Tears prickled the corners of my eyes, but I clenched my jaw in a bid to push them back. “It wasn’t my intention, Tanit. Everything is just so messed up, and—”
Without warning, she slapped me across the cheek, and my skin instantly lit on fire. This time, a tear did slip down my cheek.
“You should have stayed in your million-dollar mansion, Alyx. You should have enjoyed your own life instead of fucking with mine.”
“This isn’t about you!” My voice sliced through the room, anger slowly starting to smother my fear. “It was never about you. I didn’t even know you existed until last night.”
Tanit’s face screwed up in a pretty mess of hate and resentment before she spat in my face, slimy mucous dripping from my eye and onto my cheek. “Well, now I’m making it about me by wiping your miserable existence from this motherfucking story.”
I glared her way while trying to blink the spit out of my eye, my cheek still stinging from her open palm slap. It was clear by the expression on her face that she hated me with every ounce of passion she had in her. At first, I thought I might be able to talk her down, make her see reason. But not with the kind of animosity radiating from her, all because she thought I had stolen Granite from her.
I turned my head, trying to observe my surroundings, to see if I could figure out where we were. But there was nothing that gave me a clue. It was an empty room with a beat-up old desk on the other side, and blue wallpaper that had started to tear and pull away from the wall. It smelled like mold and dust, the floors covered in dirt, and I could practically feel the filth cling to my skin.
“You’ll never figure it out, pretty.”
I looked her way, and she shrugged.
“You’ll never figure out where we are.”
The hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach gnawed at my insides. “What’s the plan, Tanit? You have me all tied up. What are you going to do with me now? Kill me?”
Holding her hand up, she admired her freshly painted nails. “I don’t plan on doing anything with you. But just in case you have thoughts about misbehaving…” She pulled a gun from her back and placed it on the desk, the blood in my veins running cold.
Her dark eyes were glowing with menace, staring at me like I was the one thing she needed to sacrifice on the goddamn altar in order to have world fucking peace.
She winked. “If you behave, I won’t need to use it, and my job will be done.”
I didn’t like the creepy feeling tingling across my skin. The look on her face was calm, relaxed, like the fact that she had kidnapped and tied me up didn’t bother her in the least. Like it was just another day in the life and times of Tanit, the local fucking psychopath. I tried to shift in my seat, my body starting to ache all over. “What do you mean, your job is done?”
The roar of engines came from outside, and hope immediately rushed through my chest like a breath of fresh air. It was motorcycles, a sound I clearly recognized. A sound that managed to dull the panic that currently pulsed up and down my spine.
“Oh, don’t get excited.” Tanit paced in front of me, arms crossed and hips swaying. “It’s not him. I might not have any further plans for you, but someone else sure does.”
“Who is out there?” I flattened my lips, biting the inside of my mouth, fearing the answer I was about to get.
She walked to the door and opened it. “Don’t worry, princess. You’ll like him a lot. I think.”
My palms started to sweat, my legs cold and numb. A part of me still hoped the motorcycles I heard outside was him. But judging by the evil grin on her face and the satisfied gleam in her eyes, I was sure that whoever was out there didn’t intend to help me.
The sound of footsteps walking up metal stairs echoed from outside the door. And with every clank of steel, fear vibrated through my bones—all the way from my skull right down to my toes. Whoever it was coming up those stairs brought a whole lot of malevolence with them since I could hardly swallow or take a breath.
“Just in time.” Tanit smirked. “Our princess is ready and waiting.”
Oh, God. My stomach was about to tear out of my body, and the sudden urge to pee was overwhelming.
Tanit stepped aside, and I wished like hell I could have closed my eyes. I wasn’t ready to see what or who was about to walk through that door. But no matter how much I wanted to close my eyes and wish it all away, I couldn’t. This was really fucking happening.
A man stepped inside. At first, I couldn’t quite see him as he leaned in, placing a kiss on Tanit’s cheek while wrapping an arm around her waist and cupping her ass. “Hmmm, Tanit. You look as fuckable as ever.”
She plastered a smile on her face. “I’m going to choose to take that as a compliment.”
“As it is intended,” he replied, nodding at her before finally turning toward me.
I gasped when I saw his face, a snake inked all the way down on the side and on his neck, disappearing beneath the collar of his cut. Large, black disc earrings stretched his earlobes with big holes, and the scales tattooed on his shaved head just added the finishing touches to make him look like a demon from hell. It was incredibly hard to keep looking at him, as the sight alone made my skin crawl.
He twitched a brow pierced with a stud. “Pretty face, isn’t it?”
His tongue darted out of his mouth, and when I saw the two pieces of tentacled flesh twisting and slithering together, I shuddered, my stomach starting to crawl all the way up my throat.