed toward the sky that fed the cavern a sliver of moonlight. The walls around the deep hole sparkled, reflecting the moonlight further into the space. Backing away from the drop, I breathed a shuddered breath and dropped my head back, rolling my neck to relieve the strain searing in my spine.
Turning back to the way I’d entered from, I froze when I found a new male blocking the exit. Unlike my captor, he wasn’t fun to look at. This guy was oozing malice, and impure thoughts played within his soulless depths. His eyes slid over me, and he released an ominous chuckle of amusement. Slowly, he closed the distance between us, only stopping when he was steps from me.
“You ready to scream, darling?” he snapped, opening his lips to reveal lengthened fangs.
“Are you?” I queried, smiling demurely. Spyder had taught me a lot of things during his trips to the city. Fighting had been merely one of those things.
I pivoted before spinning back toward him, shifting my weight, and aiming a roundhouse kick at his cheekbone. It connected and sent him sideways to slam into the side of the cave. He jumped back onto his feet, shooting back toward me so fast that my only option was to drop to the floor. The moment he skidded, and attempted to stop before running me over, I lifted my arms between his thighs, and pushed up from the ground using gravity, and the element of surprise to send him falling on to his back. He released a strangled scream, and slowly rose to his feet once more. I rose to my feet the moment he started toward me again.
He focused on my legs, anticipating they would be the weapon I’d aim at him. The moment he was close enough, I drove my fist into his nose. There was a satisfying snap of cartilage as his head snapped back, and I smiled. While he was kind enough to be distracted by all the blood on his face, I punted him in his crotch so hard he staggered sideways.
I strolled closer, laughing at his garbled sob before he shoved his weight toward me. Instead of stepping out of his path, I kicked out and hit him hard enough to send him over the ledge. The shriek he let out was almost as satisfying as the resounding crash of him landing at the bottom of the pit.
“And that’s how the pussy meows, sugar!” I hailed down, listening to my voice ricocheting through the void and reverberating off the barriers.
I spun and came face-to-face with my captor. His lips twisted, displaying white teeth, and my eyes barely had enough time to go wide before he used a single finger to force me backward over the lip of the drop behind me.
The cry that fled my lungs was earsplitting and saturated with the terror of free-falling. My body spun out of control, and my horrified stare discovered the gruesome remnants of the asshole I’d just shot over the edge, splattered in pieces all over the floor below me. Consciousness threatened to fade as I realized I’d suffer the same fate. Then my scream cut off and calm acceptance smothered the fear.
Closing my eyes, I breathed slowly while I hurtled toward the bottom. A second before I’d have struck the ground, he seized me, painfully stopping my momentum with one hand sliding up to my nape and the other hooked beneath my knees. He flew us forward and away from the spot I would have become an indiscernible splatter. I was close enough to the ground that my fingertips grazed it, throbbing from crashing into things, unable to lift them. The shock of falling, and calmness of accepting my end, had stolen my ability to move.
The grasp he had on me moved, which ended in him wrapping one hand around the front of my neck, pressing his palm against it firmly, and the other slid over my thighs, brushing against my apex before settling on my abdomen. Once his hold was secure, he tilted, and we shot toward the cavern’s ceiling.
“You didn’t think I’d let you shatter yet, did you?” he whispered huskily against my neck, nipping the skin teasingly before working his blistering tongue over the small hurt his bite left. “Did your lover teach you to fight dirty? Or maybe your army of uncles taught you when daddy wasn’t looking?” he queried in a rasped tone, but my head slumped forward and my eyelids grew heavy as my vision blurred. I felt him tense against me, but he didn’t stop our movement. Instead, he wrapped more securely around me, even as I melted into the inferno of his form and surrendered consciousness.
The feel of a finger tracing my jaw drew me to consciousness enough to push the incessant thing away. Rolling over, I encountered something solid and yet soft against my cheek. My fingers drifted over silky soft warmth, and I inhaled deeply, discovering the hint of bergamot and dark spices. Surpassing a groan, I slid my tongue over my lips and tasted salt and whatever the hell I’d been smashed against during sleep.
I pushed from the soft mattress, prying my eyes open to glower at whatever had ended up in my bed. My gaze wavered, slipping over washboard abs that were covered in inky lines that moved. Gliding my attention farther up the thing, I discovered the smug, arrogant prick watching me through startlingly cerulean-colored eyes peppered with flecks of silver. My brow creased, and I shook my skull to dispel the illusion. Either he had mood changing eyes, or mine were playing tricks on me.
“Good morning, princess. It appears it did not fracture your mind after all. Pity, considering you cuddle up so willingly when you cease thinking coherently.”
I blinked rapidly, shaking my head as I began inching back, dislodging the blankets that were tucked around me. Cold air stung my flesh, and I dropped my focus, staring at my nakedness. A shrill gasp left my lips, and I grabbed for the covers, yanking them over my body. When all that accomplished was exposing his very naked body, I slapped my free hand over my eyes hard enough to sting and steal another yelp from my lungs.