She glared at him with every ounce of hatred she felt. “Where am I and what am I doing here?”
It was the older man who answered. “You are our hostage and you are in our… place.”
Gee, he was ever so helpful. “Hostage for what?”
It was Stephen who answered. “To get your husband to come to us.”
She burst out laughing at the absurdity of that statement. “Is this a joke?”
“No joke,” the older man said. Since she didn’t know his name, she dubbed him Slim in her mind. “For centuries my family has been hunting him, trying to kill the unholy, unnatural creature he has become.”
“And we’ve been hunting you,” Slim said as he stepped forward from the doorway.
The old man nodded. “But always you and he escaped us.”
“Wow, that doesn’t say much about your skills, since I didn’t even know I was being chased.”
He rushed forward as if to strike her, but Stephen caught him. “Don’t, Dieter. She’s only trying to provoke you.”
“She’s doing a good job.”
Retta cleared her throat to draw their attention back to her. “Just out of curiosity, why have you been hunting me?”
Stephen stepped closer to her and offered her a cocky smile. “Because you are the one thing we know that will draw Velkan out into the open. He’s never responded to any lure we’ve cast at him… yet.”
“Yeah, well, bad news for you, pal. He won’t come for me, either.”
Dieter scoffed at her. “Of course he will.”
She shook her head. “Hardly. News flash, guys. All of you have committed a felony for no good reason. I saw Hubby earlier tonight and he made it plain that he never wants to see me again.”
The men exchanged puzzled stares.
“Is she lying?” the old man asked Stephen in German.
Retta had to force herself not to roll her eyes. Surely they weren’t so stupid as to think she couldn’t speak German?
“She has to be,” Stephen answered abruptly. “Good God, the man was impaled for her. In all the centuries while our kind have watched him, he’s never been with another woman or we would have used her to get to him. There’s not even a record of a one-night stand, and he keeps tabs on Esperetta constantly. Face it, the werewolves would never have sacrificed a daughter to stay with her if he wasn’t absolutely adamant that she be protected. Those aren’t the actions of a man who hates her.”
Slim concurred. “The werewolf I tortured and killed said that he keeps her room just as she left it five hundred years ago. It even has the gown she wore when they married. There’s a painting of her when she was human in his bedroom and photographs that have been sent to him to prove that she lives and is happy. He stares at the photographs every night. There’s no chance that he doesn’t hold her sacred. If he hated her, he would have destroyed all traces of her centuries ago.”
“Likewise,” Stephen said with a hint of rancor in his voice, “she lives as a nun. I couldn’t even get a kiss from her the whole time I’ve known her. She’s only trying to protect him. I’m sure of it.”
Retta couldn’t breathe as she heard those words. It was true. She’d never touched another man. Had never even been interested in one. Of course, she’d told herself that once burned, a thousand times shy. And she couldn’t very well date, let alone marry, a human man who would begin to wonder why she didn’t age. After all, there were only so many ways to lie about plastic surgery before it became obvious she was immortal.
And in all this time, she’d convinced herself that Velkan hadn’t been as faithful to her. During their lifetime, no woman would have ever expected fidelity from her husband. It was absurd. Even her father, who was adamant about his Christianity and who demanded absolute faithfulness from his subjects, had been known to have mistresses.
So she’d convinced herself that Velkan had never really missed her. That he’d taken what he wanted and used her to kill her father.
Could it be that Velkan really did love her? That he missed her?
If it were true, then she deserved to die at their hands. Because if it were true, then she’d been punishing a man for centuries for no other crime than loving her.
No one should be hurt because of that.
Surely she hadn’t been that stupid. Had she?
I am such a rabid bitch. No wonder Velkan had told her to get lost. She was lucky he hadn’t choked her. Clenching her teeth to stanch the pain that ached inside her, she tried her best to remember what he’d said the night she’d left Romania. She could see the moonlight on his face, the blood on his armor.
They’d argued, but now she couldn’t remember anything other than her confusion and fear of him. She’d been absolutely convinced that he’d tried to kill her by burying her in the ground. That he’d lied about the tonic he’d given her.
But had he?
Please don’t let me be wrong. Please. “He won’t come for me,” Retta said from between clenched teeth. “I know he won’t.”Dieter narrowed those rodent eyes on her. “We shall see. Not that it matters. Either way, we kill you.”
It was almost five in the morning when Velkan found himself alone in his bedroom. Then again, he was always alone in his bedroom. God, he was such a fool. Any man worth his salt would just find a willing female and sate the ache in his loins for a woman’s body.
But Velkan refused to forsake the oath he’d taken to Esperetta. He’d vowed before his father’s God to honor her and to keep himself for her only, and he’d stood by that oath.
Even though he hated himself for it.
There was only one woman who held his attention and it was why he despised her so much. She’d left him with nothing. Not even his manhood.
Damn her.
Suddenly there was a knock on his door. “I told you to leave me alone, Viktor,” he snarled, thinking it was his Squire.
“It’s not Viktor,” Raluca said from the other side of the doorway.
How unlike her to venture here so close to the dawn. Not that the dawn held any sway for her, but normally Velkan would be preparing for bed.
Frowning, he opened the door with his thoughts to find her there, wringing her hands. Her sons and Francesca were behind her and all of them echoed their mother’s worry. His stomach shrank. “What has happened?”
Raluca swallowed. “They have taken her.”
He knew instantly that Esperetta was the her. “Who has?”
“The Order of the Dragon,” Andrei said, his voice tinged by anger. “Once they notified us that they held her, we tried to get her free, but…”
“But?” Velkan prompted.
Francesca stepped forward. “They have her tied inside a cage. An electric one. There’s no way for us to get to her without it immobilizing us.”
Velkan gave them a droll stare. “Fine, let her stew there, thinking about how much she’s betrayed me. When the sun sets, I’ll go get her.”
The Weres exchanged a nervous glance before Raluca spoke. “It’s not that simple, my prince. They’ve put her on a small stool with no rungs. And that stool is on an electrified floor. If she puts her legs down at all or slips from the stool, it’ll kill her instantly.”
Francesca nodded. “They have enough juice on that floor to light up New York City.”
He wanted to tell her that he didn’t care, but the fear in his heart told him exactly how much of a lie that was.
But before he could move, Raluca was by his side, with her hand on his arm. “You know you can’t go, either.”
He narrowed his eyes on her. “I’m not afraid of them.”
“It’s too close to dawn,” Raluca insisted. “You’ll end up like Illie if you go. They know our weaknesses.”
Velkan took her hand in his and squeezed it gently. Illie had been her mate who’d died at the hands of the Order. Five years ago, he’d been captured when one of their Order had used a Taser on him. The electricity had shot through his cells, turning him from man to wolf and back again. It was one of the few things that could completely incapacitate a Were-Hunter. Enough electricity would ultimately kill them.
And if the Order had Esperetta, then they already knew Velkan’s weakness.
“Would you have her die?” he asked Raluca.
He saw the pity in Raluca’s face. She’d been Esperetta’s nurse before his wife had been oblated to the convent.
“Not by choice. But better her than you.”
“Mom!” Francesca snapped. “No offense, but I choose Retta in this. She’s an innocent victim.”
Her mother turned on her with a snarl. “And the prince has guarded us for centuries. But for him, I would be dead now and so would your brothers.”
“We’re wasting time,” Velkan said, cutting them off. “I need you to take me to her so that I can free her before the sun rises.” He saw the reservation in Raluca’s eyes. “It’s why you came, is it not?”
She shook her head. “I came only because I knew you would be angry if I failed to tell you what had happened.”
She was right about that. He would never stand by and see Esperetta harmed – even if he did hate her. “Don’t fear. You can teleport me there and I can turn off the electricity, then you can teleport both of us out, long before the sun rises.”
Francesca screwed up her face. “It’s not that easy. The switch is inside the cage. You’ll be electrocuted trying to switch it off.”
He sighed at the prospect, but it changed nothing. He just wished he could use his telekinesis on it. But electricity was the one thing he couldn’t move with his mind. Its living nature made it highly unpredictable, and he could accidentally hurt or kill someone by trying to manipulate it mentally. He would have to manually shut it off. “Fine. It won’t kill me.” It would just hurt like hell.