As Cold As Ice (8 page)

Jessica thought about that. She'd known that
some of the paranormals she'd brought in needed to be tested, and
that could involve any number of things. It wasn't just taking
blood samples and getting the people to run on a treadmill for any
amount of time.

Still, she hadn't known
people were brought down there. It all seemed kind of...what was
the word she wanted? Not
Hunger
Games
-ish. No, that would probably involve
a bigger arena. And more children.

Though, maybe the description was closer
than she thought.

"You don't make the people you bring down
here fight to the death, do you?"

The smile immediately left Soren's lips.
"No, I don't," he said, and they finally came up to a set of
strong-looking double doors.

There were tiny square windows in the steel,
though Jessica didn't know what the point was since the glass was
so thick she couldn't see into the room.

Soren waved his card in front of the scanner
in the wall, a green light flashed, there was a hiss, and he opened
the door.

He spoke before they could enter.

"Sometimes, though, Mr. Layton does make
them do it."

Jessica felt a shiver crawl up her spine. It
felt like a dozen oversized spiders were on her skin. It was so
horrifying, so believable yet unbelievable that she couldn't even
take in what she was seeing.

It wasn't an arena in the classic sense of
the word, though it was a large, circular room with a domed top.
The ceiling had to reach a hundred feet high at the very top, right
where it rounded off.

There were also seats where
spectators could watch any show that was put on for them, though
they weren't high up compared to the floor where the show was meant
to take place. Not in the
Gladiator
sense, anyway.

She looked at Soren. "I guess he likes to
watch?"

Soren didn't look at her. Whether because he
wouldn't, or just couldn't, Jessica couldn't say.

"Sometimes," he answered finally, and she
noticed he was clenching his fists. "There's a couple of buttons
over there, by the panel. The floor actually lowers so the seats
will be higher, and a glass barrier slides down from the ceiling,
keeping the fighting paranormals and any powers they might be using
separate from Mr. Layton and any of his rich friends he invited
over to see the show."

That sickened her so much her stomach
actually churned inside of her body. It revolted, and it threw up a
little. She gagged on it and barely held it back as she looked at
the leather seats.

They were plush, thick and wide enough to
look like the type of thing a rich guy would sit on when he ordered
first class or something. There were even cup holders in them. And
though she couldn't see it, something told her there was an option
to fold out a tiny slap of glass or polished wood that would snap
into place over the lap of whoever was sitting down, allowing them
to casually work on their laptops, tablets, or just review some
paperwork, not a care in the world about the people who were
fighting to the death in front of them for their amusement.

“
So, we’re just buried
under the entire building?”

“
Pretty much.”

"Did you bring me down here to fight
someone?" Jessica asked. She was enraged by the idea, but her voice
left her mouth sounding surprisingly calm, even for her.

Soren shook his head. "No. I had a talk with
Mr. Layton about that. It was one of the things I brought up when I
stayed behind and Charles took you to lunch."

He looked at her from the corner of his eye,
and there wasn't a hint of any jealousy from what he'd walked in
on.

"You asked him to not have me kill
anyone?"

"You're so sure you would win?" Soren
asked.

"Yes," Jessica said matter-of-factly. She
didn't have to think about it.

Some paranormals were a thousand times more
dangerous than others. It all depended on the power, the ability,
and how they were used.

For example, in this setting, if she were to
go against a man or a woman who could breathe underwater, well
then, even if she was put into a tank of water with them, her ice
powers trumped that any day. Out of the water, the merpeople were
as helpless as ants under some mean kid's magnifying glass.

Even for Cindy, who was a powerful pyro, her
fire would be no match for Jessica's ice.

If there was someone stronger than she was,
all she had to do was freeze their feet and stop them from coming
at her. If they were strong enough that they broke free, then she
froze their eyes, or their bodies.

Stop an opponent from moving, breathing, or
seeing. That was the key to any self defense class.

Of course, with Jessica's power, all three
of those things could greatly hurt or kill the attacker. Which was
what happened when those paranormals were thrown into the cell with
her.

The only thing she couldn't overpower was
the shackles on her wrists, which led her to believe that one of
her few weaknesses was the paranormals who were so good at
controlling the life force around them that it bordered on
magic.

Soren eyed her, like he was trying to decide
whether or not she was being honest or just putting on a show for
the sake of looking tough.

It was a little bit of both, but she wished
the sympathy in his blue eyes would go away.

She looked away from him. "Stop that."

"Stop what?"

"Looking at me like that. You don't have to
feel sorry for me, and you don't have to care about what happens to
me, either. That's dangerous for you."

"Of course I care," Soren said.

Jessica eyed him sharply, her eyes wide.

Soren shook his head. "We're not being
listened in on down here. We're too deep underground for anything
to be bugged wirelessly, and Mr. Layton has a rule about audio or
video recordings. He never wants anything that happens down here to
get out to the public. Even his guests are scanned before they come
in. If they want to read or do work, then they have to bring
physical files or papers. No phones, no tablets, no nothing."

"Oh, well, that's really good to hear,"
Jessica said, looking around at the equipment in the arena. There
were training dummies, heavy medicine balls, and weights. It was
like the paranormals he expected to fight were also required to
train for said fights.

Maybe they were.

"So, I can say anything I want down here,
and no one will know?"

Soren nodded. "Pretty much."

Which meant she could look around and try to
find a way out. “Every movie I ever watched as a kid taught me that
the evil rich guy always has a back door. Where’s Mark’s?”

Soren sighed then pointed to the far wall
behind Jessica. “See that area of concrete over there?”

Jessica turned, pretty sure she caught sight
of what Soren wanted her to see when she noticed that one large,
squared-off area was just a touch lighter than everything else. She
walked over to it. There was black and white tile surrounding the
giant square, and more tile surrounding other squares of concrete,
which had been enough to fool Jessica into thinking it was all for
design.

“
This is a
door?”

Soren nodded.

Jessica wanted to laugh. “This is great
then! We can get out of here right now.”

“
No, we can’t,” Soren said
simply, which was enough to deflate the happy mood Jessica had put
herself into.

“
Okay. Why?”

Soren walked over to her; he was standing so
close, she could feel his body heat. He leaned in, and Jessica
swallowed hard.

He didn’t kiss her.
Why
was he not kissing
her?

A small tapping noise behind her made her
turn her head down.

Soren was tapping on one of the small, black
tiles with his finger. When Jessica frowned and squinted a little
at it, she realized it wasn’t tile, not like the other black
squares surrounding the even bigger concrete one. It was black
glass.

Jessica sighed. “Let me guess, fingerprint
and retina scanning?”

“
And when there’s a
lockdown in the building, the emergency power will also ask for a
tiny blood sample. There’s no hacking this thing. We’re not getting
out of here unless Markus is physically in the room with us. Or
unless someone bombs the other side, but I don’t even know where
this thing leads, and I've been trying to find out for a while.
Supposedly, it goes right under the entire city and then
some.”

Jessica sucked in a long breath then let it
out in a long, hard yell that was so intense the inside of her
throat vibrated. "This is such fucking bullshit!"

Her voice echoed around the room, and just
for good measure, she let out an enraged roaring scream. To her own
ears, it sounded like a battle cry, something a person shouted
before killing another man. It lasted a good twenty seconds, and in
screaming time, that was a lot. It was something that rocked her
throat and mouth harder than the yell she'd let out previous,
probably heard from the first floor, despite how deep underground
they were. When she finished, her throat ached. It burned,
actually.

She was breathless when she finally stopped.
Her chest fell up and down in hard spurts, and she glared at Soren,
her fists clenched.

He watched her calmly, as if that had been
nothing he hadn't been expecting. She was shocked. “Feel
better?"

"No!" she snapped, though it wasn't true.
She did feel better. Not entirely, but it had felt good to get some
of the anger and frustration out of her, to scream for the weeks
she'd spent in that cell, for the people she'd had to kill just so
Charles, some other scientists, and maybe even Soren could take
notes on their goddamned clipboards.

"Could I attack you down here?" Jessica
asked, and she really wanted to do it. She braced her legs for the
spring. "You said no one was watching us. What would happen if I
were to jump at you?"

"Then you would attack me," Soren said with
a shrug. "I have no training, not the kind you have with fighting
and with apprehending paranormals. You could probably get me down,
despite my best efforts, and you could probably do some real damage
to me and steal the key to your shackles, though you wouldn't
escape the building. There's too many guards, even with your
powers."

"Horse shit.”

Soren lifted a brow at her.

Jessica rolled her eyes, her anger not
leaving her. “Not the escaping part, but the part about doing any
damage to you. You’re a paranormal. I don’t know what you are, but
I know you’re strong as fuck.”

Soren still didn’t say anything to her, and
Jessica realized her mistake.

Which just made her want to hit him even
more. So she threw a punch at his cheek. He didn’t move, didn’t
lift his hands and cower, or make an attempt to duck out of the way
like any other normal person would when they knew they were about
to be struck in the face by flying knuckles.

He just let her hit him. His head turned
under the force of the impact, but when he looked at her, blue eyes
still calm and unreadable, Jessica realized she’d made another
mistake.

He seemed to stare right through her. A red
mark, a bruise, slowly bloomed on his cheek. It would worsen as
time went on.

She thought so anyway, especially when the
mark turned a bright purple and blue, swelling in front of her
eyes. Then, just as quickly, it paled, transforming into yellow and
even a little green before fading away entirely, leaving only
clear, clean skin.

The whole process took less than fifteen
seconds to complete. When it was done, Soren reached out and
grabbed her by the face. Jessica held perfectly still, waiting to
take the retribution that was probably owed.

She hadn’t expected Soren’s revenge to be
his mouth descending upon hers.

Chapter Eight

The kiss was rough, and at first, it could
barely even be called a kiss. It was more like their mouths were
just mashing together harshly. Since it was somewhat hard to keep
any kiss close-mouthed, their teeth also came into contact in a
violent way.

The way their pearly whites knocked together
made pain flair all the way up into her head, not to mention the
rest of her mouth.

She moaned from the pain and grabbed onto
Soren's wrists, and he let out a similar agonized sound and gripped
her cheeks even tighter.

Neither of them tried to pull away.

Not yet. Not just yet.

Soren was the one to abruptly push himself
back, and his eyes were that same odd golden color, that same
glowing diamond shape she'd seen the first time she realized there
wasn't something entirely human about him.

"Are you a shifter?" she asked.

Soren licked his lips. "Something like
that."

Okay, that wasn't what she'd been expecting
to hear, but it wasn't like she thought she was going to get any
honesty out of him anyway.

"Are you a werewolf?"

That might’ve explained why she was so eager
to spread her legs and grind against his thigh. All he had to do
was step a little closer and she'd do it. No second thoughts, no
regrets.

Animal shifters did have the whole ‘animal
kingdom wildness’ about them. People around them tended to want sex
from them.

A lot of good, hard, wild sex.

Soren shook his head. "No. Nothing like
that."

Jessica didn't know if she was disappointed
at that—because the excuse for guilt-free sex was gone—or
relieved.

"You really didn't know what I was?" Soren
asked.

Jessica bit her lips together and her eyes
pulled down to look at Soren's pink lips, lips that were slightly
glazed from their kiss, regardless of how rough it had been.