My gaze cast around the room again. Kit and Austin still hadn’t returned from the bathrooms, and they’d been gone an uncomfortably long time so far. Not for the first time, I wished I’d let her heal my arm. Maybe then I would have that emotional link with her and I would know if she was in trouble or not.
“Wesley, I need you to check on Kit and Austin,” I murmured quietly as I pretended to gather up empty champagne flutes from a table. “They left for the bathroom ages ago and haven’t come back.”
Impatiently, I tapped my finger against an empty flute while I waited for Wesley’s response. None came.
“Wes?” I tried again, but still no response came.
Turning to face the corner, I surreptitiously pulled the receiver from my ear to check the little white LED marker that would indicate it was working. Dead. How the fuck had that happened?
Some minutes ago, I’d seen Cole head out in the direction Kit and Austin had gone, so I could only hope he was checking on them. Caleb was nowhere to be seen, nor was Vali. The absence of any of my team, including my comms backup, was giving me a seriously uneasy feeling in my gut.
The dark, caged beast inside my mind reared up, thrashing and testing its mental bonds, but I wasn’t stupid. I had that shit locked down tight. Tighter than I had ever needed to previously because I knew without a doubt that Kit’s magic would set it free. And then God fucking help us all.
Leaving the main ballroom, I slipped my phone from my pocket and dialed Wesley. It was pointless trying the rest of my team as we didn’t carry phones on missions. Not even me, usually. But for some reason, today I had grabbed it.
“River, hey,” Wesley answered. “What’s going on down there? I’ve lost comms with everyone.”
“I was hoping you could tell me.” I pondered, scratching at the short stubble on my chin. I never could go fully fresh-faced; it made me look too damn young. “Something’s giving me a seriously bad feeling, Wes.”
“Yeah, me too,” he agreed. “I’m still new to this whole bond thing, but I’m pretty sure Kit used her magic to heal someone not long ago, too.”
“Shit,” I swore. “Okay, I’m going to find them. Call back if you manage to get the comms back up.”
Panic clawed at my gut, and I clamped down hard on it. This was no place for emotions that only served to cloud my judgement. If Kit was in trouble—which, if I knew my Kitten, she would be—then I needed all my wits about me. Unlike the rest of my team, I was now the only human left. Thank fuck for small mercies, though; my arm was healed, so I wasn’t totally useless.
The past weeks had been such a rush of planning for this mission that Kit and I had barely managed to steal more than a few moments alone together. Certainly no time to discuss that fucking word that had slipped from my mouth while we were in the shower.
Love.
What the hell had I been bloody thinking? Not that I wasn’t—falling in love with her, that is—but I simply should have known better than to tell her so soon.
Gritting my teeth against my own self-flagellation, I made my way back into the main ballroom just as the distinctive red of Kit’s gown caught my eye across the room. She was coming down a corridor looking wrecked, and I knew instantly that she’d just healed someone. Fuck.
The overwhelming worry for her that flooded through me blinded me to my surroundings, so much so that I paid no attention when someone bumped into my shoulder.
“Sorry, pal,” the guy apologized, grabbing onto my arm and spinning me to face him.
“No worries,” I snapped, turning away from him, desperate to get to my girl.
“Have a good evening then,” the man replied, clapping me on the shoulder heavily, and I felt the sharp sting of something pierce my skin. “Have a really good evening.” The stranger’s face leered down at me as my knees turned to jelly and I crumpled to the floor.
The last thing I saw before blacking out was from between people’s legs as the party guests crowded around to see what all the fuss was about: Kit, in her beautiful red gown, being hauled away by a huge man in a suit.
26
KIT
When I came to, Gray was no longer sitting over me. Instead there was another man crouched over my arm, attaching an IV line or something. My left wrist had been unbound from where it’d been above my head and was now tied to the side of the bed frame, keeping my arm out straight by my side so that the crook of my elbow was exposed for this guy to do whatever the fuck he was doing.
“What—?” I asked groggily, feeling my face throbbing with pain and my magic prickling as it tried to heal me with what little reserves I had left.
The man flicked a glance at me but said nothing, instead carrying on with what he was doing. Once the line had been inserted into my vein, he withdrew a test tube sized vial and tucked it surreptitiously into the inside pocket of his jacket before screwing a line into the port.
My blood began flowing freely down the line and into a bag that he’d laid on the floor beside the bed, and he stood up to address Gray, who was leaning against the door and watching with unblinking eyes.
“All set. It should take only about twenty minutes to fill that bag, then we switch it and fill one more. Anything over that and we’re likely to kill her, and it’s my understanding you wanted that honor for yourself?” the man addressed my childhood abuser, who grinned savagely.
“If she can be killed,” he grunted. “But it’ll be damn fun to try.”
“I’m going to go and make another appearance downstairs but will be back in twenty minutes to change the bag over. Do what you will in the meantime, but don’t disrupt the drain.” The man snapped his briefcase of tools shut and let himself out of the room while Gray prowled back towards me once more.
“Did you hear that, Foxy? I can do with you what I will.” A slimy leer slid across his face as he raked his eyes down my near-naked body. “You play your part just like old times, and I might let you enjoy it. After all… this doesn’t have to be all business.”
“Don’t kid yourself,” I coughed out in a weak voice. “If you honestly think I’m that same scared little kid, following your script, you’re more delusional than I gave you credit for. And as for enjoying it… I’m far too old for your tastes; you couldn’t get it up if you tried, let alone do anything with it.”
The unhinged look in his eye suggested he was, indeed, more fucked up than even I had realized. I knew what he wanted; it was what he had wanted every, single godforsaken time he’d visited me in Mother Suzette’s foster home. He wanted me to beg him to hurt me. Tell him that I loved it, loved him, and that I wanted more.