“This is so pretty,” came the awed whisper that drew his attention to the handcuffed woman sitting in the backseat, reverently running her fingertips over the pink Hostess Snowball package with a whispered, “So pretty.”
“What the hell are you doing?” Ethan asked, sighing heavily as he reluctantly tossed the iPad onto the passenger seat and focused on the small woman that he should have killed when he found out that his son was alive.
He should kill her now, cut his losses, take the next plane to Maine so that he could pull Trace into his arms, but…
They’d buried his son alive in a fucking wall and for that, Ethan would make sure that every last fucking shifter paid. He prayed the small woman currently examining a Snicker’s bar was the key, which meant that killing her wasn’t an option.
Yet.
“I don’t know where to start,” she said as she shifted her attention to the large shopping bag that he’d filled with a hundred dollars’ worth of over-priced junk food to see if she could metabolize sugar, something that would help him narrow down the list.
He already knew that she wasn’t a vampire and he’d managed to eliminate over a half dozen demons, but that was it. He also knew that she wasn’t an Alpha, because she would have already ripped his throat out. She could be a shifter, but he didn’t see the bitch going through this much trouble to protect another shifter. It made him wonder if she was an impure. It would make sense, Ethan mused as he watched her shift her attention to the Reese’s peanut butter cups.
While Packs normally killed impures at birth, there were a few impures that Packs would kill to get their hands on. With the right combination, she could be worth a great deal, Ethan thought as a small beep drew his attention down to his phone and he found himself chuckling when he saw the text message letting him know that a ten-million-dollar bounty had just been placed on his head.
It looked like he finally had something the bitch wanted.
*-*-*-*
“Are you going to answer my question?”
“What was the question?” Indie managed to get out as she sat there pretending that she wasn’t dying.
She never should have touched any of that food, she told herself even as she couldn’t help but wonder what the Twinkies would have tasted like cold. Next time, she promised herself, deciding that it would probably be in her best interest to pretend that there would be a next time since giving herself false hope was the only thing that seemed to work for her.
“What are you?” the man that she’d been hoping would let her curl up on the bed so that she could die in comfort asked as he double-checked the handcuffs that were currently biting into her skin to make sure that she couldn’t get out of the really uncomfortable chair that he’d handcuffed her to.
“I’m-” Indie started to explain only to bite her lip to stop herself from gasping in pain when he gave the handcuffs a hard tug that had the metal cuffs cutting into her wrists as he whispered the question in her ear, stressing every last syllable, “What. Are You?”
“A mistake,” Indie managed to get out, repeating the name that she’d been given when she was born only to wince and bite back another cry of pain when he gave the handcuffs another tug.
“What kind of mistake?” he asked softly, as his grip tightened around her cuffs and-
“I don’t know!” she blurted out when he used his hold on the handcuffs to yank her arms up until it felt like they were going to snap off.
“Why were you in that house?” he asked in a cold seductive whisper as he gave her cuffed arms a tug that had her eyes watering and the air rushing out of her lungs.
“I don’t know!” Indie screamed because she had no idea why she was in that house.
She didn’t know anything.
She had no idea why they’d kept her trapped in that house, who she was, or why her guardians had been afraid to go near her and had only acknowledged her existence when she broke a rule. Other than that, they’d left her alone and anytime she’d tried to ask them a question, she was punished until she’d learned not to ask questions.
“You don’t know?” he asked in that same seductive whisper as she felt his lips brush against her ear.
“No!” she cried, squeezing her eyes shut tightly as she waited for the snap that she knew was coming only to feel herself slump against the chair when he suddenly let her go.
“What’s your name?” he asked as she sat there, trembling as she struggled to catch her breath.
“Indie,” she said, using the name that she’d given herself when she was little for the first time in her life as she opened her eyes to find him leaning down in front of her, absently nodding as his eyes turned silver and his fangs slid down.
“Do you know what they did to my son, Indie?” he asked absently, as he reached over and pushed a loose strand of hair behind her ear as she did her best not to flinch.
“I-I don’t even know who you are,” Indie mumbled nervously, as she leaned back as far as the wobbly chair would allow.
“Fair enough,” he murmured absently with a nod, as he stood up and pulled his shirt off, tossing it aside before placing his hands on the back of her chair, caging her in as he leaned back in until his mouth brushed against her ear and said, “I’m the man who’s going to kill you.”
Chapter 16