Page 31 of Cold-Blooded Creatures

Hisfirmandmuscledchest.

“Come on. Let’s go eat.” Spinning me around, he pushed me forward down the long and dimly lit hallway full of identical black wood doors on each side. His fingers tapped to a calming beat on my lower back, each idle stroke a fractal searing my skin, preventing me from running away.

Whywasn’tI running? I repeated the question a hundred times, but the answer evaded me, and so Iorderedmyself to run, yet my legs wouldn’t move faster.

Was it hunger? Yes, it had to be it—my stomach controlling the muscles in my feet. When was the last time I ate something? I licked my chapped lips. When was the last time I had something to drink?

We climbed down a properly maintained concrete stairwell in utter silence and navigated through a maze of dimly lit hallways full of silent doors. A rush of laughter stopped me dead in my tracks. My bones chilled to ice.

When was the last time I heard someone laugh? Genuinely laugh. Not the arrogant glee you’d hear in Ilasall before the people behind them lunged at you.

Not since childhood, when I’d run in the school’s inner yard with Alora, chasing light reflections leaping from the metal plates of a set of swings and pretending they were portals to the sun raining heat on our heads.

I couldn’t go in there. I couldn’t let them laugh at me. I couldn’t watch their faces contort with malicious smiles whiletheir eyes methodically calculated the worst ways to use me, forcing me to fight, run, or get on my knees in exchange for information.

I could feel him peering at me, burning holes into the side of my head, and I prayed for them to burn deep enough to reach my brain, to get me out of here.

He raised my chin toward him. “They are not laughingatyou.” A slight draw in his eyebrows, and his gaze locked onto mine. “Trust me. No one in their right mind would.”

For some reason, his belief melted the paralysis, and my bones unlocked, bending at the joints as he led me into the room. Another boisterous chortle rumbled across it, rolling over a large ebony table and enshrouding a group of people there.

A man only an inch taller than me, with half a golden pastry in his mouth, pushed past us. “That’s it, man. You owe me a favor.” He lifted a tray of baked goods he was carrying higher and a puff of white powder rained over us.

“Ryder.” My captor waved the sugar powder away and picked at the few white dots on his black shirt, like putting out stars in the night sky.

“Tell me you are a dessert-before-dinner kind of person,” Ryder said, heedless of my kidnapper’s displeasure. He wasn’t afraid of him. Good. Maybe he’d help me get out of this mess.

“Never had both at the same time,” I admitted.

Ryder’s smile dissipated. Yet a kind sparkle remained in his light sage eyes. I wanted to pluck it out and keep it in a locked box under my bed.

“First time for everything. There’s more than enough. Did he tell you that he forced me to ba?—”

“No.” My abductor put a stop to whatever Ryder was about to reveal.

What was his problem? I liked the freckled man with a halo of tight caramel curls. He’d offered me both dinner and dessert without requesting a favor to repay them.

“Okay, okay. What I wanted to say was, we have freshly baked pastries.” Ryder strolled away and placed the tray full of sweets on the huge table in the center of the room.

I staggered.

Everyone was looking at me.

In complete silence.

11

KALI

“Here you are.” Zion walked into the room, surveyed the table and the available seats, and offered me his hand. “Come sit by my side.”

Obviously, the answer was no.

There was no way I’d be staying.

I turned on my heel but, instead of the exit, I was met with a wall in the shape of my stalker and kidnapper. His throat bobbed and a wrinkle between his black eyebrows deepened as he tracked Zion hovering nearby.

Instead of smoothing it out, I dug my nails deep into the flesh of my palm. Hot liquid drenched the fabric, and a wave of acute pain washed away that traitorous demand inside of me.