she screamed.
8
Grif rocked back on his heels. “Dead?”
His captive’s breath came hard and fast, her gorgeous tits heaving. A single tear dripped from her flushed cheek onto her swollen nipple. “Yes. The slaves. I-I killed them.”
“You killed them? You? Alone?”
“Yes.” Her gaze never met his. “I-I am fault.”
Exactly what he’d expected to hear. Except, now, when she was finally claiming to be what he’d assumed, he no longer believed that, either.
“If you’re a killer why didn’t you take me out when you had the chance in the pit?”
“I-I…” She scrambled to respond. “I need to escape. Spear broken. I a-afraid and just…act.”
His bullshit radar wailed loudly. “The spear might have broken, but it was still deadly. You could have stabbed it through my heart or my eye. Instead you smashed it against my temple.”
She blinked up at him.
He pushed further. “Same goes for our first meeting. You could have skewered me with your spear. Instead, you left it to 223’s men to take me down.”
He’d recognized the inconsistencies at the time, but they hadn’t seemed as significant as the acts of treachery she had committed. Now, he wasn’t so sure.
“I-I…” that kitten tongue of hers peeked out, swiped at her lips. “I—”
“Don’t bother.” He cut her off. “You’re lying. You don’t have the killer’s instinct. I see that now.” He took a shot. “I think you’ve never struck down another soul in your life.”
The slight widening of her eyes told him he’d scored a direct hit.
“I’m right.” He leaned in. “Like recognizes like and what a predator like me scents in you is something else altogether.”
She shuddered at the implication.
“Which means,” he continued, “those women may very well still be alive.”
Her face blanked, but it wasn’t defense enough. Her expanding pupils, an involuntary reflex, told him all he needed to know. Plus, she had a tell. Her ears twitched every damn time she tried to hide a strong reaction from him.
He was right. The missing females were still alive.
Something close to joy slammed through him.
Melody and Hope could still get their mother back. He could do better for them than closure and its fucking forever pain.
The possibility of becoming second-in-command also just got a whole lot closer.
“That’s good, wild thing,” he told her, all the while reminding himself not to get too far ahead of himself. “The fact that they’re alive means you’ve got a chance at making it out alive, too.” He paused, letting his words sink in. “But for every heartbeat you draw this interrogation out and they suffer, you’ll suffer, too.”
“You not know what suffering is.” Her pretty eyes flashed with defiance, turning them an even more vivid blue.
He was annoyed that he noticed.
He needed to get a grip. She might not have killed the missing females, but she’d still taken them. She was still holding them prisoner for some unknown purpose.
Just because she looked innocent as hells bound in his ropes, thrust her hips at him as if she’d never been touched in her young life, and she hadn’t killed the females, didn’t change what she was: an enemy that needed to be broken.
“Why are you keeping them alive? For what reason?”
Silence.
“I will have my answers, wild thing,” he told her. “I will figure out what makes you tick and I will take you apart. All my interrogation subjects cave in the end.”
She snarled, those small incisors flashing against her plump upper lip. “I figure you out, too.” She mirrored his intent stare, studying him as he did her. “You no kill me. Not such predator, either.”
His laugh caught him by surprise. She was a lot less compliant when the anazi wasn’t between her thighs working her swollen clit.
“Don’t make the mistake of assuming that just because you’re still alive, I’m harmless. I’m not. I’m a killer through and through.” He held up his scarred hands, the humor leaving as quickly as it had come. “These have slaughtered more men that I can remember—and one I’ll never forget.”
He wasn’t sure why he told her. Or even why he’d mentioned the training he’d undertaken. He usually worked in relative silence. But there was something about the honesty of her body’s responses that had him wanting to give a little back in return.
Her pulse fluttered at the base of her throat at his claim.
“You’re right to be scared. You’ve been caught by the worst of beasts.” His gaze drilled into hers. “Lucky for you, I’m not interested in your death right now. Before we’re done, though, you might