She snakes out a hand, grabbing his wrist, and he flinches.
“I don’t care if you think it’ll work,” she says, and the skin around his wrist is warm, blood thudding against his pulse, and it momentarily derails her thoughts, at the warmth in front of her.
Before the electricity flickers again, plunging them into darkness for a split second, and she loops the leash around his warm wrist, knotting it down.
He jerks his hand away, but the knot holds true, and she gets a small corresponding tug around her neck.
“What—” he starts, before the lights slam off again, the room filling with another demon’s power, and Ambra grips the collar of his shirt and flees.
2
Ambra’s feet hit the floor of the motor home, and her kidnappee’s knees buckle upon impact, knocking her off kilter.
“You’re bad at that,” she informs him, releasing his collar and letting him stagger away, to the comfortable plush couch she crammed into one side of the small space.
He all but collapses onto the couch, almost comically. “Why are we somewhere new?” Careful, he places the gun on the side table, the metal clattering against the cheap wood. Ambra’s a bit grateful that he didn’t try to shoot her with it. It wouldn’t have done anything serious, but it would’ve been exceedingly annoying.
Despite the disorientation and the obvious physical effects of the teleportation, his words are sharp. Like his brain doesn’t turn off, even when going through something strange.
It’s not a bad thing. If someone has to hold the leash, at least she picked an intelligent one.
“Another demon was sniffing around the spot,” Ambra answers, because a smart question deserves an actualresponse. “I haven’t faced another since…” she gestures at the body. “And I don’t want to try.”
He stares up at her.
“The Half Demon not-withstanding,” she amends, in case she offended him on behalf of his friend. “And that wasn’t exactly a fun time.”
He nods, then, obviously, as if hoping she would notice, looks around the room.
It’s a small motor home, the sort on concrete bricks instead of wheels, and it creaks in high wind. The glass of the window is streaked with grime, barely letting in the light of the setting sun.
Snow powders the grounds outside, more slush than anything else, and tall trees stretch towards the pink streaked sky. Moss grows on most things, probably some on the outside walls of the motor home, and the mud darkens with all the moisture in the air.
“Pacific Northwest?” her kidnappee guesses, and she nods.
“The body liked the cold air,” Ambra says before she can stop herself, then the lump threatens to choke her again. “I took her here a few times, she grew up within a hundred miles.”
His brows raise over the glasses, then he lifts his hand, flexing it.
The hand with the leash.
A cold, irrational fear stabs into her, at the casual motion, despite the fact that she’s the one that put that in place.
“First things first,” he murmurs, squinting at his hand, “what did you do to me?”
“Tied the leash,” she answers. If he’s a dud, if he has no way of seeing what she did, then she at least needs to givehim the information he needs. “If someone pulls on it, pulls me away, you’ll feel it and be able to pull me back.”
He nods, a bit pale, before an utterly bored expression settles across his face.
It’s completely fake. Completely fabricated, and it’s almost fascinating to see, so she takes a few seconds to stare at him before she checks the wards.
They’re completely untouched, pristine, and perfect.
“This place will be safer than the last, it’s in the territory of a demon who won’t bother me if I don’t bother them,” Ambra supplies, squinting at him to see if the utterly fake expression falters. “I spoke to him about this place three years ago, it’s outside of the area he really cares about. No other one would cause strife in these woods.”
“And the leash?” he asks, and there’s a flicker of panic under the expression, before it solidifies again. “Could they get you here?”
“If they think about it, they can get me anywhere, it’s all a matter of who tries first.” She has to swallow down again, and this might be the longest she’s been without being in the stasis chamber since the merge, and the body is still giving her all the unconscious signals. “And how long it takes for them to sift through all the wreckage of the prison. I’m not the deadliest thing you let out.”