Dark Champion (Flirting with Monsters #4) - Eva Chase Page 0,95

to inflict their vengeance on everyone in the building. Maybe her own allies had figured out she was double-crossing them and were wreaking havoc out there. Who knew what other enemies she might have accumulated over the centuries who wouldn’t have any reason to spare me?

Instinctively, I ran my tongue along the seam of my gums, restraining a wince at the scalded flesh there. I might not have much in this ridiculous horror show of a lab room, but I’d kept the tools I’d come in here with. Sweet chomping chimps, let me get the chance to use them.

A clang reverberated down the hall, followed by a snarl I wanted to think sounded familiar. Before that could amount to anything, the last familiar face I’d have wanted to see wavered out of the shadows into the dim light.

Tempest’s gleaming locks were writhing about her head in an agitated state. As she unfastened the door to my cage, her leonine face remained in a rigid mask of resolve. I braced myself—but I couldn’t make my move here. I needed my fire to finish things off, and I had no guarantee anyone had disabled the sprinklers.

“What’s going on?” I asked as she gripped the door. “Not having such a good day after all?”

She grinned at me fiercely, showing catlike fangs. “There’s still been plenty good about it, and I don’t intend to lose that now.” She yanked open the door and flicked a pair of handcuffs around my wrists so quickly I didn’t have time to dodge them.

My ankles were already chained again. I put up the best fight I could, attempted to knee her in the shoulder or elbow her in the face, but physical combat with all my limbs restrained and aching stiffly wasn’t exactly a piece of cake.

Tempest hauled me out of the cage to tumble to the floor. As I squirmed around so I had some chance of defending myself, she loomed over me, her shadowkind form taking over.

Her face still looked almost the same, just even more feline with a broadening of her cheeks. Her body expanded into that of a massive lion. Tawny wings burst from her back with a hiss of their long feathers. She clamped her muscular forelegs around my chest and stomped on the floor just beside the lab table.

With a whirring sound, a panel in the tiles pulled back. Letting out a breathy chuckle, the sphinx dragged me into the darkness beneath.

I only caught a glimpse of the passage we dropped into: just a few feet wide and high with packed dirt walls, the length of it falling into total darkness ahead of us. Then the panel snapped shut again, blotting out all light. The earth smell that filled my nose wasn’t remotely pleasant: pungent clay with a rotting note that turned my stomach.

Tempest managed to bound through the darkness while still holding me pressed to her thickly furred chest with one foreleg. When I tried to thrash free, her claws dug into my side deeply enough for the jolt of pain to shatter my breath.

“I’m not sure what use you think I’m going to be when you’re abandoning everything else you’ve been working on,” I said, fighting to keep an agonized rasp from my voice.

“If you’d rather I tore out your throat and was done with you, that can be arranged.”

“Somehow I don’t think you’d be getting this cuddly if you were willing to throw me away that easily.”

“Perhaps, but I’m willing to be convinced.” Her eyes flashed in the darkness. A more cloying rotten-meat scent spilled with her breath over my face. “You must know by now that I don’t put all my stock in any one person—or place. I might be a sphinx, but I can play hydra too. No matter how many facilities the fools destroy, there’ll be more popping up in their place. I’m everywhere.”

The vehemence in her voice turned my blood to ice. She really believed there was no way she and the horrors she’d set in motion could be stopped. Had she already unleashed her sickness on the world, and all she was doing now was protecting the source of her cure in case she needed more?

If she’d already hurt my lovers—

I clamped down on the flare of heat that thought provoked before it could sizzle from my skin. This wasn’t the place to play my last gambit either—I had no idea what protections she might have built into this tunnel. But as soon as