Tales of Darkness & Sin - Pepper Winters Page 0,216

man who took my ring and somehow knocked me out.

The suited one scans the cell, taking in each of my brothers in turn and it takes all I have not to shrink away when his gaze fixes on me.

Instinctively, I touch my neck as I take in his head of dark hair, the shadow of a beard. The scar along his right cheek does nothing to take away from his features. The opposite. He’s dangerous, this man. Deadly. I’d know it even if I saw him out on a normal day in the normal world.

Not that I’ve ever lived a normal life in a normal world.

And even though I don’t know who he is, my brothers do. I see it in their eyes. Feel it in the anxiety coming off them, their fear stinking up the room.

“Look who’s risen from the dead,” Diego starts, taking a step toward the man like the idiot he is.

The man’s lip curls upward, and it takes the most minute gesture of his head to have a soldier on my brother, pushing him roughly to his knees.

The man’s eyes shift to me again as if he’s curious. He holds my gaze momentarily before scanning Angel and Noah, who is still passed out. What did they do to him?

“The boy,” he says. They’re the first words I hear from his mouth. His voice is deep and low. Quiet, but without a doubt, in control. I get the feeling he doesn’t waste words.

A soldier moves toward Noah, boots loud, echoing. I wonder how vast the darkness beyond our little cell is. In the distance I see glimpses of light. Windows like the one in our cell, I guess.

“He’s breathing,” Angel tells the soldier when the man bends to check if Noah’s alive, I’m guessing.

The soldier checks for himself, straightens and nods to the one in charge. He looks different out of his camo. Deadlier. His hair is a little wet. I guess he took the time to shower.

He nods to the soldier, shifts his gaze to me once more before turning to my uncle.

“Get it done,” he tells him.

Jacob, my uncle, nods and reaches behind him to where he must have had his pistol all along.

“What’s happening?” I cry out, a new panic taking hold of me even though guns aren’t new to me. I live in a world of violence. It’s my inheritance. It will be my legacy. I am the princess at the heart of it. Or I was when my father was alive. Since his murder I’ve become a pawn.

I pull my legs back, readying to stand. I’m barefoot, I realize. I must have lost my shoes in transit.

All the men turn to me.

I only look at the one in charge. He appears taller than before but that’s because I’m still on the ground. He steps toward me. I scramble backward, my hand falling on the rusting metal frame of a cot. I pull myself up to stand, willing the nausea to subside. Willing my fear to.

I realize I still have my mother’s veil in one hand. It’s bloody too. Probably from the woman his men killed in the tower.

He stops when he’s only a few feet from me. He’s taller now than he appeared in the tower room. I’ve lost the four inches my shoes gave me. I have to crane my neck to look up at him and my gaze moves from his deep blue eyes, to the scar on his cheek, to his mouth, his neck. Another scar there. The edge of one. It disappears beneath the collar of his shirt.

This man has been through war.

“Kneel, Scarlett,” my uncle calls out from behind him. “Show some fucking respect.”

I shift my gaze from that scar on his neck back up to his eyes. Someone chuckles at my uncle’s command.

The man’s gaze skims my face, then down. I follow it, see how the blood had splattered over the torn bodice of my dress, too. I don’t know why I’m surprised.

I reach to put my hand over it and cover myself.

“Do you know who I am?” he asks in the same quiet tone he used to tell his soldier to check on Noah.

My gaze snaps back up to his. I don’t know him. I’ve never seen him before in my life. I study him, shift my gaze to the other one who’s watching me, hands still in his pockets, but nothing. I shake my head.

“Grigori,” he says.

Grigori?

That isn’t right. They’re dead. The whole family