Prisoner of Night (The Black Dagger Brotherhood #16.5)(52)

She waited, her hands in her windbreaker’s pockets, her chin up, her shoulder wound bandaged and strapped up under a flak shirt she’d borrowed from Nexi.

The Shadow had insisted that she take her car keys back, and she played with them under cover, running them through her fingers, the sweet chiming sound muffled.

The drawbridge lowered slowly, the clanking of the metal the big-boy magnification of what was happening in her pocket with the keys.

Two guards stepped out. The one on the right indicated the way inside.

She approached slowly, making sure to walk with no hitch in her stride. Her shoulder was a major liability in a fight, and she didn’t want to give away the fact that she was injured if she could avoid it.

Her guns were tucked in under the jacket. If they wanted to pat her down and find them, fine. But last time they hadn’t checked, and she hoped it would be the same now—

She passed right by the guards.

Entering the hearth room, she looked at the table and wanted to vomit. To think Duran had been on it—

“She comes back alone.”

Ahmare looked over to the arch-topped doorway. Chalen was being brought in on his pallet, the four guards supporting his frail weight halting just inside the hall, their robes settling to the stone floor in folds, turning them into fluted columns.

“Where’s my brother?” Ahmare demanded.

“Where’s my beloved?”

She brought out the pearl, holding it between her fingertips. “I have what you want.”

The decrepit male’s eyes gleamed in his pitted, wrinkled face. “At last!”

“And you know why I come back alone. You know that the mountain has fallen.”

“Yes, I do.” Chalen was momentarily distracted from his gimmes, his cold smile revealing his broken fang. “Your weapon did not survive. Pity, and we shall have to see about that.”

“The hell we will.”

He brushed aside her comment. “Let me have what is mine—let me have it!”

As he reached out with both clawed hands, he was a young after a toy, all greed and anticipation.

She put the pearl back in her pocket. “Where’s my brother?”

Chalen’s eyes narrowed and he eased back on his tufted pillow. “Where is he indeed.”

Something snapped inside of Ahmare. She’d heard of people using that saying before, and now she knew what it meant.

All of a sudden, she was a different person.

She outed one of her guns without a second thought and pointed it at Chalen’s head. Like it was the most natural thing in the world.

“Bring me my fucking brother right now.”

“Oh, look. She has herself a weapon. I believe I told you not to bring any with you.”

“Too late, motherfucker. Your guards should have patted me down when they had the chance.”

“Yes.” Chalen glared toward the entrance. “They should have.”

“Bring me my brother, I give you the beloved.”

“But what about my weapon.” That smile returned. “You are not returning the weapon I gave you in good working order.”

There was a whirling of metal chains and then a booming that reverberated as the drawbridge was locked up tight against the castle.

“And now, look at this,” he drawled. “You’re stuck inside here and you have no leverage to get yourself out.”

She took the pearl back out. “Watch this.”

Ahmare bent down and put the beloved on the hard stone floor. Then she raised the steel-reinforced tread of her boot and hovered it three inches over the invaluable object.

“You crush that,” Chalen bit out, “and I will kill your brother.”

“Then we have a standoff, don’t we.”

“No, we do not.” Chalen looked toward the shadows around the now-closed entrance. “Guards!”

When there was no rush of males, no obedience, no answer, Ahmare shrugged. “I don’t think they’re coming. Wait—no, I’m sure of that. Sorry.”

As a blood-scented breeze passed by her left ear, she smiled. Nexi had no doubt liked killing those guards. And now the Shadow was moving through the air as molecules, finding another defensible position.

“Guards!” Chalen barked. “Guards!”

“You have only four. For now.”

Ahmare leveled her muzzle and pressed the trigger. The bullet went exactly where she wanted it to, into the lower leg of the front guard on the left. As the male dropped his corner of the pallet, Chalen tipped and started to fall. In a panic, he reached out and caught the edge of the pallet, his fragile body a weight he would not be able to hold for long.

The other three closed ranks, or tried to, and Ahmare picked them off, one by one, dropping them by putting bullets precisely where she needed them, in shoulders. Thighs. A foot of the one who retreated, trying to leave his master behind—

Chalen dematerialized the fuck out of there: In spite of his bad state, the old bastard was able to get himself away.

“Fuck!”

Ahmare grabbed the pearl and ran to the arch-topped doorway by the hearth—but as she did, a huge stone began rolling down, blocking the way deeper into the castle. Pulling an Indiana Jones, she slid under it in the nick of time and popped back up onto her feet.

Torches showed the way forward, but she had no clue where she was going. Her earlier trip to the lower level had not been retained as well as she’d hoped.