TEN - Alana

TEN

Alana

Ieat half of the massive breakfast and then clean the kitchen, my mind burning. What is wrong with me? I was aroused in seconds by a cold-blooded killer. He doesn't hide who he is from me, so that's no excuse.

That kiss nearly blew off my head, and if he'd tried to take it further, I would've let him. I've never felt like that admirable of a person, but needing his touch is sick.

It's pathetic, but I mean, the man looks like a god. That's no excuse, but still. My girly parts would have to go dead for me not to notice, and frankly, one look at him and they'd probably come right back to life. Sure, I shouldn't have challenged him. That much I know. But the moment was too perfect, and I have a feeling nobody challenges him. He's too scary.

I want to be different from everybody else to him. Why, I am choosing not to examine because nobody wants to see the darkness inside themselves. Well, nobody but Thorn. He embraces it.

The talk about a virus was intriguing. Is Malice Media having a computer problem?

There has to be a way out of this place, and I'm nearly panicked enough to risk the monster in the moat. I have to get away from this man.

The simple skirt and sweater won't work, so I wander back up to the guest room to find all of my new clothing unpacked in the opulent closet. Humming, I run my fingers across the many fabrics, deciding upon a mint-green minidress with an aquamarine belt.

The thoughtfulness of the belt startles me.

Gulping, I change into it as well as bright red stilettos, then enter the bathroom and discover a trove of new makeup in a side drawer. Soon my lips are as red as the shoes and my hair teased wildly into what appears to be sex hair. Well, so I've been told.

Giving myself a silent pep talk, I gather my discarded clothing from the night before and return to the vestibule, trying to drum up tears. Darn it. I'm not a crier. Even for effect. Sighing, I hustle through the sprawling castle to the kitchen and dig an onion out of the fridge, sniffing until my eyes properly swell. I do need to learn how to cry on demand.

My eyes burning, I sling the offensive vegetable back into the drawer and hurry to the front door, yanking it open and stumbling across the cobblestones. The clouds have opened, causing more rain to drum down. Good. I'll look even more pathetic soaking wet.

The guards allow me to make it onto the wet grass before one intercepts me. Thank goodness. I thought for sure I'd have to walk to that terrifying moat, and these heels are not made for a lawn.

"Miss?" The guy is young with dark hair and concerned green eyes. A thick accent colors his words. Fully Irish. "Ya need to get yerself back inside. A storm's a'comin."

I look at him, the fake tears mingling with the rain on my face. "I can't," I hiccup. "I mean, he kidnapped me. I must get home to my family." I flutter my eyelashes and look properly sad. "Nobody will feed my cat. Sir Hissalot."

His eyebrows rise. "I'm sure somebody will feed the animal." He gently takes my arm. "Please let me escort yer back inside."

I turn and stumble in the mile-high heels, catching his jacket as I go.

"Whoa." He helps me up.

"Thank you," I sniff, straightening. With a shudder, I allow him to walk me to the front door and deposit me safely inside. When the door shuts, I grin and kick off the heels before drawing his phone from my left hand. He'd secured it inside his breast pocket and hopefully won't discover it missing too soon. Looking around, I run through the castle to the kitchen and then outside the back into the storm. If Thorn has listening or tracking devices in the structure, I'm safer outside.

I walk out onto a covered deck with a barbecue toward the cliff and peer over. With the rain and crashing waves, any listening devices won't catch everything. Studying the phone, I determine it's probably protected, anyway.

The thing is locked. Damn it. I try several codes, trying for anything related to garnets or the Irish mob, but I need the young soldier's face.

All right. There's only one solution. Every phone, even locked, can dial an SOS emergency call. I press the buttons and wait. I have to escape Thorn before I get all twisted up and want to stay. It's unthinkable. I push the buttons again.

Nothing. Not a thing.

Biting my lip, I do it again.

Shoot. Thorn somehow disengaged the emergency function on his people's phones. There's no way to get help.

I give up and walk over the wet cement to the kitchen, wondering where to look for the secret passages. Beyond the kitchen is an extravagant dining room with a man's study next. The windows have the offensive argyle inlays and I instantly feel sick. Gulping, I close the heavy velvet drapes and examine Thorn's desk. It isn't made of wood. Instead, it's all obsidian, heavy and solid. A plasma television, wide and long, is mounted across from the desk, along with filing cabinets and a bar, complete with much older Scotch than I've ever seen.

The place smells like him. Like testosterone and danger with a hint of the wild forest. My thighs clench. This hold he somehow seems to have on me has to be ignored. I have a job to do.

I sit in his tall leather chair and meticulously go through his drawers. There's nothing of interest anywhere. In fact, I don't see any bit of personalization in the room—or the parts of his home that I've searched so far. It's as if he lives here but not really. Several large garnets in raw form are placed strategically around the room.

Going to the walls, I tap along them, trying to find a hidden door. There is nothing.

I blow out air. This is actually getting boring.

So I exit the room and wander through several sitting rooms until I open a door and nearly orgasm on sight.

It's a library. No. Not just a library—but the library of all libraries. A cluster of tables sits in the middle of a three-story room beneath the largest chandelier I've ever seen. Beyond the desks are reading areas, several including sofas. But it's the books. Obsidian bookshelves line three full walls of the room from the floor to the high ceiling. Each wall has a ladder that moves along the marvelous tomes.

The final wall is a wide window overlooking the angry Pacific. These windows are clear without the argyle crisscross shape, and my entire body sings. I pause at the sight of a glass-topped table near the door and then hurry over to peer inside. The books are all about crystals and appear ancient. Holding my breath, I lift the lid and pull out a book inlaid with rose quartz. It warms in my hand. My heart heating, I open the front flap to read in Gaelic about the ancient stone. There's even a fairy tale I've never heard about lost love.

Smiling, I place it carefully back in its place and run my fingers over the other volumes.

I turn and look for a place to hide my ill-gotten phone and decide upon a lower bookshelf between original volumes of an ancient and mostly unknown Gaelic philosopher that look well read. I spend the following hours poring over first editions, discovering new philosophers that even I haven't discovered yet. I break for lunch and then a dinner of more eggs, happy to be alone with all the books and trying to concentrate and not relive that kiss in the kitchen. Or how he'd forced my thighs apart and pinched my nipple.

I don't like pain.

But I did. I'm very much afraid I wanted more of it. I have to get out of here.

Finally, I take an edition of the early works of Seneca the Younger and a newer edition of Catcher in the Rye off the top shelf and sit on a sofa to read, allowing the pouring rain and the silent house to lull me to sleep.

"That's quite a choice you have there." Thorn's voice pulls me from a dream about misty moors and lost loves.

I jerk and sit up, letting the books fall to my lap. "I, ah, like the cover of this one, but it's in Latin." Which I read, by the way. "So I read a little bit of Catcher in the Rye. It's funny." Actually, it's poignant, but I'm feeling out of my element.

He drapes his black blazer over a chair and rolls up one white shirt sleeve. Something is off. His gaze doesn't leave me. "Where's the phone?"

I push myself to my feet, feeling too vulnerable on the sofa. I'm not quite awake yet. "What phone? I looked but couldn't find one in your office."

His chin lifts.

It occurs to me that I just broke rule number one.

"Bring him in," Thorn says with absolutely no inflection in his voice.

I turn as Justice pushes in the guard whose phone I stole. The younger man is pale but his jaw is set.

Thorn's eyes are cold. No humanity lurks in them, and I startle into being instantly awake, unable to swallow. He studies me. "I see you took his phone. Never play poker." He doesn't look at his brother. "Kill him."

"No." I burst forward and stop, my bare feet sliding on the chilly floor. "Don't kill him. It's my fault."

Thorn barely cocks his head. "Dermot lost his phone. You say you don't have it. That's unforgivable."

I gulp. Completely outmatched. "The phone is between the third and fourth volumes of Francesco Millentonie's Philosophies," I whisper, trying not to wring my hands together.

Justice silently moves to the bookshelf and finds the phone. Perhaps he spends a lot of time in here—most of the world has never heard of Millentonie.

My chest finally fills with air.

"Good. Now toss his useless ass off the cliff," Thorn says, still pinning me with his glacial gaze. Whatever warmth I thought I'd seen in those silver flecks is gone. Had I imagined that?

"No," I say, my voice hoarse, looking up a good foot to meet those eyes. "You can't kill him. I took the phone. It's my fault."

Thorn finishes rolling up his other sleeve, revealing more tattoos of what look like garnets, rosebuds, skulls, and barbed wire along with a Gaelic saying or two . . . dealing with blood oaths. "It was his phone and he lost it."

Anger flushes through me so quickly I sway. "Yet it's my fault. Jesus. You're as bad as my father."

That catches his attention. "Excuse me?"

"With the emotional blackmail. I did something you didn't like, and you're going to put this poor man's death on my head so I don't do it again. That's not only pathetic, it's fucking evil." Wires of fury snap through me, and I look for a weapon. "It's not just unfair but fundamentally wrong for a man, a real man, to use a woman's emotions against her." My ears heat so fast, I'm surprised they don't burn right off my head. "Act as to treat humanity . . . in every case as an end withal, never as means only," I spit at him.

He pauses. "Did you just quote Kant?"

"It fits," I hiss, so angry my throat hurts.

He crosses his arms, looking even more threatening. I can handle the danger, but the coldness in his eyes is something else.

Justice clears his throat. "Thorn—" He instantly stops as Thorn levels him with a look.

"Please don't kill him." My anger morphs into fear. "I'm begging you."

He turns back to me, tall and broad, pissed and dangerous. "No, you're not."

Oh. Dread slithers through my gut. Fine. I drop to my knees, my head bowed. If it saves the soldier, it's worth the pride. "Please don't kill him, Thorn." The tile floor is freezing on my knees.

"Look at me," he orders.

I look up, surprised to feel tears in my eyes.

The silver flecks in his disappear. "Take him outside and beat the shit out of him. I'll let you know later if she's convinced me to spare his life."

I catch a flash of relief in Justice's eyes and a bit of dread in Dermot's. But at least he'll be alive for the time being.

I stand, my legs wobbling. "I'll be going now."

"You broke rule number one, Alana. I gave you fair warning of the consequences."

My head jerks and my heart rate skyrockets into the unhealthy zone. He isn't joking.

Like all prey, I let instinct take over and run.