“No, you don’t. But I know what she’s doing. If she’d wanted to run, she’d be long gone. She’s going to help us. Is this man working with Torin?”
The fight Dante had been so eager for seemed to be coming at him like a steam train. “Yes. There’s a faction on the Vampire plane that wants to make a deal with Torin. The royals are desperate for consorts. We age until the moment we take a consort. You’re kind of our version of the fountain of youth. We’ll still die one day, but as long as we’re taking consort blood, we’ll look damn good when we go, if you know what I mean.”
Meg let her head fall forward. “What would happen to me if they managed to kill Beck and Ci?”
He didn’t even want to think about it. “Right now there would be a riot if you hit the open market. The tournament would be huge and bloody. I don’t think Roan intends to allow that to happen. He fully intends to t
ake you when you’re available. If he gets his fangs into you, no one will question his claim.”
“God, I don’t understand any of this. Not really.” Meg sounded tired, her voice soft and weary.
Meg hadn’t grown up on the linked planes. She’d been born on the Earth plane. It was a difficult plane to travel to. It was very isolated. She didn’t have any real comprehension of how special she was.
She needed to understand the power she had over Roan. “Royals are raised to treat a woman like you with great reverence. If you play your cards right, he’ll take care of you no matter what happens. But you should understand, he’ll have a price for his care. He’ll feed off you, and he’ll definitely want to fuck you.”
Meg shuddered.
“It’s going to be okay,” Dante said. If he’d had hands to do it, he would have put them on her shoulders. “They don’t understand what Beck is. Roan is a royal. He was raised to be very gentle around women like you. Just be sweet, and he won’t let anything happen to you. It shouldn’t be too long before Beck shows up and blows the roof off this place.”
But a lot could happen in a very short amount of time. Roan was a royal, but Dante would bet the rest were peasants. Peasants didn’t have the same worshipful reverence for consorts that royals did. If the rest of Roan’s team decided they could make more by selling Meg, they would. If they gave her to Torin—he didn’t want to think about what would happen to her.
Beck could handle these guys easily, but Beck wasn’t here. Dante was responsible for Meg and for Kaja.
He had to get them away from here.
“Can you move at all?” Dante asked.
He was bound tightly in sonic cuffs. The mercenaries were well equipped. They had all the latest sonic equipment. The swords at their sides could slice through flesh with almost no effort. If they managed to get Beck in hand, they could kill him. Killing Beck would almost certainly kill Cian.
“I have a little room, but it could take me a while.” Meg’s arms moved, struggling against her bonds. They might not be sonic, but the old ways worked, too.
“I can’t get out of these, sweetheart.” He would need the locking sequence. Even if they could get Meg free, Dante couldn’t get out of his cuffs. His mind raced. “If you could make it over here, I might be able to use my teeth to loosen those ties. It’s not exactly how I imagined getting my mouth on you, but it will have to do.”
“Or we could just wait for Kaja to get me out.” Meg nodded toward the front of the tent where Kaja was nosing her way through the flap.
He’d never seen anything as beautiful as that wolf. Kaja would save Meg. There wasn’t any hope for him, but maybe they could get to Beck.
Kaja shifted, her form moving easily from wolf to one gorgeous, naked woman. She stood, her perfectly shaped breasts bouncing slightly as she walked toward Meg. She really was lovely. He might never get her breasts in his mouth. He really should have sucked her little pink nipples last night, but he hadn’t quite managed to get his face out of her pussy.
“Kaja, you need to get Meg out of here.”
She turned her face to him. Her lips curled up softly. For a woman performing what amounted to grand theft consort, she was remarkably calm. “Yes, that was my plan, Dante.”
She moved around to Meg’s back.
Dante wondered how much time they had. If she managed to get his cock out, he could probably get off really fast. It might be his last time. Even a hummer would work.
Meg shook her head at him. “Dante, seriously? What is wrong with you?”
Nothing from what he could tell. Meg was staring at his erection. It was pushing his pants up admirably. Nope. Nothing wrong with that. And his fangs were out. He was fully functional. “She’s naked. You can’t expect me to think about my inevitable death when my wife is walking around with all her pretty pink parts on display. Now, Meg, I really don’t care if you watch or not, but Kaja and I need to say goodbye in the nastiest way I can possibly achieve with my hands and feet tied.”
Meg flexed her hands. “And he calls me a drama queen. I don’t think I like real, actual bondage. There was nothing fun or sexy about that. At least when Beck and Ci tie me up, I get something out of it. This time, I just got a headache. You don’t have time for sex.”
“There is always time for sex. Come on, Kaj. I’ll be really quick.” He knew he sounded jokey, but deep down he really wanted her. Without Meg to keep him in check, Roan was likely to take out his frustration on Dante. He probably wouldn’t come out of this whole, if he came out at all. He wanted her. He wanted that moment with her. He couched it in sarcasm, but he wanted to know what it felt like to really bond with his wife.
“Does the First believe we will flee without him?” Kaja asked, her hands sliding over Meg’s, massaging her wrists back to life.
Now there was an idea…