Prisoner of Night (The Black Dagger Brotherhood #16.5)(8)

Endurance, rooted in his revenge, had been his only emotion.

Not so now.

This female was not like the others, for a number of reasons. And because of that, Duran felt a protective rage overtake him.

The kind that could easily murder.





5




AHMARE TRIED TO TAKE another step back, forgetting that she was already up against the stones of the wall. The heavily bearded male in the cell was what she had thought Chalen was going to be, a massive, battle-scarred animal with long waves of wet, dark hair falling past his heavy pectorals, his arms corded with muscle, his legs long and bulging with power. Through the bars that separated them, his blue eyes glowed with menace and his mouth parted as if it were just a matter of seconds before her blood was on his tongue.

And he was naked.

Dear God, the only thing on him was a blinking collar around his thick throat—

As a scent of dark spices reached her nose, it was a shock to like the way he smelled. Given all that menace, stale sweat and the fresh flesh of his victims seemed more up his alley, yet instead, she found herself breathing deep, her body kindling in a way she couldn’t understand.

And did not appreciate.

When his nostrils flared, she knew he was scenting her right back, and the purr he released made her think of the sounds lions made.

“Where are the guards,” he said in a low growl.

“I’m here for the guns,” Ahmare shot back over the fall of the water. “There are no guards.”

She forced strength into her voice and kept her eyes on his, even as her heart pounded and her mind spun. She needed to get moving. There was no going back where she’d come from, and surely somewhere past this barely leashed fighter was the weapon Chalen had told her he would give her.

She needed to get it and find the way back to her car—also figure out where in the hell she was going.

“Guns?” the male said.

“Weapons. I don’t know, I’m assuming it’s a gun.”

Why was she wasting time talking to him? she asked herself. But she knew the answer to that. She couldn’t look away from him. In another circumstance, in a parallel universe where she wasn’t in some dungeon and he wasn’t in a cage like a zoo animal . . . she would have been captivated by him.

Not just because of his body or even those eyes. It was the raw power that poured out of him.

The male’s brows dropped even lower and he came closer to the bars. Water dripped off every part of him, his body gleaming in the open flames of the torches, and she wished she didn’t notice his skin shifting over all that muscle. Still, there was something undeniably sensual in the way his body moved . . . a promise that he could take the very male-est part of himself and do very worthwhile things with it—

“I’ve got to be out of my mind,” she muttered.

“They let you come down here by yourself?” He looked up and around, as if he were searching for something in the ceiling or perhaps beyond those bars. “Did you escape?”

“I’m looking for a weapon. Chalen told me there was a weapon down here I could use, and when I find it, I’m out of here.”

When he reached forward, she jerked back and banged her shoulder into the stone again—but he was only gripping one of the bars, his fist three times the size of her own as he tested it with a clank.

“So you are not for me?” he said.

“God, no.”

The male looked both evil and erotic as he stared out at her with his bearded chin tilted down, the blue of his eyes flashing under those brows. “That is a relief.”

A relief? What the hell was wrong with her exactly—

Okay, she’d clearly lost her mind. Shaking her head, Ahmare started walking again, staying close to the wall, out of reach.

Just in case.

“What else did he tell you?” The male’s speech was accented with the Old Country. “Tell me exactly.”

“I don’t have time for talk.”

She held her torch out, trying to will the appearance of racks of weapons from the darkness.

“Yes, you do.” He tracked her like the caged predator he was, following on the other side of those bars. “What else?”

Ahmare stopped again. There was something on the wall, hanging from a hook by a lanyard. Closing the torch in, it appeared to be a handheld device of some kind, palm-sized with a single button on it. A detonator? Was this the weapon?

Fucking Chalen.

She took whatever it was off by its cord and was shocked by its heavy weight—

The rattling was loud and she wheeled around. A center portion of the cell was rising up, the dozen or so bars disappearing into the stone ceiling.

The male stepped free. And was even more enormous now that there was nothing between them.

She put her torch forward. “Don’t come any closer. Stay back.”

Throwing out her free hand, she grabbed for another torch in its wall bracket, that object swinging on its lanyard and hitting the wall—

The male grunted and grabbed for the blinking collar at his throat as his knees buckled and he went down to the stone floor in a heap. Rolling onto his side, he curled in and struggled to breathe, his head cranking back, a grimace of pain distorting his features.

Ahmare looked at the black box. Then focused on that collar as his clawed fingers dug into it—