The sound of footsteps shocked his heart into a stuttered beat, and he quickly snapped his wrist back in the cuff, leaving it loosely closed. His gaze glued to the doorway, he held his breath as he waited to see whether Idess or Sin would walk through.
Idess. Strangely, he was as relieved to see her as he was suddenly afraid for Sin, and how fucked up was that?
Then she smiled, and his mouth dried up. That was a very wicked smile.
“So,” she said. “The Seminus female? Seems she’s your sister.”
Control was at a premium right now, and it took every last drop of it to keep from lunging at Idess and demanding answers. “I’m aware of that. If you did anything to her—”
“I said I wouldn’t.” She waved her hand in a dismissive gesture. “I got her to follow me to the Canadian wilderness. I’ll have to keep avoiding her… tonight I’m thinking I’ll start in China, and then maybe bounce around a little. Do you think she’d like to see the Great Wall?”
Relieved that Sin was okay, Lore relaxed and put on a nonchalant smile. “Sin likes to travel.”
“Good. So do I.” She held up her hand, and bless her little angel heart, she had a bag of fast food. The scent of burgers and fries made his mouth water.
The sight of a long, creamy expanse of stomach between Idess’s bunched-up tank top and low-slung jeans did, too. His stomach growled and his cock hardened as his body played tug-o-war with its two hungers.
“You hungry?”
“You can’t even imagine.”
Regret swirled in her eyes. “I really am sorry, Lore. I’m not practiced at holding anyone captive.”
“Yeah, your rookie is definitely shining through,” he said gruffly. He didn’t know how to deal with a captor who was actually nice. If she’d beaten him or taunted him or even just said nothing at all, he’d be right in the zone. But Idess left him in a state of what-the-fuck-do-I-do-now, when he normally knew exactly what to do in any situation.
She also left him in a state of arousal, and he definitely knew what to do in that situation.
He had to get her naked. And chained up. And if the signals she’d given off during and after her feeding were any indication, she wouldn’t mind. No, she’d been hot for him—that much had been certain.
She sank down next to him, and her hand came up to cup his cheek. The gesture was so tender, so intimate, that once more, he wasn’t sure how to react. His head felt like a damned Ping Pong ball.
“I’m sorry I was gone so long. Believe it or not, I’m trying to find a way out of this.”
“Ah… keys?” he suggested. “That would get me out of this.”
One corner of her mouth cocked up in a flirty little half-smile. “Nice try.”
“So that’s a no?”
“That’s a no.”
He glanced at the bag. “Could I get something to eat then?”
“I wasn’t sure what you like, so I got a Coke, burgers, fries, tots, and a chicken sandwich.” She gave him a puppy-dog-did-I-do-good look that made something inside him melt when nothing should be melting for this woman. His dick twitched, and okay, not everything was melting.
“At this point, I’d eat a fucking cactus,” he muttered, and her shoulders slumped a little. And he actually felt bad about making her feel bad.
Welcome to Stockholm Syndrome.
She handed him the bag and waited as he wolfed down the chicken sandwich and fries. When his stomach stopped rebelling so loudly, he slowed down. “So. Tell me about yourself.”
She blinked. “Me? There’s nothing to tell.”
“You’re two thousand years old, and you’re saying you have absolutely nothing to talk about?” He downed half the soda. “Tell me something about how you were born. Were your parents human?”
For a long time she sat there, long enough for him to eat one of the two burgers. One delicate hand came up to worry her ponytail as she spoke. “I was born of an angel… I was switched out with my mortal parents’ true infant daughter. They were slaves in a wealthy Roman household.”
“So you grew up thinking you were human?”
“Yes.”
He had, too, but deep down, he’d always felt different, and in the 20/20 hindsight, he could see the neon signs. Like the one where his mother screamed, “You’re the spawn of the devil!” And, “I should never have let that demon plant his seed in my womb.” Sure, all the doctors in the sanitarium said his mother was insane, but her “delusions” never changed, and the friends who had been with her the night they’d “summoned Satan” had confirmed everything his mother said. They hadn’t believed the dark-haired stranger with the tattoos on one arm was Satan himself, but they were sure he was either some sort of demon, or a con artist.
They were right on both counts.
“Was there ever anything that made you stand out?” he asked, mainly to get out of the past. “Did you feel different from everyone else?”
“Not all.” She twisted one of the gold bands in her hair the way she’d twisted her palm around his cock. “I felt perfectly at home until my nineteenth birthday.”
“So you lived a normal life? Married? Kids?”