A Little Wicked (The Bewitching Hour Book #4)(30)

She held her hand and fell back into the concrete room where the money had been kept. It was cold and dark and dirty and an altogether horrible place to die.

Angela and Dante were finally getting the door to move, and in a second, they were plunged into darkness. A second later, Angela’s small flashlight illuminated the room. She pulled off her jacket and started to rip a piece free, but her hands couldn’t get it. Dante took it from her and in one quick motion, the material ripped and he wrapped it around Claire’s hand. Every jerk had pain racing through her entire body, from the tips of her fingers right down to her toes.

She didn’t want to be a wimp, but she couldn’t help gasping at the agony. “Something’s wrong.” Her hand started to tremble.

“It’s okay.” Dante pushed her hair behind her ear. “I’m right here.”

“No.” She shook her head. “You don’t unerstannn...” Speaking became harder as the pain seemed to vibrate within her mind. “Someingggsss wro....”

Angela’s flashlight started to dim, but neither she nor Dante seemed concerned. Then Claire realized it wasn’t the flashlight going out. It was her. She looked at Dante. If she was going to die, it might be a horrible place, but at least her last vision would be of Dante.

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“Claire.” Dante put a hand on her shoulder and gently shook her. “Claire!” he screamed louder.

Angela reached out and put a hand on his wrist. “Come on. That’s not going to do any good right now. You saw the pain she was in. No use waking her up until we can actually help her.”

Angela had been in a few life-and-death situations before, and she liked to think she could read people. Claire didn’t seem like the type to pass out from fear.

Which meant it was something else that had gotten to the poor girl. Angela stood and looked around them. The room was small. There wasn’t even enough space for them to lay Claire out. She needed to remain sitting against the back wall. She couldn’t exactly call Pierce to see what was happening out there, so she did the next best thing and put her ear near the door. Not right on it because the door was metal and apparently Sam had a thing for fire. Pierce had told her that, but seeing it was a whole different level of weird.

“Have you ever dealt with something like this before?” she asked Dante.

He leaned back against the side wall and ran a hand over his eyes. “With hellhounds? No. They are the boogeyman. The thing your parents tell you stories about to scare the hell out of you.”

Well, that wasn’t comforting at all.

“Yeah, but if anyone can survive this, it’s your girlfriend, right? Isn’t she a boogeyman in her own right?”

He looked down to where the small blonde was unconscious. “How badass does she look to you?”

Angela was small, too, at only five foot five, but thanks to constant workouts and working in a male-dominated field, she was muscular. Claire was a waif, the result of years of wandering the streets from what Pierce told her.

“You’re a good boyfriend,” she said suddenly, surprising both herself and Dante apparently from the look he gave her. “Sticking around through all this. Not everyone would do that. And from what I heard, you aren’t exactly lacking for female company. You’re just doing it because you care about her.”

He smiled weakly and she realized there was a lot to this story she was missing. “I’m sorry if I overstepped....”

“She doesn’t love me.”

Angela blinked at the unexpected admission. “What?”

“She likes me, but... I’ve broken up with enough women to know the signs.”

Angela looked between Claire and Dante. She knew so little about either of them, and she was the last person to be giving anyone relationship advice. In fact, being trapped in a small room with an unhappy couple might be her definition of hell.

But she was stuck here, so she tried not to let her fear show. “I’m sure you two will figure it out.”

“She’s a virgin. I’ve never been with a virgin. I don’t know the first thing about being with someone that innocent. What if I break her?”

Nope, nope, nope. She was not qualified for this conversation. “I don’t know.”

“Seriously, look at me.”

She really didn’t want to, but she allowed her gaze to move over to him where the flashlight made his green hair look black and the planes and valleys created by his striking bone structure cast heavy shadows on his face. “I’m looking.”

“Do I look like someone who should be with her?”

For the love of— “You look kind of like a demon right now,” she snapped. Then she took a deep breath and said in a nicer tone, “Claire isn’t blind. She knows what you look like and it doesn’t bother her. So calm the fuck down and just be the boyfriend she wants.” There. Calm the fuck down. She should have her own advice column or something.

Suddenly Dante pushed away from the wall and met her eyes. She started to look away but then she didn’t want to. She just stood there and stared into those green orbs that now seemed too bright in the darkness. “Tell me what you really think about Claire and me.”