Captive of Wolves (Bound to the Fae #1) - Eva Chase Page 0,5
a betraying twitch of my arm.
“Human, female, and awake, though in what state beyond that I can hardly guess. It would appear this cage is still in use after all.” There’s a rustle of fabric as the poised man drops into a crouch. “Get our glorious leader. He should be here for this.”
Footsteps thump as the other one dashes away. An ache has formed at the top of my throat. It’s taking all my strength to hold my body in place, frantic tension clutching every muscle.
The way these men have talked, I don’t think they like my captors very much. What does that mean for me? What are they going to do to me?
They could be better than the monsters who stole me… or they could be worse. And even better wouldn’t necessarily mean good. Right now, all I’m sure of is they’re cutting off my last chance at escape.
The man speaks in a lower, smoother tone. “Hello in there. Why don’t you come out and let us have a look at you? Can you even understand me?”
As long as he thinks I can’t, I have an excuse not to respond. I stay where I am.
More footsteps thump into the room—at least a few sets. How many of these intruders are there?
A rich baritone resonates through the room with a note of total authority. “What’s the fuss about, Whitt? We can’t be sidetracked by Aerik’s vulgar hobbies.”
“I don’t think this is a sidetrack—I think this is the track, straight to our goal. Perhaps they have this servant assist them in making the tonic. There’s a whiff of it in here.”
“All the whiffs I’m catching are putrid,” a fourth voice says, this one sharp and grating. It reminds me so strongly of the man who pinned me down less than an hour ago that I flinch.
There’s a pause, and then I sense someone else crouching by the cage. “No, Whitt’s right. Can she speak?”
“I don’t know,” says the poised one who’s apparently named Whitt. “This is all we’ve gotten out of her so far: a very adept impression of a crumpled blanket.”
“Well, we don’t have time to wait for her to warm up to us. Let’s see what we’ve got in here.”
The latch clicks; the hinges squeak. My body clenches up, my fingers digging into the coarse fabric, but of course that doesn’t stop him. A powerful tug on the blanket pulls it partway off me, exposing my bare back and legs to the room’s cool air.
It’s too much. Panic flashes through me, and without any conscious intention, I’m snatching at the blanket, wrenching it toward me, kicking out with my legs. My good foot smacks a solid arm. I jerk back against the bars of the cage, my pulse hammering—oh god, am I going to have my ankle shattered by these monsters?
The man with the resonant voice just… laughs. Not my captors’ jeering snickers, but a deep guffaw as if he’s a little impressed along with his amusement. “We’ve got a fighter,” he says. “Pitiful thing. Come on now, we just need to talk.”
And I’m supposed to believe that? I let the fabric tumble away from my face so I can see what I’m fighting against and find myself staring into a pair of mismatched eyes set in brown skin.
The man who’s leaning through the cage door looms even larger and brawnier than the first two, like a grizzly among lesser bears. He carries a mark of at least one violent battle. His right eye, fixed on me, is a dark brown as rich as his voice. The other shines milky white, bisected by a pale, jagged scar that cuts from his hairline across the eyelid to halfway down his cheek.
Thick waves of coffee-brown hair fall to his massive shoulders, but don’t quite obscure the steep points of his ears. Curving black lines of tattoos creep up his neck from under his shirt collar. More darken his forehead and the edges of his jaw. Every inch of his being emanates power.
The sense washes over me that if he wanted to, he could maul any of my captors to shreds without suffering more than a few scratches. Possibly all three of them at the same time.
I don’t stand a chance.
“There we go,” he says evenly. “Answer a few questions about your masters, and we’ll leave you alone. We’re not here to hurt you.”
Someone behind him makes a rough noise. The boyish man-who’s-not-a-man peers over the grizzly’s shoulder. “Somehow I’m thinking Aerik