Sweet Reckoning (The Sweet Trilogy #3)(21)

An hour and a half had passed. They’d be in town by now. I was pacing and listening hard when a text from Marek came.

Cannot meet alone.

Alarms sounded in my brain.

Forget it then, I responded.

Later tonight?

I thought about it. If he wanted to trap me, he could’ve come straight to the hotel with the others. Maybe he really was an ally, and he couldn’t lose the three Neph. As much as I didn’t want to stay in town knowing that Caterina and the sons of Thamuz were nearby, I was also desperate enough to have another strong Neph on our side.

Fine, I texted, deleting our messages. And the wait began.

I couldn’t relax. All I could do was stare out the window at the people coming and going from the parking lot. My extended hearing surrounded the hotel’s entrance, and it took complete concentration to keep it there and make sense of what people were saying.

An hour after my texts with Marek, something caught my attention in the lobby. A preteen-sounding girl said, “That creepy guy bumped me and didn’t even say sorry.”

A woman, presumably her mother, responded with a terse whisper. “Stay far away from that man. I don’t like the look of him.”

My heart flew to my throat and I fell to my knees next to the bed. I shoved my arm between the mattresses until I felt the hilt. My instincts were screaming for me to get out of there. Shoving the hilt into my backpack, I ran to the door and stuck my head out. Sure enough, at the end of the hall was a wiry-looking man with black hair pulled back in a ponytail. At his sternum was a black starburst. It grew when he saw me, and he smiled.

I slammed the door and locked it, then ran for the patio door. As soon as I slid it open, a tanned hand gripped the edge. Half a scream escaped my mouth before his hand barreled down in a hard slap. Blood covered my tongue and I stumbled to the side long enough for him to shut the back door. My bookbag fell off, but I had no time to worry about it.

Ignoring the pulsing pain in my mouth, I shoved a hand into my pocket. My reflexes must have been slowed from the slap, but his were fast. He grabbed my wrist and twisted it behind my back, ripping an agonizing screech from my throat, which was quickly muffled by his hand. He did all this while moving us toward the door as I struggled like mad. For a short, slender guy, he was strong. He held me against him as he walked, taking my kicks to his shins like they were nothing, his hand clamped too hard around my mouth for me to open it and bite him.

As he released my mouth to unlock the door, he yanked up on my twisted wrist and I sucked in a breath, ready to shriek again. In a heartbeat he had the door unlocked and his hand was clamped back over my mouth and jaw, muffling my scream. His brother pushed his way in. They moved so fast and fluidly. I went ballistic as a piece of silver tape was slapped across my lips.

In a fit of terror I threw my head back and butted his nose. I heard the crack and he yelled, letting me go long enough for my hand to plunge into my pocket and pull out my knife, since I couldn’t reach the stun gun. My blade came out and my arm began slashing. I felt the steel connecting with flesh over and over, and saw the blood, but they never backed away or gave me an inch to run. Within seconds the knife was extracted from my hand and my arms were pinned behind my back.

One of them chuckled, and that was when hysteria set in. I remembered what Caterina had told me about the sons of Thamuz’s kidnapping involvement. They were pros at this. I never stopped struggling, but it seemed useless and I was tiring. I’d have to do more than physically fight them. I had to use my brain, too.

My self-defense instructors held me tightly, but it was always apparent that they didn’t want to hurt me. The sons of Thamuz had no reservations. I felt their fingers digging, bruising, scratching. When I fought, they fought—punching, smacking, kicking, yanking hair. They took pleasure in my sounds of pain. They never ceased smiling, their eyes shining with zeal.

When my struggling slowed, I was shoved face-first onto the bed, on my stomach, and both men held me down. My body was spent. I was sweating and whimpering, because even in my beat-up, nearly passed-out state, I still had enough sense to be scared for my life.

“What do you want?” I managed to ask between panting breaths.

“We’re taking you on a li’l trip, chica,” one of them said close to my ear.

They would bring me to the Dukes. Pharzuph would smell me. My instructors always warned me never to let myself be taken to the second location. My thrashing began anew as my brain flared with panic. All I needed was to get my hand to my other pocket. Just a few inches . . .

One of them grabbed my hair and shoved my face into the mattress so hard I couldn’t breath. The other beat me with a round of punches to my shoulders and back. I screamed into the mattress as his fist connected to my shoulder blade with a crack.

Dear God. I’d never felt anything like it. My whole body tensed with shock as searing pain lanced through my shoulder. I couldn’t take in a breath with my face smothered against the bed. I thought surely I was imagining it when my head was released and the weight from the man behind me suddenly lifted. I rolled, dazed, and pain bolted through my upper back.

For one fleeting moment I thought I was imagining the scene before me through clouded eyes.

A third man was in the room, and he was fighting the two Neph. He wore all black, including a face mask and black gloves. The way he moved, and the shape of his body were familiar to me.

Kopano. My head swam with gratitude.