Seduce the Darkness (Alien Huntress #4)(77)
Author: Gena Showalter

His eyelids popped open, his mind blanking. He gritted his teeth. "Do not order me around.”

“You came to me for help. Therefore, I will do whatever I wish, and you will obey me in all things."

Yes, he would. He wouldn’t be able to help himself. Furious, he popped to his feet. "I’m not your servant or your slave."

Pale blue eyes—eyes so like his own—narrowed. "But you are my student. Sit." Though he was still fuming, Dallas sat, unable to do otherwise.

"If you do not want to follow my commands, learn to fight the impulse to follow them.”

“How?" he gritted out. "Practice, as I said."

Dallas pinched the bridge of his nose. Was that the otherworlder’s answer to everything?

Mia threw a pillow at him. "Get over yourself. He’s being generous, giving you so much of his time. Time he could be spending with me."

Kyrin clasped her hand and brought it to his lips for a kiss, though his attention never wavered from Dallas. "Have I answered all of your questions, agent?"

"Pretty much."

"Good." Kyrin stood. "Mia and I have set up a training mat. I’d like to—"

"Hell, no." That might have been the reason he’d come here, but sometime during their conversation things had changed. "I’m ready to go after Devyn and save him from that cage." Oh, yeah. And kill the people who had placed him there.

Kyrin shook his head, the picture of resolve. "You’ve accepted your abilities, but you have no idea how to truly use them to your advantage. You’ll give me an hour or two of your time. Devyn will survive for that long. And then I will help you save him."

"Bastard!" Scowling, Dallas popped to his feet. The "you’ll give me" had sealed his fate. He would stay here for "an hour or two," practicing as he’d been commanded. Unless … Kyrin had said he could fight the urge to obey.

Once more he concentrated. Tried to force one foot in front of the other to leave. He visualized the front door, saw himself walking out of it, but he f**king didn’t move. His muscles were bunched, locked down on his bones, his brain refusing to send the signals needed for movement.

"Are you able to summon your powers easily?" the otherworlder asked him. "Can you turn them off whenever you wish?"

"Sometimes." He’d been able to race into the clearing, but he hadn’t been able to bend Nolan’s queen to his will. Stopping, though, once he’d started? Not really.

"That, too, will change when I am through with you. You’ll summon and stop them at will.”

“And just how long until you’re through with me?" he couldn’t help but ask with dread. "Perhaps a year."

His jaw dropped. "A year? You’re kidding me?" Mia rolled her eyes. "You’ll learn that Kyrin here doesn’t have a sense of humor."

"You’ll thank me for that," Kyrin said, confident. "Thank you." The words were out before he could stop them. Mia choked on a laugh.

Kyrin sighed patiently. "There is much to do, I see. More than I’d anticipated.”

“Devyn—”

“Will be fine, like I said. The vision you had was the future. He’s not yet in the cage." Had Kyrin always been this much of an ass? "We can keep him from the cage, then. If we act now."

"Trying to change a vision set in stone is impossible. Doing so will only hurt you. I believe you’ve experienced that already. Devyn is going to be locked up, one way or another."

CHAPTER 24

To Devyn, the vampire palace had not changed in any way. He saw the same smooth onyx walls covered in merry murals of humans dancing in all their antique finery, same Victorian furniture stolen from the surface—walnut marble tabletops, white lace telephone chairs, and slag-glass lamps. Same ceiling comprised solely of crystal, like an endless chandelier or a rocky midnight ocean, the lights from below bouncing off the jagged shards and splashing colors in every direction. Same shields and spears decorating the walls. Same alabaster columns and statues of royalty positioned throughout.

There was a line of robe-clad women, males dressed in white shirts and black pants, much like McKell, all leading into the throne room. Guards were stationed throughout, armed with spiked whips.

None of the vamps had ever said anything to him, but he knew the whips were designed to slash through skin and vein while gripping bone, preventing the injury from healing. The subsequent blood loss weakened the captured vampires, enabling the whip to hold them in place. He could have used one of those whips on Bride when he’d lured her to his apartment, he supposed, but even from the beginning his goal had not been to hurt her.

Should have known then what she would come to mean to me. As he stood in the foyer, Bride and McKell at his sides, he tried to see the palace as Bride might: for the first time, as a home she should have grown up in, a home that had been denied her. It was beautifully dark, utterly sultry.

"The crowd beat us," McKell said on a sigh.

Bride spun in a circle, clearly awed. "Why do they wish to speak to the king?"

The warrior watched her with smug fondness, and Devyn could practically hear his thoughts: Score one for team McKell. "Many reasons. To gain permission to mate. To settle disputes with neighbors. Often a human is involved, and there has been a forbidden sampling."

She stilled, disgust replacing her awe. "Do they have to ask permission to bathe, too?"

Devyn fought a grin. Score one for team Devyn. Raised on the surface as she’d been, she was used to doing what she wanted, when she wanted to do it.

"Come," McKell said through clenched teeth. "There’s no reason for us to wait in line. We will visit the king when the crowd thins."

"Why don’t we just cut to the front?" Bride pointed toward the doors to the throne room. "I want to get this over with."

"That is not allowed. Not even for one of my station." McKell ushered them through an arched doorway and up a flight of stairs, comprised of the same crystal as the ceiling, only these had been ground down and polished to a glistening shine. On the second level, they turned a sharp corner, a yawning chamber coming into view.

There, the furniture was made entirely from human bones, and Bride couldn’t hide her revulsion. Score two for team Devyn.

There were only three occupants. One was draped from head to toe in black, face obscured as she stood patiently in the far corner. The other two were more scantily dressed, their robes half the length of Bride’s and completely transparent. He could see the outline of their ni**les as they jumped from the—femur?—settee they’d been lounging on.