Lords of the Underworld Bundle (27 page)

“They're too big,” she said, facing him.

She was right. The clothes bagged on her, but Maddox thought she looked delectable. He knew what waited underneath that material. He knew what waited for his touch—and his alone. “They're all I have. For now, they'll have to do.”

A thought arose. Torin had things delivered to a P.O. box all the time for Paris to pick up. Perhaps Maddox would have him order dresses like those he had seen on the television while watching one of those silly movies with Paris. Low cut. Maybe high heels, too, and some jewelry. And maybe the sexy—what did Paris call it?—lingerie Ashlyn had wished for.

“We'll talk later,” she said, stomping to his side. Not a question, he noticed, but a demand.

“Yes.” He tried not to smile. “We will talk.”

“You're going to answer all my questions. No evasions.” She stared up at him, eyes narrowed.

Perhaps. “You had best behave while I'm gone. Remember how I told you it was dangerous to make me mad?”

“What, you'll spank me if I'm a bad girl?”

The provocative comment surprised him. Gods, where had this little firecracker come from? He'd seen her scared, shocked, sick, aroused, but not feisty like this. Amazingly, the spirit did not erupt at her defiance. Did not compel him to lash out. He thought perhaps it…No. Impossible.

The spirit of Violence did
not
smile.

“You don't want to know what I'll do,” he said when he found his voice, “so do not tempt me.”

She rose on her tiptoes, her warm breath fanning his ear. The hard peaks of her nipples abraded his chest. He waited, unable to breathe as he anticipated what she would do next. He might not know where the firecracker had come from, but he knew she excited him.

“Maybe I like tempting you,” she whispered. She bit his earlobe. “Think about that while I'm locked away.”

He would. Oh, yes. He would.

A
SHLYN STARED AT THE
splintered door that had just been slammed in her face by Maddox, trapping her inside another bedroom. Another prison. Oh! That man was infuriating. He'd tenderly, wildly pleasured her in a way that should have embarrassed her—
had
embarrassed her until that first wondrous lave of his hot tongue—and then he'd become a warrior again, hard and harsh and determined.

Yet still she'd desired him.

He'd threatened to lock her away with another innocent woman—a woman he had
already
locked away. Shameful behavior, to be sure.

Still she'd desired him. Had even bitten his earlobe and tried to tempt him to finish what they'd started in that shower. But he'd resisted, escorting her down the hallway and into this room, where he'd dumped her without a kiss or even a word.

And still she foolishly desired him.

She wanted him to hold her, to cuddle her as she'd always dreamed someone would. She wanted him to talk to her and get to know her. And then she wanted him to freaking make love to her! All the way, this time. Nothing held back.

This desire she had for him was too strong and she didn't understand it. He was ruthless and cryptic and temperamental. He was spawned from hell itself. But he was also kind, caring and the best thing to ever happen to her body. Oh yeah. And he was silence. As if she could forget about that. Damn it!

“Who are you?” a female voice suddenly asked.

Pulled from her musings, Ashlyn whipped around. Danika and three other women, ranging in age from late seventies to twenty-something, peered over at her with equal measures of concern and fear. Dear God. Maddox had
four
women locked away? Was this to be an immortal's harem?

Well, you do have the costume.

Danika stepped forward. “She's the sick one. The one I—” she coughed “—healed.”

“Thank you for that,” Ashlyn said softly, not sure what else to say to this stranger who wasn't a stranger.

Danika nodded in acknowledgment. “You look better.” Her gaze raked over Ashlyn before slitting with suspicion. “Miraculously better, to be honest.”

“I wish I could explain it, but I can't. Once the nausea passed, my strength returned. Seems those ‘small pebbles' did the trick, after all.” Ashlyn studied her, as well. “You look better, too. You've lost that lovely green tint.”

“Well, that was the first time I ever rode a man to fetch painkillers.” Danika anchored her hands on her hips. “So what brings you to Castle Spook? Were you kidnapped, too?”

Ashlyn wasn't given time to answer.

“Who are these people?” a slightly older version of Danika asked. “
What
are they? Danika said one of them has wings.”

If they didn't already know, she wasn't going to be the one to break it to them.

With barely a pause, the oldest of the group asked, “Do you know a way out?”

All of the women closed in on her as they spoke, encircling her. They peered at her hopefully, as if she held all the answers and could save them from the vilest of fates.

She held up her hands, palms out. “Everyone slow down.”
Kidnapped,
Danika had said. Why would Maddox have done such a thing? “Are any of you hunters or bait?” Every time Maddox said those two words, there was disgust in his voice.

“As in, do we hunt treasure? Bait a hook?” Danika's face scrunched in confusion, but there was a hard glint in her green eyes. “No.”

“As in, I have no idea. I was hoping someone here would know.” Voices of the past began to edge their way into her mind. One conversation after another. “No. No, not again.” She felt herself pale, heat evaporating from her skin, leaving only a cold, trembling shell.
Breathe. Just breathe.

“I think she's getting sick again,” Danika said, concerned. “Can you make it to the bed?” she asked Ashlyn.

“N-no. I just want to sit.”

Suddenly a pair of hands settled on top of her shoulders, easing her to the floor. Ashlyn went willingly, her legs becoming too weak to hold her up. Shuddering, she drew air into her lungs.

They're going to kill us.

We have to escape.

How?
Hysterical laughter.

If we have to jump out the window, then we jump. They want to infect us with some sort of disease.

We jump, we die.

We stay, we die.

The voices belonged to these women, Ashlyn realized. Every word they'd spoken in the room was going to play through her head. Damn it, she'd gotten used to the silence. Had assumed she'd have peace as long as she stayed out of the dungeon. Hopefully, they hadn't been here long enough to have too many conversations.

I miss Grandpa. He'd know what to do.

Well, he's not here, is he? We have to figure it out on our own.

A buttered roll and a glass of apple juice were shoved under her nose. “Here,” Danika said gently. “These might help.”

Who's talking? Who said that?

Who are you talking to, Dani?

Uh, no one.

Ashlyn accepted both with shaky hands. On and on and on their exchange tumbled. Sometimes, as it had been in the dungeon, the conversations seemed one-sided. She couldn't hear who the women were talking to; she only knew they
were
talking to someone other than themselves.

She heard Danika say,
If—if I
am
a healer, will you swear to spare my mother, sister and grandmother? They haven't done anything wrong. We came to Budapest to get away, to say goodbye to my grandpa. We—

But she didn't hear the comment before it. Or after. Why?

The men were immortal, but she'd heard immortal creatures speak before. Vampires, goblins, shape-shifters, even. Why not the demons here? They had to be the ones Danika had been speaking to.

Ashlyn nibbled at the bread and sipped the juice, trying to tune out each new discussion. She hummed. She meditated. The women attempted to engage her, but she simply couldn't respond. There were too many voices vying for her attention.

One by one, the women gave up. How many minutes or hours passed after that, she didn't know. So many times she almost called for Maddox, but she held the pleas back, biting her tongue until she tasted blood. He had chores to do, he'd said. Besides, she didn't want to be a burden. A nuisance.

That's what you came here for,
she reminded herself.
To demand that these men teach you how to control your powers, even if it meant becoming a nuisance to them.

But that had been before Maddox actually entered her life. Now she wanted him to be her lover (if he would, the jerk), not her nursemaid. Again.

You hear a…a…voice? In your mind?

Yes.

And it's not your own?

Maybe, probably. I don't know.

Blessedly, the murmurings did stop, ending at the moment of Ashlyn's entrance. Relieved as she was, she had to admit she had learned several new tidbits of information. The first and most significant: Danika
had
heard of hunters—she'd told her family about them.

“Hunters,” Ashlyn said, lifting her gaze. Danika was looking out the room's only window, a window none of the women had been able to pry open. Ashlyn had heard them try and fail. “What are they? Don't lie to me this time. Please.”

Startled, Danika jumped and turned, hand over heart. “Better again, eh? Why should we trust you? You could be working for those men. They might've sent you here to learn something from us, and when you learn it, they'll storm inside and kill us.”

“True.” After all, these women only knew she'd been sick and snuggled up to their enemy. “But you saved me. Why would I want you hurt?”

Danika peered over at her but said nothing.

“You'll just have to trust that I'm not here to trap you or hurt you. We're in the same situation, you and I.”

“But what about the angry one? Maddox. You're dating him.”

Dating
wasn't exactly the word she'd use. Ashlyn tried to picture Maddox sitting across from her in some candlelit restaurant, drinking wine and listening to soft music. Her lips lifted in a smile. “Maybe. So?”

“So, that makes you one of them.”

“I'm not,” she insisted. “I just got here. Yesterday, in fact.”

Danika's eyes widened, her golden lashes hitting her equally golden eyebrows. “Now I know you're lying. He cares for you, that much was obvious. A man doesn't show that much compassion to a woman he's just met.”

Yes, he'd been compassionate. Yes, he'd been kind. Tender. Unerringly sweet. The fiercest man she'd ever met had mopped her brow and cleaned her face. “Again, I can't explain it. I'm not lying.”

A minute ticked by in silence.

“Fine.” Danika's shoulders lifted in a deceptively casual shrug. “You want to know about hunters, I'll tell you. Not like it's crucial info, anyway.” Inhale, exhale. “When the winged man, Aeron, took me into the city, he spotted a group of men. They were armed like soldiers and they were sneaking around back alleys as if they didn't want to be seen.”

So far, that told her nothing.

“Aeron muttered
Hunters
under his breath and whipped out a dagger.” Anger began to color Danika's soft timbre. The memory obviously wasn't her favorite. “He would have fought them if he hadn't been carting me around. He said so. He also said those men had come to kill him and his friends.” She spoke the last in a deep, dark tone, mimicking Aeron. Ashlyn nearly smiled at the gloom-and-doom inflection. “I wanted them to fight, distract him so I could run. But they didn't. They didn't see us.”

Ashlyn frowned. Hunters of the immortal. Wasn't that basically what she did for the Institute? She listened to conversations to find—hunt—those who were not exactly human.
Stop right there. The Institute studies, observes, renders aid when needed and takes extreme action only when threatened.

She took comfort in that. The employees were utterly scientific when dealing with the creatures they found, not predatory.

They were not always so fair-minded with her.

The first time an attempt had been made against her, it was because she'd stumbled across a recent conversation a coworker had had with a child. He'd lured that sweet, innocent little girl…he'd threatened…he'd done terrible things. Sickened, Ashlyn had turned him in. He'd retaliated by trying to shoot her. McIntosh, always close by her side, had thrown her down, saving her life.

The second time, she was nearly stabbed in the back—literally—by a woman intent on keeping her affair a secret. McIntosh had once again acted as her bodyguard, shielding her and taking the slice instead.

The third and final time, about eleven months ago, she was poisoned. Luck had been on her side. She'd managed to throw up most of it. Ah, sweet memories. To this day she still didn't know why, didn't know which secret she'd divined that someone had been willing to kill to keep.

McIntosh did everything in his power to protect her. But sometimes that wasn't enough, so she'd learned to rely only on herself and trust no one—which made her sudden eagerness to depend on Maddox all the more confusing.

“Aeron, uh, was bad-mouthing you, too,” Danika said, breaking into her thoughts.

Ashlyn blinked in surprise. “Me? Why?”

“Said you were bait, whatever that means.”

Her shoulders slumped as she said, “Maddox calls me bait, too. I still don't know what that is.” How could she refute something she didn't comprehend? Unless…wait. If she was right about hunters stalking immortals, that had to mean bait was the lure. Dangle it in front of an immortal and a hunter could ensnare him in a trap.

Why that…that…asshole! She'd come here for help, not to draw him out of his lair so that he could be slain. “Idiot!” she fumed.

“Don't call me names,” Danika snapped.

“I wasn't talking about you. I was talking about
me.
” She'd let Maddox kiss her, had let him put his fingers and tongue inside of her, had even been desperate for more. And all the while he'd thought her capable of such a vile, duplicitous act. He probably thought she was easy, too—hence his surprise when he'd discovered she was still a virgin.