Hour of the Dragon - Heather Killough-Walden Page 0,90
as she looked death in the face – and kicked him in the balls.
She was a dragon in almost every sense of the word.
Slowly, very slowly, Ares leaned into her, wrapping the fingers of his left hand around her exposed arm and feeling the smoothness of each line beneath his fingertips. She didn’t pull away, but he could tell she was uncertain. What did he think of them? Did they disgust him? He could feel her reticence like a poison.
In the end, there was only one thing he could possibly say. And he could only say it in a whisper beside her ear. “Annaleia Faith… you are by far the bravest, most beautiful, and most absolutely fucking amazing woman this unworthy world and this even less worthy man have ever known. It isn’t right that I get to call you my friend. But I’m going to do it anyway. Because I can’t give that up. I can’t give you up. You’re the air I breathe, Leia.” He slowly released her wrist, and with her back to his chest and her body caged by the strong length of his legs, Antares reached around and circled her throat with his fingers.
She swallowed nervously beneath his hold, but he felt her body flush and caught the scent of new, different heat stirring within her. He used his thumb beneath her chin to tilt her head back until she was looking up into his eyes.
Her pupils were blown despite the light above them; their darkness had eaten up nearly all of the purple of her irises. Antares smiled, only a little, and then he held her tighter – and lowered his lips over hers in a long-awaited kiss.
Chapter Twenty-nine – Unknown Location
Randall sighed heavily and pulled the ruined bandages from his prisoner’s leg. “You need to stop moving. Every time you start fighting like this, your heart beats too fast and you bleed too much.” He tsked her, tossed the bandages in the nearby receptacle, and grabbed a new roll of gauze. In actuality, he had plenty of gauze and he didn’t really mind that she was bleeding. But he was willing to bet she did. “Before long, you’re going to start feeling sick. You don’t want that on top of everything else, do you? You’ll be in the same boat as your friend here.”
He glanced up at the other prisoner, who was tied in an identical chair, her legs to the chair legs, her hands cuffed behind her back, her body duct taped to the chair back, but who had tears streaming down her cheeks and a piece of duct tape dangling by one corner of her mouth.
He’d removed it most of the way for her so that she could continue to throw up as needed, however he left it there as well as a reminder that if she acted up – he could just tape her right back up again. That would get messy real fast.
There was a bucket beside her chair. The poor thing had food poisoning. In all fairness, he’d offered her a good dose of Ondansetron for the nausea; the medicine worked miracles for nausea, even food poisoning-induced. But she’d refused “anything but your stupid-ass head on a mother fucking platter, tu hijo loco de puta!” so he’d given up and just let her vomit.
She was lucky in a way. Her compromised immune system guaranteed they use her friend for the blood they needed to send their message. No other form of proof said, “We have your friends and we’re not lying” better than a little bit of blood.
“You know… she’s too smart to….” The one named Carmen paused in what she was trying to say, and what could he do but politely wait for her to finish? She was putting in such a brave amount of effort, and he really did feel for her. To some extent.
“Too smart to meet with you.” Carmen swallowed hard. “Anna will know it’s a trap.”
Randall pushed his glasses up his nose and nodded. “Yes, we’re assuming she’ll know as much. However, your best friend has dedicated her entire existence to helping others. She will absolutely wish to meet us. It’ll be the wardens who stop her.”
Carmen and her companion, Piper – who had to remain gagged, or Randall’s migraine began to take over – both looked at Randall quizzically.
“Let me guess. You’re wondering why we would bother if we know she won’t be allowed to go through with it?”