Hotbloods (Hotbloods #1)

“How thoughtful,” he replied, raising his dark brows and ignoring my initial question. “So let me return the gesture. Drink this and it’ll wash your memories of approximately the last twelve hours. It will knock you out for about thirty minutes, during which time we will return you to your beds, and you will wake up with no memory of entering this house.”

“N-No memory of tonight?” Lauren sputtered. “I’m down for that.”

“Wait, wait.” I held up a hand, frowning. I shook my head, trying to force my frazzled brain into some semblance of order. “Who are you, first of all? Why is your… skin like that?” I couldn’t quite get the question, And why were you wearing wings before? out of my throat, so I settled on that for now.

He sighed. “You have a lot of questions. Now, there are few things more attractive to me than an inquisitive mind, but in this case—you’re better off doing as I say.”

Attractive? To my annoyance, my brain couldn’t help but register the adjective, but I shoved the thought aside. I opened my mouth to argue back, but before I could, the guy I had guessed to be Navan’s brother spoke up from his right, and now I could place it as one of the voices I had heard during our eavesdropping. “Ladies,” he said, clearing his throat, his voice almost the same tone and depth as Navan’s. “You won’t be getting anything out of us, so if you would like to get out of here, I suggest you take up our offer. Rest assured, we won’t be letting you leave with memories of tonight.”

Navan stretched his hand farther, pushing the vials closer toward us. I heard Lauren gulp as she stared down at the silver tubes, and I had to admit, the idea of being let out of here made it tempting to just grab one and down it, but… that would be really stupid. That would be something I would do in a panic. And acting based on panic was never a good idea. Everything about this just felt so wrong.

I looked to Angie, wanting to gauge her thoughts, and, assuming I read her frown right, she was having the same doubts as me. Sensing Lauren was close to snatching up one of the tubes, I clutched her hand, and pulled her closer toward me, drawing the attention of all three men to me directly.

I glared back at Navan, trying to infuse my posture with confidence.

“We’re not going to agree to drink some random substance,” I stated, attempting to keep my voice even. “And you can’t keep us here—that’s a criminal act. I suggest you let us out now, or believe me, you will get into trouble. We have friends and family who will notice our absence very quickly, and there are only a few people in this complete wilderness who could be culprits. Given that you literally just arrived here, it won’t take long for the cops to narrow it down to you.”

I realized, as I stared into Navan’s rugged yet very humanlike face—save for the gray tint of his skin—that I was talking to him as if he were a normal person who would be scared of such things as the police force. Given that my brain hadn’t offered a better alternative yet, I was going to have to continue that hopeful train of thought… Which was probably a good thing for my sanity.

There was an agonizingly long pause as the men looked back at me with unchanging expressions.

“Guys,” Angie ventured, her voice shaking slightly. “You really just need to let us go. Please. We have family who love us and—”

“I would hate to have to force you to drink this,” Navan cut in, once again completely ignoring what Angie and I had just said—and I became suddenly very aware of just how imposing he was. From the hardness of his stubbled jaw to the lines of his torso showing through his thin shirt, I realized he could easily follow through with that threat. His companions were not exactly pushovers either.

And yet, despite the threat in his words, there was something about the condescension in his tone that made me want to reach out and slap him. Whoever the hell he was, he had no right to thrust some arbitrary rule upon us, when all we had done was come here to see if they were all okay. They’d refused to answer even a single question of ours, and he expected us to just drink whatever crap he shoved beneath our noses?

“Sir,” I began, planting my hands on my hips. Anger was rising in my veins and making me feel suddenly bolder, stronger. “There is no way we are drinking anything in this house, and there’s nothing you can say to change that. It’s not like you’re exactly trustworthy, either. You told us you were workers, come here to fix up this property—and yet, it doesn’t exactly look like you’ve been doing much fixing up around here, does it?” I gestured around the dilapidated room. “Why the heck have you boarded up the windows? That doesn’t sound like fixing something up. Why were you all… crouched around that fire? What was that guy doing lying on the floor, groaning? Why is your skin gray, and why were you wearing wings?” There, I finally said it, and I could tell from the exhale Angie gave that she’d been hoping someone would finally voice that too. It hadn’t just been our imagination, I was sure of it. “What are you, really? What you doing here? And why the hell is this house the temperature of a sauna in the middle of freaking summer?” My pitch rose at my last question, as I became aware of just how horribly hot I was. My clothes were drenched in sweat—which had been cold at first, from the panic and the adrenaline, but was now as hot as my temper.

As Navan and his companions stared back at me, I realized that I probably should’ve been more strategic in my questioning, and not spat out a barrage of questions at once, but my temper had gotten the better of me.

“I assure you that it’s safe,” Navan replied evenly after a moment, his hand still outstretched. “It is, as I say, a memory potion.”

“A memory potion?” Angie cut in, her voice also stronger than before. “Seriously, what do you take us for? Kindergartners?”

Navan clenched his jaw, and although his face remained mostly controlled, there was the odd muscle twitch that told me we were testing his temper too. But I could hardly care anymore. This whole situation was absurd.

Now that I thought about it, they hadn’t even asked us why we had come in here in the middle of the night in the first place. All they seemed to want was that we drink this potion that would knock us out. Ha. No way. It was dodgy as hell, and I was becoming more and more convinced that they were druggies who were members of some weird cult. That didn’t explain the superhuman strength with which I’d been thrown into this room, but then again, maybe the drugs they used gave them such power.

“Yes, a memory potion,” Navan replied, and I could tell from his expression that he believed what he was saying—and fully expected us to believe it too. “As I thought I made clear already, we do not wish to harm you, simply to expel you from this place. Think of it as us doing you a favor. A big favor. Because my next move is going to be something a lot less pleasant than this scintillating conversation we’ve been having.”