“Have I missed anything?” she said in a voice so squeaky it caused me to wince.
Footsteps again, only this time I heard two pairs—one stepping purposefully, the other shuffling unsteadily. I glanced back at the archway in time to see the muscle-bound Metamorph shove Adam into the room. The man I loved was shirtless, his body and face bloody and bruised.
Adam collapsed face-first on the tile.
And didn’t move.
CHAPTER 2
“Adam!” His name cut the air in an involuntary shout. I couldn’t have stopped myself from calling out to my lover if I’d tried.
I lunged against my bonds again and this time I nearly toppled my chair. Smith grabbed a spindle of the chair and kept me from pitching forward.
My breath burned harsh and heavy in my chest. “You might as well start thinking up your last words.” I turned my glare to Smith as I spoke with slow, deliberate malice. “You don’t have very many left.”
Almost imperceptible fear glittered in his black eyes before he laughed. A forced laugh that almost made me smile. He was scared of me, and I had to give him credit for not being stupid enough to make the mistake of totally disregarding what I might be capable of.
Adam groaned, and a tempest of emotions whirled through me as I swung my attention in his direction: relief that he was alive, followed by anger that he’d been hurt so badly, shifting into fear as Robocop Carl aimed a handgun at Adam’s head.
“It is a very important council meeting tonight.” Smith crouched so that he was eye level with me. “What location has the meeting been changed to?”
A trickle of blood rolled down the column of my throat from an open wound on the side of my head. “What are you going to do?”
Smith scowled. “What do you care, Tracker? You treat all Metamorphs like scum.”
I pulled against my bonds so that my body was a fraction closer to him. He looked like he wanted to shrink back. “You’re so slimy the only thing you’re good for is greasing machinery. But you’d screw that up, too.”
The Metamorph’s complexion turned a really odd shade of taupe. Smith unsheathed a dagger from his cop duty belt. The sharp edge gleamed in the kitchen light. He grabbed a handful of my hair and jerked my head back so that I was looking at the ceiling, which was yellowed and dirty from years of cooking in a cramped space.
“Tell me, or we can use the human cop’s brains to grease the floor.” Smith bared his teeth in a freakish smile as he leaned over me, blocking my view of the ceiling. I felt the cold, sharp edge of the dagger’s blade as he pressed it against my throat. “Where has the meeting been moved to?”
I didn’t dare swallow, knowing the blade would slice into my throat. The feeling of helplessness I experienced was not one I’d faced often. I heard a round being chambered in a handgun, and my heart started pounding hard enough that the sound of it throbbed in my ears.
“Now, Tracker.” Smith jerked my hair harder. “Tell me, or that’s it for both you and your human playtoy. After all, that’s what the human is to you, isn’t he?”
Sundown was approaching and I would be shifting within twenty minutes. I couldn’t think of any way to stall without getting myself or Adam killed. I’d just have to take care of the problem then. But for now what choice did I have?
“It’s still at the Paranorm Center near the northern end of Conservatory Water.” I couldn’t help swallowing and gasped as the dagger bit into my flesh. “Below the Alice in Wonderland unbirthday party sculpture.”
The Metamorph narrowed his gaze but released his grip on my hair. “We were told the location had changed.”
“It was a ruse.” I raised my head as he backed up. “There were rumors that some kind of interruption might happen, but the council members didn’t want to move the meeting. So to make sure no one would try to barge in, they put out the word it had changed.”