The Jackal (Black Dagger Brotherhood: Prison Camp #1)(79)

When the Command stepped in front of his vision, the hood was down again, and that face he despised, the one that came to him in his nightmares, the one that he had endured in front of his own so many times . . . was calm. That temper had been controlled.

The gun was still in those pale hands, but it was pointing away from him.

“So where did you get this?” she demanded.

On one level, the inquiry was a waste of time. He couldn’t speak. Then again, the Command didn’t actually want his response. She never did.

“This came off a guard.” Those hazel eyes bored into his own. “One who was killed in my quarters with three others.”

Jack blinked. He knew what was coming next.

“You said you were held at gunpoint by a female in prison garb. But she isn’t one of us, is she.” The Command backed off and paced around, stopping to stand over the pattern of bullet holes in the floor tile. “You stated you did not know her. How true is that, I wonder.”

The Command went over to a table. There was a syringe on it and two small bottles with rubber seals on their necks: The drugs that had to be used if he was to get hard, as well as the antidote to the tranquilizer. There was also the dart gun and a gathering of red-tailed darts. She put the nine millimeter down and picked up one of those projectiles.

Pivoting, she held the thing up. “If I shoot you again with this, you will die. Your respiration will cease. You will turn blue and then gray. After that, your body will stiffen for a period of time before your limbs become loose again. Blood will pool on the undersides of your arms and legs, your back and your ass, turning everything purple. You will begin to stink after that, assuming I don’t choose to strip the meat from your bones and feed it to the other prisoners.”

The female approached the bed and knelt down. Putting the dart right up to his face, the Command said, “I am in control of you. You’re mine, and I will do with you whatever the fuck I want.”

Jack stared back at those eyes.

“You are mine.” The Command reached out and ran her hand down the side of his face. “Only mine. And if I find out you’ve been with another female? I’m going to make you beg for death. Are we clear? I will fucking destroy you.”

He wanted to spit at her. Instead, he closed his eyes, shutting her out—

The slap was hard, her palm connecting with his cheek. “You will look at me.”

She slapped him again. “Look at me!”

The Command let out an unholy sound and mounted him. Grabbing his face with her hand, he felt a fan of pain and smelled his blood as nails scored his skin.

“You will look at me, goddamn you,” she spat.

When he just breathed in and out through his nose and stared at the inside of his lids, his eyes were clawed open. The Command was utterly undone, her face flushed, that red hair splaying out in tangles—

And then she stilled.

Those hazel eyes bulged. With a shaking hand, she moved his head to the side.

Trembling fingertips pulled down the high collar of his tunic. Then she took a quick, hard breath, the air sucked in between gritted teeth.

“Who . . .” That hateful voice cracked. “Who have you fed.”

The Command sat back on his hips and pressed shaking hands to her mouth. “Who have you fed.”

The question was repeated over and over again under her breath— and Jack had a thought that it was like storm clouds gathering on the horizon.

He was not going to live through what was going to be done to him. As soon as the Command snapped out of the trance of shock, she was going to unleash upon him all the fury in that black soul. She was going to kill him.

But it would be okay. Kane had sworn on his honor to make sure Nyx got out, and the worthy male had the three others to help him. And as for the other issue, the one that kept Jack here in the prison?

It was the one and only thing the Command and he agreed upon.

Those hazel eyes burned into his own, and he had an odd thought that she must have dropped the dart somewhere on the bed. Maybe she would find it and use it on him. Maybe she would reload the guard’s gun and not shoot around him this time. Maybe she—

The tears that welled in those eyes shocked him.

They didn’t last. The Command’s characteristic hard aggression wiped them away, sure as if the force of her will was the back of a hand.

“You fucking bastard, you fed her. You’re lying to me about everything and you fed her.”

The door to the quarters opened wide, and the Command yanked her hood back into place. “I told you not to—”

“We have the female,” the guard announced. “And the prisoner she was with.”

The Command stiffened. Then she dismounted from him. As she stared down at him from behind the mesh, he knew the bite mark at his throat was a declaration of war, and Nyx was in the crosshairs of a battle that had nothing to do with her. In desperation, he tried to move his mouth, move his body—move anything.

Fuck, he thought. He needed to stop this.

The Command’s hood tilted to the side. “Perfect timing. And why don’t I go take care of her. How about that? Two can play at the biting game, you know.”

The black robes drifted across to the door, the Command speaking over her shoulder. “I’ll bring you back what’s left of her. And then you and I will discuss the future. It’s not going to be a pretty one.”