Blood Lands (Savage Lands #5)(81)

Birdie was forced to her feet, her hands in balls, her face locked like stone. Josef’s hands were already rubbing over her breasts.

I couldn’t let this happen.

Standing, I felt my lungs pumping with rage. “Don’t fucking touch them,” I seethed.

The three men stopped, turning around, shocked someone had the audacity to say something.

“Excuse me?” The main guy blinked at me, then paused. “Well, well, hello.” His gaze ran down my body and over my face. “You are fucking stunning. Think I’d rather have your mouth around my dick anyway.” He shoved Rosie into the table, strolling to me. He was about an inch shorter than me, but he tried to puff himself up. “Must teach you some manners. Punish that mouth for speaking when it wasn’t told to—you got a lot to learn, new fish.”

“Fish?” I slanted my head, curving one brow. “You are mistaken.” I smiled tightly. “I’m a fucking piranha.”

As if Warwick felt what I needed before I even knew what I was going to do, he poured his strength into me, moving me quicker than usual, fluid and precise. My knuckles struck his throat. He stumbled back, choking for air, his fingers clawing at his throat. I jumped forward, ramming my fist into Josef, blood spraying from his nose, the force knocking him to the ground as Petro leaped for me. Spinning, my boot kicked him right in the crotch, dropping him instantly.

Yells boomed off the high ceiling, twirling me back toward the room. Guards from everywhere in the vast warehouse ran for me, weapons drawn.

I saw Warwick out of the corner of my eye, starting to run to me, the heavy cinder shovel in his hands, but he stopped short, his attention on the doorway.

I tried to follow his gaze when electricity zapped through my body, locking me in place as agony tore and sliced through every nerve and muscle. My frame crashed to the ground, flopping and jerking, spitting and choking.

It stopped, and I gasped for air.

Boots struck the ground, a face peering over me. “Can’t even make it an hour.” Boyd’s smug smile blurred in my vision. “He said as long as you’re standing tomorrow night.” He hit the button again.

My body shut down, protecting itself from the onslaught of utter agony.

Like that should be anything new.





Chapter 22





“Kovacs.” My name was called through an inky goo. The pull was like milk being poured into coffee, the creamy haze lightening the syrupy darkness. The obscurity had protected me, a barrier to the pain that invaded my muscles, like an exposed wire through my entire body. I became aware of weight restraining my arms and legs, the cold, hard stone digging into my bones, and the smell—a particular odor which clung to the walls, the scent branded my memory.

The hole.

“Kovacs?”

My eyes flew open to Warwick leaning over me, his shadow flickering with the effort. Sucking harshly, I sat up, hoping this was all a nightmare and I’d wake up in bed with Warwick. But the man who reached out and touched my face wasn’t the real one, nor were we in a nice comfy cabin.

Chained and in hell, the suffocating stale air of the hole roped around my lungs. This time there were no loud noises or flashing lights, which I found odd. Just darkness. I had to breathe in and out in slow pulls to curb my panic. Only a little light from the cracks around the door gave any break to the solid blackness, allowing me to see marginal details of the man crouching in front of me.

“Beginning to think you enjoy being chained up, princess.” Warwick’s shadow ran his thumb over my busted lip. Petro had gotten a solid hit in before I took him down. “Stop being a fucking hero every moment.”

I could feel the difference, his presence barely solid, sweat beading at his forehead.

“I couldn’t sit back and watch. I couldn’t let it happen to my friends,” I muttered to him, sagging into the wall. The manacles around my legs and arms gave me barely any room to move.

“Talking to yourself, Ms. Kovacs? Or do I assume someone is here I can’t see?” A voice jerked me, rattling my chains. My heart thumped with a spurt of adrenaline, not expecting anyone else in here with me. “You have returned. It may sound selfish, but I’m glad. I know you are at least alive.”

It sounded somewhat off, but I knew that voice.

“Kil-Killian?” Shock and happiness twirled like a tornado in my tone, my eyes squinting, trying to see through the dense darkness for a shape against the wall. “Oh, my gods... you’re okay.”

“Okay is a relative term.”

Rolling my lips, my head bowed, “I’m sorry what happened to Sloane.”

Killian didn’t respond, but in his silence, I could feel all the emotions he didn’t want to speak. The hurt, guilt, anger, and grief. Killian didn’t just lose an elite soldier. He lost a friend.

From the moment I met him, and maybe even before when I sat high on top of HDF, staring over at his palace, as if I knew he was standing on his balcony peering in the dark back at me, I could feel a connection to Killian I couldn’t explain. It was different from Scorpion and Warwick, but was there just the same.

He cleared his throat, finally speaking, and I could hear a slur in his speech, as if he was struggling. “What did you do to get in here?”

My mind flashed to when Killian and Sloane were getting attacked by the guards, Rosie being held back, her face already showing signs of being hit. But now I could put a name to the soldiers I saw holding her. It was the same ones who came for her today.