Burning Dawn (Angels of the Dark #3)(49)
Author: Gena Showalter

He made it sound like her humanity was a crime. Well, it wasn’t. Just ask Thane. To him, it was the only thing that wasn’t, and for once, she was going to use it to her advantage. She was going to stop worrying about being found out, and start taking charge of her life.

“I want to go to the dungeon. Be a dear and show me the way,” she said, blinking her eyes in what she hoped was an innocent, flirtatious manner.

He tensed. He frowned. He shook his head. “No. Go back to your room.”

She put her hands on her hips. “I heard Xerxes tell you to take me anywhere I asked. And I just asked to go to the dungeon.”

“We both know he didn’t actually mean you could go anywhere.”

“No, we both don’t know that. He doesn’t strike me as the type to say something he doesn’t mean.”

Adrian glared at her.

“So, what are we waiting for?” she insisted.

His glare darkened. “Perhaps it will do you some good to see the nature of the male you provoke.” He led her into an elevator and pressed a series of buttons. Blue lights flashed over a small portion of the wall. The doors closed and the cart shook, carrying them down…down…down, before opening into an underground cavern with gray walls and a cracked stone floor.

Two vampires guarded an open doorway.

Unease pricked the back of Elin’s neck. The screams were far louder here, and they echoed. Worse, a familiar scent of old pennies clung to her nose and sickened her stomach.

“Wait here,” Adrian told her before motoring on, bypassing the guards.

The vamps gave her a once-over…no, make that a twice-over…and she pretended not to know they were sharpening mental forks and knives. She stared straight ahead. She could see bars, indicating a hallway of cells. She could even see fingers curled around some of the bars. The Phoenix were here? Xerxes had freed them from their stakes and escorted them inside, but she’d kind of thought it was for medical care or something.

Only an idiot wouldn’t have realized it was for further torture.

“My lord,” she heard Adrian say. “The human wishes to speak with you.”

“The human has a name,” she muttered.

“Tell her I’ll summon her when I’m finished here.”

She heard pleasure in Thane’s voice. For her…or the job he was doing? Either way, the low cadence of his tone made her shiver.

“Very well,” Adrian said. Footsteps resounded.

Oh, no. The last time she’d been forced to wait for Thane, nothing had been settled. “Thane Downfall,” she called.

Tension crackled in the air. The footsteps retreated.

“She’s here? You actually brought her down here?” Thane demanded, even as Kendra cried, “Help me, girl. You have to help me.”

“Sure,” Elin responded. “Here’s a tip. Be nice to people, no matter how low their station. You never know when they’ll be in charge of yours.” Not that she was in any way in charge. Still. Truth was truth.

“You should have known better,” Thane growled, and she figured he was talking to Adrian.

Was Thane going to punish him, too? She tried to step forward, intending to go in, but the vampires moved in her path.

“He did nothing wrong,” she said, speaking past the shoulders of the vampires now watching her with unabashed awe. “Your dearest friend Xerxes told him to take me wherever I asked to go. So, here we are. Now, listen. I want Bellorie brought back immediately. We need her for the Multiple Scorgasms.” And heck, as long as she was making demands… “And I want the screaming to stop. It’s screwing with my nerves.”

Like you have any right to make demands.

“Please,” she added, and slapped her hands together in the center of her chest in a classic begging stance, even though he couldn’t see her. “With an extra sweet cherry on top.”

Another pause.

“Bellorie shall return before the next shift,” Thane said tightly, “and screams will not be heard again.”

“Thank you, thank you, a thousand times thank you, Thane! Seriously!”

“Help,” Kendra shouted.

A rustle of clothing. A grunt. A gurgle. Then muttering voices, too hushed to decipher.

A cold sweat broke out over Elin’s skin, and she trembled. What had just happened?

Adrian stalked past the guards. His facial features were expressionless and cold. He didn’t glance in her direction as he spat a single word at the vampires. A word she didn’t understand.

She made to follow him, but one of the guards grabbed her by the wrist, halting her.

She tried to jerk away, but he held steady.

“Release her, or lose the hand,” a harsh voice whipped out, and the vise grip instantly fell away.

Elin’s gaze returned to the cells—and collided with Thane’s.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

THANE STRUGGLED TO rein in his temper. At any moment, Elin could race around a corner and witness the horror of his actions. If she saw that side of him…if she screamed…

He burned the demon and all of its severed parts, destroying the evidence. He’d gotten the answers he’d sought anyway. He now knew the prince was a fallen angel named Malice, once a soldier in the Most High’s army. Unlike demons—spirits that inhabited the earth long before humans—the prince had a corporal body, and therefore couldn’t possess someone else’s.

When Sent Ones fell, they lost all power. The same held true for the angels, but they could gain power through acts of evil and spiritual theft, basically siphoning it from others.

Like any living being, the prince had weaknesses. However, Thane had yet to learn what they were.

Pride?

Hatred?

Malice’s endgame? The destruction of mankind. Both to punish the Most High for banishing the fallen angels from the highest level of heaven, and to try to steal all the power he felt he’d been denied.

To start, Malice and his five cohorts had struck at Germanus—ripping out the root—but there would be others.

Malice’s next move? Unknown.

When Kendra continued her pleas for help, Thane took a page from Jamilla’s book of attack and removed the girl’s tongue. There was no way he would let her receive aid from the very girl she’d beaten and scarred, and as soft as Elin’s heart was, she might very well ask him to release her.

He might very well say yes.

Now, guilt was heavy on his shoulders. “I’m willing to look past the surface to the reasons, and fully accept my share of the blame for the horrors of our relationship, but I will not tolerate bad behavior.”