Chapter Six

A light slap to the face had Leah slowly lifting her eyelids, making pain clash through her skull. She quickly shut them again and took several deep breaths. She sat on something cold, her back resting against what felt like rocks. She tried to wipe her eyes but couldn't move her arms.

Gasping, she reopened her eyes and looked up to see thick, iron bands around her wrists, connected by a chain to a hook in smoothly worn rocks. She pulled, and nothing happened.

"You're awake," a deep voice said.

Her chin dropped, and her vision finally focused. "Ah, crap," she muttered.

The Kurjan in front of her smiled. "There you are. I was afraid I gave you too much of the sedative. How's the head?"

Tiny drum sets beat a loud cacophony against her brain. "It's fine," she lied, looking around the dank, underground space. Her shoes had fallen off across the room, and her clutch was nowhere to be seen. Darn it. "Are we in an actual dungeon?"

He patted the material over her leg, and she tried not to cringe. "Every building in Paris has a dungeon." He sat back on his haunches. His pale, white skin nearly glowed in the dark—a definite contrast to the black hair that ended in red tips.

Even so, she could tell he'd been in the sun some. "You sure are enjoying venturing into daylight these days, aren't you?" she mumbled.

He flashed sharp canines. "We really are."

Up until a few years ago, the sun killed the Kurjans, but their scientists had advanced along with everybody else's and began regimens so they could actually venture outside during the day. It was a pity because it made their forces stronger.

She coughed. "You must be Wallace."

"I am. Did you really think you were chasing me?" His chuckle sounded hoarse. "I gave you just enough information to hand yourself to me."

Crap. Apparently, she'd fallen right into his trap and not the other way around. More of the room came into focus, and she spotted three Kurjan soldiers casually standing in front of what appeared to be a long tunnel. They all wore black jumpsuits with silver medals on their breasts. One of the males had two red medals, as well. She wasn't sure if that was new or something she should have known.

"Where's my purse?" she slurred. That darn pen recorder was in there, and she needed to get the police involved. The fake money transfer would only last a few more hours, and then George would know it was all a sham. She had to get to those kids before that happened.

Wallace looked around. "I believe you dropped it upstairs. Don't worry. You won't need a purse where you're going."

She couldn't breathe as a pit dropped into her stomach. The recording of the crime was lost to her? Would somebody turn in her clutch, or had the Kurjans tossed it? "Why did you set me up?"

He smiled again. "You're a smart one." Almost gently, he reached out and wiped a finger across her jaw, pulling it back to look.

Her jaw instantly ached as a rash sprang up.

He looked at his finger and the rash also covering it. "Hmm. Not as strong as I would have thought, Leah Ferry, longtime mate to Jasper Maxwell."

Yeah, now her face itched.

Leah stared at his finger. The rash there wasn't as strong as it should be because she and Jasper had just reconnected the night before. Yet the brand on her lower back pulsed with a constant heated energy. She'd worry about that later. "Why don't you fetch your buddy, George Contingent, so we can have a nice chat?"

Wallace laughed. "George and I are unfamiliar with each other."

She blinked. "I tracked you on a list we found of traffickers. You're partners."

"Think again," he said in an almost sing-song voice.

She thought rapidly through the events of the last three months. "Wait a minute. You hacked my email and falsely tied yourself to George Contingent?"

"Of course, I hacked your email. It was rather easy to do." He tsked. "You're not nearly as secure as you think."

"But why?" she asked. "A Kurjan wouldn't protect a human smuggler."

Wallace tapped his smooth jaw, seemingly comfortable in his crouch. "I could care less about George or human children. It was you, Leah. You're the female I needed to draw in, and I used George to do so."

Her eyes widened. "Wait a minute. Why?"

His gaze raked over her. "Once I discovered the searches you had conducted on me and my smuggling operation, I was intrigued."

She ran through possible scenarios and came up with nothing. "I don't understand."

His brows drew down. "Perhaps you're not as smart as I thought. Kurjans don't traffic humans."

"Oh, crap. You're trafficking enhanced females." That made a sick kind of sense. She'd heard of the Kurjans kidnapping enhanced women for mating, so perhaps the documents she'd found had included him…just not as a co-conspirator with George. "How would a Kurjan like you get lumped in with the human list we compiled from the internet?"

He shrugged, his wide torso moving the air around them. "Quite easily, as it turns out. We use some of the same transportation methods as other traffickers."

Bile swirled in her stomach. So, he didn't care about those poor kids in the slightest. About any humans, most likely. "You're sick."

"I might be, but once I traced you back to the source, I discovered you were mated to a Maxwell. That fact kept you alive. Otherwise, I would've just found and ended you. My people have been hunting you for decades." He licked his blood-red lips, his tongue also too red. "You're much too important to just kill, so I falsified some of the data that included Mr. Contingent so you'd come looking for me."

She reared away. Bile tried to rise up her throat, and she swallowed it down. This obviously had something to do with the Maxwells, and irritation clocked her that he hadn't fully informed her about his mission. Well, the mission that didn't include squiring her to his headquarters. "What does this have to do with Jasper?"

"Everything." Wallace patted her thigh, careful to keep the sequined dress between them.

She looked down to find sequins all over the ground. Apparently, her dress hadn't been made as well as she had hoped. "Jasper left town," she lied. "He's nowhere near here right now."

"He will be," Wallace said, finally standing.

She had to crane her head to look up. The Kurjans were notoriously tall, and this one had to be almost seven feet. "Jasper isn't coming to get me. I'm not bait."

"You're the loveliest bait I've used in a long time," Wallace said. "I assume Jasper will receive our texts sometime soon. Our scouts tell me he's out of range, but we'll get to him."

She shook her head. "I don't understand this. Why are you going after Jasper?"

Wallace's eyebrows rose, and he crouched again. "You know the story about the Maxwells and my uncle Baston, don't you?"

"No," she burst out, trying to yank her arms free. The chains held. "Jasper mentioned something about a long-time feud. What about?" The male should've told her everything.

Wallace dusted off his hands by clapping them together. "There's really only one thing that would cause families to feud for more than three thousand years. Do you know what that is?"

"They're morons?"

He chuckled. "You're funny. I like that. No. A female is the only force strong enough to keep males wanting to draw blood for millennia."

"Not me." Leah drew back.

"No, not you. Although, I can see the appeal." His gaze raked her again.

She shivered. Thank goodness he couldn't touch her without getting a horrible rash. "Then who?"

Wallace glanced at a gold watch on his left wrist. "Three thousand years ago, my uncle Baston and Cathal Maxwell fought over a woman named Nia."

"Nia?" Leah whispered. She absolutely loved Nia. "You mean Jasper's grandmother?" The woman didn't look like a grandmother and was the most beautiful woman Leah had ever seen in real life. Well, in real life across a computer screen, anyway.

"Yes," Wallace said. "Our people fought for eons until, finally, the Kurjans and the Maxwells reached an unlikely truce. We had lost too many people. All of us. The Kurjan ruler, Dayne, forced a treaty, and my family went along with it."

She vaguely remembered hearing about Dayne, but hadn't he died recently?

Wallace cleared his throat. "The agreement held that, so long as Dayne remained the leader of the Kurjan nation, there would be no more fighting. He forced my family into the treaty because the Kurjans as a whole have been fighting enough enemies—mainly the Realm."

"I've heard of the Realm," Leah murmured. It was a coalition of many immortal species, including vampires, demons, shifters, witches, dragons, and even some fairies, all led by King Dage Kayrs. "Now the Realm and the Kurjan nation have found peace?" Rumors abounded, but she rarely listened unless it mattered to her job.

Wallace laughed, the sound echoing off the rock walls. "The Kurjans are not a peaceful people, but apparently, we have a treaty in place for now as we keep our current leader. I don't think it'll last."

Leah tried to make sense of that, but the entire situation seemed bizarre. "So the chains are off, and your uncle is going after Nia?"

"Yes."

She coughed and tried not to sneeze from the dust swirling around. "I've met Nia and really like her. I think three thousand years is a long time to carry a torch, don't you?"

"Never. There is no time that a torch like that will be extinguished."

Oh, great. She was stuck with the one Kurjan in the world who was a romantic. "Listen, this is a really bad idea. How about you let me go, and let's forget it?"

"I'm afraid that's not possible." His watch dinged, and he looked down. "I must go. We found two more enhanced females near the Eiffel Tower. We can add them to the other five and ship them out tomorrow by midnight." He looked over his shoulder at the male with the red medals. "Make sure we have enough room on the plane."

"Of course, sir," the male answered.

Leah shook her head. Enhanced human females could mate with immortals. Her enhancement was one of strategy, brilliance, and, quite possibly, empathy.

He stood and looked at the men behind him. They had fewer medals than he had, so they must be his subordinates. "Jasper Maxwell, her mate, should be here within the hour. I expect you to take him, but don't decapitate him. Jasper is my kill." His nostrils flared. "Keep this lovely human alive as well."

She tried to kick out but looked slightly pathetic without her shoes. "You know I'm mated. Why would you want me to live if you capture Jasper?"

"Besides the Maxwell Curse that means both you and your mate die if kept apart for too long?"

Darn it. That fact appeared to be common knowledge. "Yeah. Besides that."

His purple gaze swirled with hints of red. "There's a virus that negates the mating bond. My brother has been interested in you for years and would be here right now if he weren't busy handling matters in London. You'll like him." He snorted. "Maybe in a few centuries. He's kind of the asshole of the family." With that, he disappeared down the long, dark hallway.

Leah stared at the three soldiers. "Who's up for a bribe? I have resources you can barely imagine." All imaginary, but she could bluff with the best of them. Darkness swirled around her again. How strong was that sedative? She went limp, slipping into unconsciousness and swearing the entire way.