Chapter 5
Abigail came awake with a jerk. The last thing she remembered was being strangled by her worst enemy. Pain hit her hard as she came to terms with what had happened.
I failed....
After all these years, she'd finally found the man who'd ruined her life and killed her parents. And he'd overpowered her with an ease that sickened her. She'd risked everything and even allowed her body to be used as an experiment. Still, it hadn't been enough.
I hate you, Sundown Brady. You rotten bastard!
For a moment, she feared she might have died. But as she focused on the opulent room she was in, she realized she was alive.
And it was o-p-u-l-e-n-t.
The bed she lay on was an ornately carved California king with a dark blue silk duvet that was so light, it felt like moving air. The furniture was the kind of high-end quality that looked like an antique, but wasn't. There didn't appear to be any windows, yet the ten-foot ceiling seemed too high to be a basement. And the French tray above her had a beautiful mural painted inside it of a lush forest scene with gilded deer.
I've died and gone to a palace....
That was what it seemed like. The room she was in was bigger than her entire house.
Biting her lip in trepidation, she slid off the bed and wandered around. Her first stop was the door that someone had locked. Not that she was surprised. Far from it. She'd have only been shocked had it opened.
Abigail closed her eyes and tried to use her newfound powers to feel what was around her.
Nothing showed. Which meant nothing. She was still too new to her powers to fully command them.
"You were right, Hannah," she whispered. "I should have honed them better before I took off after Brady." But from the moment Jonah told her he had the updated dossier that told them where Sundown was patrolling, she'd been impatient.
Now she was paying for that stupidity.
Where am I? She had no clue to anything. While the room was lush, it didn't have much in it other than the bed and a dresser and armoire along with two chairs and a coffee table. There was no phone, computer, or clock.
Had Sundown kidnapped her? It was the most likely scenario since she doubted she'd been abducted by a prince, and that made her heart rate speed up. Why would he do that and not kill her?
Unless he wanted to torture her ...
Yeah, that would be more his speed. Dark-Hunters were said to be vicious killers who lived to hear their prey beg for mercy while they died. Though to be honest, this didn't look like a torture chamber. It looked like a palace. The kind of place Jonah would love ...
And then she felt sick as her thoughts turned to Perry and Jonah, who'd been with her when she attacked Sundown. No doubt they were both dead. Tears choked her at the thought of their loss. They'd been good friends to her for many years. Better than she deserved some days. She could barely remember a time when they hadn't been part of her life.
Now they were dead because of Sundown, too. Damn him!
She cursed as she ran through their last few minutes together. Jonah was the one who'd first identified Sundown on the street. She'd wanted to go after him immediately, but Perry had come up with the idea to get him down to the drain so that they could ambush him and keep their actions out of sight of any passersby or police.
Why hadn't it worked? Her powers should have been enough to defeat him. It was like something else had shielded him from her attacks.
Frustration welled up inside her until she sensed someone approaching her room. She quickly returned to the door and glanced about for something she could use as a weapon. There really wasn't anything unless she yanked a picture off the wall, and those were so large and unwieldy, they wouldn't do her any good. Not to mention, they were actual paintings and didn't have a glass front for her to shatter and use. He didn't even have a lamp in here to bash him over the head with. The light came from overhead cans that were on a dimmer switch. She'd turn the light off completely, but that wouldn't help. His eyesight would be much better in the dark than hers.
It didn't matter. She'd beat him down by hand if she had to. He would not defeat her this time.
She pressed herself back against the wall as the door slowly opened.
* * *
Jess paused as he saw the empty bed. Having survived numerous ambushes in his human life, he knew she'd be nearby, waiting to jump him.
And not in a way a man wanted an attractive woman to jump him.
Since she wasn't in his line of sight, she must be behind the door. That thought had barely finished before she kicked it into him with everything she had, which was a lot for a little thing. The door hit him hard and slammed against his arm and face. Oh yeah, that was going to leave a mark.
Stunned, he staggered back.
That was a mistake. She came around the door with a feral growl and launched herself at him. Damn, it was like trying to fight off a mountain lion. Come to think of it, he'd rather fight a mountain lion.
Those, he could shoot.
"Stop!" he snarled, trying to get her off him as she pounded him with her fists.
"Not until you're dead!"
He hissed as she bit his hand. "Trust me, you don't want me to die."
She elbowed him hard in the stomach. "Why not?"
Jess tried to get a grip on her, but she twisted out of his hold and kicked him hard in the leg. He put some distance between them in the hallway. "You're locked in my soundproof basement, where no one will ever be able to hear you scream-and they won't dare come down here to check on me, since they're not allowed." Definitely not true-he always had a hard time keeping Andy out of his hair, but she didn't need to know that. "They'll just think I'm coming and going on my own. You got about a day's worth of food in the pantry down here. After that, hope you don't mind eating rotting Dark-Hunter carcass, 'cause, babe, that's all you're going to have."
Abigail paused at his words. She would call him a liar, but something in his eyes told her he was being honest. Besides, it made sense from what she knew about Dark-Hunters and their habits. She'd been told by her Apollite brethren that their Squires lived in fear of them and that the Squires interacted with the Dark-Hunters they served only when they had to. Some of them had even welcomed death at Apollite hands to be free of their Dark-Hunter masters. "I could break down the door."
He scoffed at her bravado. "This was designed as a fall-out shelter with ten-foot-thick steel walls. Unless you're packing some heavy artillery in your foundation garments, sweetie, it ain't gonna happen. Ain't no cell service down here or anything else. It's like a tomb, which it will be if you kill me. But that's up to you."
She wanted to tear his throat out. Unfortunately, even though she ached to kill him, her self-preservation kicked in. Last thing she wanted was to die ... at least before he did. "Why did you bring me here?"
"Why are you killing Dark-Hunters?" he countered.
Stepping back, she raked a repugnant sneer over him. At least as much of one as she could, given his wardrobe change. Dressed in a pair of red flannel Psycho Bunny pajama bottoms that added a sense of humor and whimsy to his I'll-rip-your-throat-out tough guy aura, and a gray T-shirt, he looked ...
Normal. The only thing lethal about him now was his giant size and those dark eyes that promised her death.
She swallowed before she answered. "Why do you think?"
"Other than the fact that you're as loco as a three-tailed cat in a rocking chair factory, I'm as clueless as a newborn colt."