“To take you back where you belong.”
She stared at her pretty orange and red drink for what seemed like an age. The symbol of her freedom. And she hadn’t even had a sip. Her eyes stung. Her adventure was over before it had even started. There had to be a way out of this.
“Come on, Shera. Come home.”
Home? At his coaxing, her anger rose. She didn’t have a home, just a place where she worked. And she wasn’t going back. She lifted her head and stared into his face. Something flickered across his expression. Alarm? Then it was gone, replaced by resolve.
His gaze wandered over the table, snagged on her notebook. Before she realized what he was doing, he’d picked it up and heat washed through her. His brows lifted as he read her list, then he studied her face, his eyes heavy lidded.
“Never going to happen, kitten. Well, not the first two anyway. Maybe we can take the long route home, and I can see what I can do about number five.”
“You’re not a stranger.”
He smiled, his eyes crinkling at the corners, and little flutters started low in her belly. She became conscious of her breasts, pressed tight against the cotton of her dress. “And there I was thinking you’d never noticed me.”
What could she say to that? She was hardly going to tell him she’d followed his every move with hungry eyes. Because she was a sex-starved imbecile who didn’t know any better.
He handed the notebook back to her, picked up her drink, and put it out of reach. What was the big deal? She wasn’t going to turn into a ravening monster from a sip of tequila. This was merely one more way of controlling her. The suffocating bonds wrapped around her at the thought of going back. Everything inside her screamed no! Her hand went automatically to the sigil wrapped around her arm as though she could rub it away.
“Come back, Shera. We’ll sort something out.”
His words stoked the feelings of injustice boiling inside her. What could they do? The sigil couldn’t be removed; she’d be a slave forever if she returned. Better to take the consequences. “No,” she snapped. “I won’t be slave any longer. I’d rather be dead.” She took a deep breath, then another, calming herself. “Look, you don’t need to take me back.” She nipped her lower lip with her teeth. “I have gold. I can pay you. Just pretend you never found me.”
“Can’t do that, kitten. There are things you need to know.”
“What things?”
“It’s not my place to tell you. But I have a job to do, and it’s for your own good.”
Patronizing bastard.
What did he know about what was good for her?
She glanced around. Her new boyfriend at the bar was still watching her. Could she use that? She just needed a diversion. If she could get out of here, she could shift and disappear into the night.
Carl squeezed her arm. “Come on.”
No way.
Deep inside, that new part of her awakened, uncoiled, fueled the fire in her blood. Resolve hardened to steel. She wasn’t some pathetic wimp, good for nothing but serving another. Shaking off his hand, she pushed back her chair with a scrape of metal against tile, and rose to her feet. “Get away from me,” she shouted, loud enough for the whole bar to hear, and she sensed their attention focus on her. She backed away from the table, away from Carl.
“Stay away from me. I’m not going with you.”
He reached for her again, and this time she screamed, shoving all her rage and fury into the sound.
Carl’s eyes widened and then narrowed. “It won’t work,” he murmured.
“It might.”
What did she have to lose? Absolutely fuck-all. She stared around her wildly, forcing a look of terror onto her face. The blond man from the bar was already hurrying over like a white knight to rescue her. “Are you all right?” he asked.
“Don’t involve them, Shera.” Carl’s words were a quietly spoken warning.
She ignored him, backing away so she stood beside the other man.
“He…he touched me.”
“You know him?”
She shook her head. “I’ve never seen him before. He said he was going to…” She broke off, not able to come up with something bad enough on the spur of the moment. But the implication was enough. Blondie stepped between them. While he was as tall as Carl, he was nowhere near as muscular, though he did have two friends at his back which he obviously believed—wrongly she was sure—would even the match. As he pressed a hand to Carl’s chest, a low growl rumbled in the space between them.