Page 27 of Polestar (The Global Paranormal Security Agency #3)

TWENTY-TWO

A na sat on a comfortable high-back chair, arms crossed, hoping she exuded enough boredom and annoyance to mask her anxiety.

Her captors had marched her through their operations complex in a warehouse and out to a pier, where they pushed her into a boat for a brief ride across a narrow stretch of water. From there, they led her to a small cottage overlooking the Barents Sea.

On reaching the small house, Ana turned back to see how extensive the island base camp was. Two cargo ships waited, with goods being shuffled across the compact harbor between them. She noted the logo on several of the shipping containers.

Embraceable Energy? Where Have I seen that before?

“I’ve seen it too,” Antony said.

There was no time to ruminate on the familiar image as they shoved her inside the cottage and into her current chair.

They were all speaking English, and she guessed it was to intimidate her.

Hence her determination to look bored and annoyed.

Never let a predator smell your fear.

“I don’t care if you think she has abilities. I want you to get rid of her,” Magnus’ ex-wife, Ulla Matochkin, said, scowling in Ana’s direction. “She has no use to any of us other than what you can get for her on the black market. Sell her.”

“Ulla,” the creepy accountant, Adolf Wulker’s, voice was placating as he looked her way. “We can use her as leverage first.”

“And I told you, whatever you think Magnus knows about this old thing Yvan is looking for doesn’t matter. He’s a stubborn bastard that won’t tell you anything. I know him. He’ll go to his execution in silence just to spite me.”

Execution? Ana’s hands fisted before she forced herself to unclench them.

“Oh, that doesn’t sound good,” Antony said. “Sounds like your rescue party hit a snag.”

He’s not my rescue party. I’m his .

Antony snorted. “You’re going to rescue the big polar bear shifter from an island full of more polar bear shifters and whisk him away to safety? Right.”

The big guy strolled into view from somewhere behind her chair, grinning down at her.

Fuck, I forgot about him.

“Me too, sorry Ana,” Antony said, looking contrite.

He laughed, drawing Matochkin and Wulker’s attention. “What’s so funny, Yvan?”

“She thinks she’s going to escape and rescue Bjornson,” he said, in heavily accented English.

“Ridiculous, why would you say that?” Matochkin said, her expression incredulous.

“Her ghost friend said so.”

The tall blond woman approached Ana, eyes narrowed. “Magnus said that you—.” She glanced over her shoulder at her partners before turning her full attention to Ana. Her eyes glittered dangerously; color infused her cheeks as she dropped her voice. “Magnus said you can astral travel.”

Ana hesitated, but nodded.

Matochkin straightened. “Leave us,” she barked at the men.

They moved closer to the women, brows raised at Ulla’s tone.

The three of them towered over Ana’s chair.

“Ulla, darling. She’s my property to do with as I please. You said you had no use for her when you gave her to me. Why the sudden change of mind?” the creepy accountant said, sliding a hand across Ulla’s shoulders.

Ana almost leapt out of her chair at the sight of his hands shifting—separating into tentacles, massaging the woman’s narrow shoulders and neck with intimate familiarity.

Oh gross!

She struggled to control her gagging revulsion.

“Ugh!” Antony echoed the sentiment.

“Besides, we have no secrets between us, right, my love?” Yvan said, caressing her face and kissing her mouth. “Whatever she has to say, we can know, too.”

Ulla immediately relaxed her body. “Just five minutes. Female to female.”

The men exchanged looks, released her, and moved toward the door.

Yvan stopped next to her chair, crouched so he could look her in the eyes and as he placed his large hand on her knee, he said, “If you say anything that upsets our Ulla, I will extinguish your ghost friend into oblivion and snap your neck so you may join him. I don’t care how much money Adolf thinks he can get for you.

I will do this.” He gave her knee a single pat, rose, and left. The door closed with a soft click.

Ulla said, “You don’t need to worry about Yvan. If you don’t answer my questions, I’ll snap your neck myself.”

“Charming bunch,” Antony snorted.

Quip all you want, it isn’t your neck on the line, now is it?

“Nope, just oblivion, apparently.”

“What do you want to know?” Ana said to Ulla, wondering if she could use this new situation to her benefit.

Ulla glanced at the door behind Ana. “Magnus said you spoke to Aksel in the astral realm.”

Open desperation replaced the bitter scorn in Ulla’s face. Her gaze flicked between Ana and the door.

Ana nodded.

“He’s alive,” Ulla said with guarded relief.

“He was then. That was days ago.”

“And he had a mark on his throat? And don’t lie to me or I’ll—.”

“Snap my neck, I know. And yes, he did. It prevented him from shifting, so he couldn’t heal.”

Ulla reached for the chair adjacent to Ana, sagging onto it. All the color drained from her face. “So it’s true. He wasn’t lying.” She jumped to her feet, hands shaking as she paced the room.

“How can we remove it?” Ana forced as much calm into her question as she could.

“I don’t know,” Ulla said, her hand pressed to her forehead as she glanced at the door again. “I don’t think it can be, not without a shaman, anyway.” She drew a long breath, straightening her spine as her gaze searched the room, as though the answers were somewhere within it.

“Even if you decide to snap my neck, at least let Magnus go. Let him find a shaman that can help your brother. You know he would. Won’t the king’s shaman help him?”

“He’s dead,” Ulla said, resuming her pacing with a heavy sigh. “You know what? It’s too late. It’s too late for Aksel. I can’t do anything to reverse it. I can’t help him. It’s too late.”

“What’s too late?” Adolf asked as he and Yvan entered the room.

“It’s too late for her to try to bargain with me,” Ulla said quickly, masking her emotions as she looked at Ana.

“Ah, well, did she tell you what you wanted to know at least?” Yvan asked, lacing his large fingers together as he moved into Ana’s line of sight.

“No,” she said, shrugging a shoulder. “I’m bored. We should find out what Magnus knows about this old artifact you want, so Adolf can sell her, and I can think about other things,” she said to Yvan.

“Like becoming Queen.” Yvan grinned, trailing a finger over her cheek.

She twitched away from his touch, seemed to catch herself, smiled, and placed a kiss on his finger. “Exactly.”

“I like this idea,” Yvan said, leaning in to nuzzle Ulla’s neck.

Ana looked away, in a bid to control the returned revulsion churning in her gut.

I don’t think I can take any more of this.

She glanced up to see Antony looking as ghostly green as she felt.

You should check on Emilio and the guys in case they decide to move them. If I survive this, I’ll need to know where to direct my team.

Antony’s hesitation was clear as he looked between her and the three lovers, pretending to have forgotten about her.

I’ll be fine. And even if I’m not, you can’t do anything about it, Antony. Don’t get obliviated—if this guy isn’t talking out of his ass.

Antony snort-laughed, then snapped his mouth shut when Yvan turned his attention on him. “Okay, stay alive,” he said and blinked out of sight.

“Where’s he gone, your ghost friend?” Yvan demanded.

“With the three of you heating things up in here, he didn’t think he wanted to stick around if squid boy over there broke out the rest of his tentacles. So, he abandoned me to suffer alone.”

Yvan backhanded Ana, snapping her head to the side with a crack. Her head rang as pain bloomed through it from the impact on her cheek.

“Don’t damage my property!” Adolf shot forward, grabbing her face and looking at either side.

“You’re lucky you didn’t break her. Now I’ll have to wait till the bruising clears up before I can present her to the special clients I contacted.

Damn your temper, Yvan. They don’t like it when I tease them and delay presentations longer than necessary. ”

“I don’t care about your vast network of clients. I promised the others we’d find the artifact and secure it. This is all I want, Adolf. Not money, like you.”

“It’s not just the money, Yvan.” Adolf stepped closer to Yvan, snarling up at the taller man’s face.

Ulla slid between the two, her bottom against Yvan’s groin, her breasts to Adolf’s chest, distracting both.

“We all want something, don’t we? How about we head back to the stronghold and see if we can finish what we started?

Yvan’s right, we should bring the human woman, although I doubt the leverage idea will work.

I have something else in mind for her.” Ulla glanced Ana’s way, leveling her glittering blue eyes at her.

Uh oh.

I don’t care who comes in here next. I’ll rip their head off if I have to, in order to escape and find Ana.

Thoughts of Ana being trapped on a ship like the ones they had seized over the last decade made the bile in his gut rise.

I have to get out of here.

But no matter what he tried, despite knowing better, he could not slip out of the manacles, nor break them. All he’d earned for his trouble were very sore wrists and ankles and a chipped tooth, with barely a scuff on the meteor metal.

He’d cursed his ancestors repeatedly for their exquisite skill in metal craft and shackle design and quality.

These are probably the original damned shackles from when the cell was built.

When he wasn’t plotting his impossible escape, he calmed himself with fantasies of Ana and her sapphire blue panties, which turned out to be counter-productive and incited the urgency to escape all over again.

But then, there wasn’t anything else to do. The chains were almost too short for push-ups.

Suddenly, the lock tumbled with a snap, and the door banged back against the stone.

Magnus was on his feet, ready to detach heads.