Coldbloods (Hotbloods #2)

“Galo was the only Fed agent who believed me,” I explained. “Bashrik and the others are outside the invisibility shield, on another ship.” That last sentence, I mouthed, not wanting to say the words aloud in case we could be heard.

Silence fell. After another minute, Navan murmured, “You shouldn’t have come.”

“I’m sorry,” I snapped back, furious tears flowing down my cheeks. I felt ridiculous, stupid, like I wanted to sink into the floor. Our plan had not only utterly failed—it had actually caused Navan to be hurt more.

“Stop it.” Navan said the words in a leaden voice. When I looked up, his stormy eyes were now sorrowful too. Evidently, he had picked up that I was crying.

“What difference does it make?” I asked. “Now we’ve been caught. We’re screwed. We’ll probably never make it out of here alive—if that’s not reason to cry, then I don’t know what is.”

“It makes all the difference to me,” he said.

I glanced up to see him looking down at me with a tortured expression. When our eyes met, he looked away.

“Riley, please…”

“Look at me when you’re saying it,” I said.

Grudgingly, he leaned down so that our faces were closer. His blue-gray eyes were tormented, his cracked lips parted.

“I was so worried about you,” I said in a choked whisper.

“And now I’m so worried about you,” he replied. His gaze flicked to my lips, then back to my eyes. “If you see a chance of escaping on your own, promise me that you’ll take it. And that you’ll stay somewhere safe this time. No more rescue missions. Okay?”

I shook my head. “I’m sorry, Navan.”

His brows set into a scowl, and his fiery eyes bored into me. “Promise me.”

I glared right on back at him. “I’m not leaving here without you.”

“Dammit, Riley!” Navan stomped his foot, sending his whole chair shaking. “You’ve got to stop putting yourself in danger like this. What if they torture you? What if they… I can’t protect you now. If anything bad were to happen, I’d never forgive myself because I—I care about you. Don’t you get that? I can’t let you get hurt.”

Navan’s tone had turned frantic. He was leaning so far forward that the strain was visible in his face. I reached my head up as much as I could, then leaned it on his knee and closed my eyes. The close contact felt nice, although I wished I could be wrapped in his arms instead. Despite everything, I felt somehow safe, now that Navan was by my side.

Galo’s voice snapped me out of my happy reverie. “I hate to break this up, but we have company.”

I opened my eyes and drew back to see the same coldbloods as before. They were smirking, striding into the room with the imposing, mud-brown-eyed coldblood I was pretty sure had been named Ezra—he had been the first to interrogate Navan after he was captured. Ezra was frowning, looking both repulsed and annoyed. Clearly, he’d seen our affectionate moment.

“You shouldn’t have tied them up like that,” his curt voice declared.

“Why not, sir?” the silver-haired coldblood asked.

“You’ve given the lovebirds room to be disgusting,” Ezra snarled, crouching down to look me in the eye. “This the one from before?” he asked, turning his dark gaze toward the silver-haired coldblood, who nodded.

“I’m pretty sure.”

Frowning, he returned his gaze to me. “Are you the human from last time?”

I glared back at him defiantly. Maybe it would work to my advantage to have him worry that there were more of us.

“Okay, we’ll try this a different way,” Ezra remarked calmly.

Without warning, he punched Navan in the jaw. It gave an ominous crunching sound.

“Yes!” I blurted out.

“Don’t tell them anything,” Navan said, his voice sounding both wet and wooden.

Ezra smashed his fist into Navan again. “What was that? I don’t think I could hear you over the sound of your face crunching under my fist.”

Navan’s whole body shuddered as he choked out a cracking cough, his face tensed into a heartbreaking stoicism the whole time.

Giving his hand a casual shake, Ezra turned his dark-eyed gaze to me. “Now, why don’t we come to some sort of understanding?”

I gaped at him stupidly. Words jumbled in my brain, nonsense syllables slapping around in my mind. All I could see—over and over and over again—was his horrible muscled fist slamming into Navan’s slack face. I couldn’t think—I could barely breathe. My throat had closed up with fear.

Ezra raised his fist again, and my whole body started trembling.

“Do I need to make myself clearer?” he asked.

“N-No,” I gasped out, my heartbeat rocketing up to a thousand. “I’m the one from before. Just don’t hurt him anymore—please.”

A sickly-sweet smile passed over Ezra’s face. “Yes, yes, of course,” he said, stroking his hands along the chain that bound me. “You help us, and I’ll help you.”

Reaching for the chain wrapped around the chair leg, he grabbed it with both hands and bent it apart. The chain snapped. Holding one severed chain end up, Ezra turned to the other two coldbloods.

“That’s why you shouldn’t have tied them up like that.”

The silver-haired one opened his mouth like he was going to protest, but then closed it, probably thinking better of it. Ezra tugged the chain so that I was pulled upright, then used it to lead me to the brown-haired coldblood, handing me over to him.

“Don’t bother trying to question the lycan—he’ll never talk. The human, however, we may just have a chance with. See that she’s put in a cell,” he said.

“Riley, I mean it,” Navan said, a note of panic in his voice now. “Don’t tell them anything.”

Smiling, Ezra strode over to Navan. “Yes, Riley,” he said, punching Navan in the face so hard that his head lolled to the side, rendering him unconscious. “Don’t tell us anything.”

“No!” I yelled, straining to reach Navan.

As I struggled in the coldblood’s grasp, I searched Navan’s face. He was still breathing, but damn, I worried about how many more blows he could take. As Ezra advanced right in front of me, his eyes were glittering. “Don’t worry, your paramour will be fine—as long as you tell us what you know.”

Ezra waved his hand at the brown-haired coldblood, and, before I could respond, he’d tugged me away. We traveled down several floors, until we reached a room full of cells. Here, the ground was damp dirt, and the whole place was filled with an eerie quiet. The cells appeared to be surrounded by stone walls, with a small window too high up for me to look through. It was unclear whether the cells were empty, or whether their occupants had long since given up bothering to speak. At one cell near the middle, the coldblood opened a steel door, unfurled my chain, and flung me inside, causing me to trip.

“Wait—please,” I said.