Dmitri’s hands clenched tight on her arms. “It’s not only men,” he said, his voice rigid with control, “who can be aroused against their will.”
Shuddering, she turned into his embrace, pressing her face against his chest. Except for Ash’s quick hugs, it was the first time she’d allowed anyone to hold her since the abduction, the first time she’d been able to bear it. Maybe it was because her humiliation was so strong she had no room for fear . . . and maybe it was because he understood in a way no one else ever would.
“I hate her, Dmitri.” It was a hard, jagged thing inside of her, this hatred. “More than anyone else.”
Dmitri stroked his hand over her hair, bending his head to whisper a dark promise in her ear. “I can do to her what she did to you.” Black satin around her senses. “It would be nothing to break her until she was a whimpering, crawling shell.”
Her response was immediate—and violent. “No. You don’t touch the bitch.” Then, perhaps because she was half mad, she added, “You do and I swear I’ll shoot off both your hands at the wrists.” He was hers, and she didn’t care if that was the obsession speaking, didn’t care that she’d told herself not to make a claim. Dmitri was hers.
A vibration against her chest. Dmitri’s laughter.
He drove the rest of the way, though the chopper would’ve been faster—they decided the extra time would allow her to calm down. That proved impossible, but she did manage to get a grip on her emotions to the extent that she was no longer blind to the stupidity of rash behavior on her part in the upcoming confrontation.
It was as they were heading down the last stretch of road—one devoid of streetlights—that her phone rang again. This time she picked it up. “Vivek.”
“Honor, are you all right?”
“You ask that after you sicced Dmitri on me?”
A strained laugh. “Not my fault you have friends in scary places.”
“I’m fine.” He’d saved her life, and she wasn’t going to be an ass about it. “Thanks.”
He tried to hide his relief, but she heard it nonetheless. “Yeah, well, now you owe me two dinners.” A beep. “Hold on.” Then, “Jewel Wan is on the move. I hacked into her security company’s system, got access to the cameras on the estate. Looks like she’s packing up and getting out of Dodge.”
“Guards?”
“Two in the front car, two with her, from what I can see. Visuals aren’t that clear, so there could be more.”
Hanging up, she relayed the information to Dmitri. “Is this the only road out of the Wan estate?”
His answer was a chilling smile.
Following his gaze, she saw car headlights flash in the darkness before disappearing as the oncoming vehicle curved around a corner. A second flash came on the heels of the first. She said nothing as Dmitri parked the rental in a way that blocked the road, slid out in silence as he did the same.
They were part of the thick blackness of the trees beside the road when the first car stopped, a gun appearing out the window. Dmitri said, “I wouldn’t,” in a quiet tone that sliced through the night air.
The gun hesitated, but didn’t pull back, though it was clear the vampire didn’t know where to aim.
“I did warn you.” With that, Dmitri was gone, a shadow in the dark.
As she covered him, he smashed the nearest car window to reach in and pull out the vampiric driver, throwing him to the ground with such force that his skull cracked. The man’s partner began shooting. Unfortunately, he was aiming where Dmitri no longer was. It was as she was kicking away the weapon of the unconscious driver that she heard the distinct snap of a neck being broken.
It had all happened so fast that the second car only started reversing in screeching panic after both the front vampires had been disabled. Picking up the machine gun she’d kicked aside, she aimed at the gleaming Town Car, blowing out the tires, then the windshield.
Glass shattered, smoke rose, and the vehicle slammed backward into trees that shook from the force of the impact but didn’t give ground.
Dmitri was already on top of the vehicle, ripping away the roof in a feat of strength that made it patent he wasn’t human. The guards inside, their bodies peppered with bullet wounds, made no attempt to defend their cargo. Dragging a screaming Jewel Wan out of the backseat by her hair, Dmitri dumped her in the patch of road spotlighted by the damaged Town Car’s headlights.
21
“Anyone,” he said in a quiet voice after ordering Jewel to shut up, “who wants to come out of this alive, get out and wait at the estate. If you’d like to make me very happy, try to run.”
The guards staggered out and—to their credit—went to check on the other two. They left the one whose neck Dmitri had broken, which meant he was too young to have survived that, but pulled up the driver to drag him away. All of it in absolute silence. Jewel Wan, meanwhile, shoved back her hair and got unsteadily to her feet, her knees bleeding below the hemline of a tight black silk dress, her palms scratched from where she’d broken her fall.
None of it did anything to diminish her haughty elegance. “There you are,” she murmured to Honor. “Such a pretty morsel.”
Honor wanted to shoot her so badly that her entire body trembled, but she didn’t. “I won’t kill you and make this easy,” she said, forcing herself to walk up and take a seat on the hood of the Town Car that no longer had a roof, the headlights blazing below her. “Dmitri?” When he moved to brace his hand against the hood, his body angled toward her, she said, “Not a single piece of your soul.”