Hotbloods (Hotbloods #1)(17)

“I assure you that it’s safe,” Navan replied evenly after a moment, his hand still outstretched. “It is, as I say, a memory potion.”

“A memory potion?” Angie cut in, her voice also stronger than before. “Seriously, what do you take us for? Kindergartners?”

Navan clenched his jaw, and although his face remained mostly controlled, there was the odd muscle twitch that told me we were testing his temper too. But I could hardly care anymore. This whole situation was absurd.

Now that I thought about it, they hadn’t even asked us why we had come in here in the middle of the night in the first place. All they seemed to want was that we drink this potion that would knock us out. Ha. No way. It was dodgy as hell, and I was becoming more and more convinced that they were druggies who were members of some weird cult. That didn’t explain the superhuman strength with which I’d been thrown into this room, but then again, maybe the drugs they used gave them such power.

“Yes, a memory potion,” Navan replied, and I could tell from his expression that he believed what he was saying—and fully expected us to believe it too. “As I thought I made clear already, we do not wish to harm you, simply to expel you from this place. Think of it as us doing you a favor. A big favor. Because my next move is going to be something a lot less pleasant than this scintillating conversation we’ve been having.”

“Look,” I said, frowning. “I apologize that we barged in here—but I assure you, it was only because we heard someone yelling and we thought one of you might need medical assistance. You seem to not want any help, so let us go now, and I give you my absolute word that we won’t tell anybody, not even the pol—”

Before I could complete my attempt at negotiation, Navan’s outstretched hand suddenly retracted, withdrawing the vials, which he stowed in the pocket of his pants. His shoulders convulsed, and there was a ripping sound, and then something rose behind him… wings. Large, black, hooked wings shot out from behind his shoulders, and then…razor sharp claws emerged from his fingertips. He bared his teeth, revealing a pair of white pointed fangs. His very skin seemed to darken, along with his eyes, as his whole being turned into what I could only describe as a beast.

We were so stunned that it took us a few seconds to remember to scream. Lauren’s went off first, then Angie’s, followed by mine. We rushed to the back of the room, pressing our backs against the wall as if we could sink into it and emerge on the other side.

The creature before us growled so deeply, the noise rumbled through my very core, before he spoke, in the same voice that… Navan had just been speaking in.

“I told you this was going to be a lot less pleasant. So we’re going to have to do this the hard way, it seems… Perhaps a night in here will help you reconsider.”

He remained standing before us a moment longer, as if he wanted us to drink in his monstrous form and burn it into our brains. Then his wings, claws, and fangs retracted as suddenly as they appeared. He turned, revealing the shredded back of his shirt where the wings had burst through, and stalked out of the room, the others following him silently. The door slammed shut and was bolted once again.





Chapter Seven





“Remind me which genius suggested we go chasing strange noises in the middle of the night?” Lauren wheezed, about five minutes after they had left the room. It took us that long to discover our voices again.

There was no humor in her tone, just pure shock, and neither Angie nor I could bring ourselves to answer.

The first thing I did was grab hold of my friends’ shoulders, squeezing them so hard they yelped, as my brain just wanted to be triply sure that we were not dreaming. We weren’t.

We had stumbled upon some kind of supernatural creature. Not even my rational mind could doubt that any longer. What I had just seen was far too real, far too visceral—no amount of special effects could have pulled that off.

Then what on earth were they? And what were they doing here?

“T-These men are not human,” Angie finally said.

“Glad I’m not the only one who noticed,” Lauren murmured, removing her glasses, which had misted up, and wiping them on her shirt. “So, maybe we should stop referring to them as men.”

I looked around the room again, desperately hoping to find some loophole we had missed the first time.

“We’ve got to get out of here before they return,” I whispered.

It was maddening to think that there were less than a few inches separating us from the outside; if only we could figure out how to break through the damn windows. I used my flashlight to amplify the light in the room given off by the two gas lamps on either wall, trying not to miss a single detail.

I walked around the room slowly, examining everything—from the clock on the wall that had frozen at 9:05 AM, God knew how many years ago, to the chintzy floral green sofa, blanketed with dust.

An idea slowly occurred to me, and I gazed directly up at the ceiling.

It looked rickety, to say the least. There were fifteen long beams, stretching from wall-to-wall, and on top of that, it looked as if there was nothing but the floorboards of the room above, no plaster or cement. If we could somehow…

“We need to build a tower,” Angie whispered, and I looked at her, realizing she had followed my gaze to the ceiling.