She tensed at the voice of the King filling the car, her face twisting into a snarl. “What are you doing to them?”
“It’s a handy little trick for vampires, an invention created for this very use. I needed to speak to you without the influence of your guard dogs.”
“I have nothing to say to you,” Danica spit as she swerved around a literal wall in the middle of the road. With Arden out of commission, she’d have to take care not to need weapons until she could get the asshole off the phone. For a second, she considered hanging up on him again, knowing it would really piss him off, but he was calling for a reason. She at least needed to know his agenda so she could handle it.
“No?” the King chuckled. “So, if I destroy the orphanage you care about, you wouldn’t care?”
Danica froze, her foot easing off the gas just a little. “If you touch any one of those kids—”
“All you have to do is lose the race. The orphanage will be safe, and I will pay you anything you ask for.”
“I want Arden and Phi not to die,” Danica said immediately, attempting to circumvent the deal. She knew it was a longshot and wasn’t surprised when the King answered.
“That is out of the question. The mongrel will die, and my son is an unfortunate consequence of that.”
“You would kill your own son, your heir, for such a small thing?” Danica’s fingers tightened on the wheel and despite the conversation, she kept her eyes on the road and maneuvered around the obstacles growing more and more frequent. She was no doubt drawing closer to the final quarter of the race. It would be the most dangerous part and she needed her teammates. It was time to get the King off the phone and figure things out.
“I don’t need an heir. I plan to rule forever.”
“You think yourself a God,” Danica murmured.
“I will be. Make your decisions, Danica. The children’s lives, or theirs. I’ll give you until the end of the race to decide.”
Danica ground her teeth together as the line went dead and the high-pitched whine disappeared.
Arden and Phi immediately sprung up, both baring their teeth in anger.
“What happened?” Arden demanded, looking for the threat around them, as if it had come from outside the car.
Danica’s hands tensed on the steering wheel until her fingers were bone white. She just barely avoided a pothole that opened up in the middle of the road, almost large enough to be considered a sinkhole. She flew around the edge of it, not speaking for a moment while she got her fury under control. If something happened to her kids, she was going to murder the king herself.
The Fae team was still ahead of them, still in first place, and they would have only fifteen miles to gain that ground. There were still plenty of teams behind them that were a threat to not only their place in the race, but also their lives. The only solution was to not allow them to catch up.
“We have a problem,” Danica grunted to them when she could speak, just as she jerked the wheel to avoid the drop into a tunnel that look suspiciously like a subway entrance. She had just enough focus to glance over at Arden for a split second before she trained her eyes on the road again.
There was no telling what sort of things were waiting for them. It was best to give it her full attention.