Page 20 of Guarded By the Krampus

“Such bravado!” Salvio said, with a short clap, before gesturing one of his henchmen up, to whisk my impromptu shield away. I lifted my lips and gnashed my teeth at him, sending him scurrying even faster. “Hands out—now,” Salvio commanded, and another one of his men ran up, carrying two sets of thick metal cuffs. One set for my wrists—and another for my feet.

I kept my body in front of Satin’s, ignoring the way she was pummeling my broad back with her small fists, until both sets of cuffs were on me.

“See?” Salvio announced. “There we go. All will be well in the world now, shortly.”

He walked forward, and I bristled—I could still headbutt him into the ground.

“And as for you, broken bird,” he said, setting out his hand toward her. “You already know what I want.”

She frowned, sorrowfully, lifting her hands up to take her blindfold off. Her eyelids had a rows of long lashes that gently curled, and everything looked like I’d assumed it would—until she opened them up.

Inside each of her eye-sockets was a gleaming metal orb.

She ground her teeth together, but then leaned forward, taking both of them out to hand over.

“There,” she spat. “Are you happy?”

Salvio pocketed her secrets. “Never,” he said, then whirled his hand above him like a helicopter controller on an aircraft carrier. “Tie her up.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

I’d never felt so much like a zoo animal before until that moment, being prodded down a dark hallway by men with rifles. It was all I could do not to play the role and roar at them, needing to take some control back, because all else, I had to fuckingsave Satin.

Even if I didn’t really know who the fuck she was.

“Lock them inside,” Salvio said, and rifle barrels and butts pushed me into a small pitch-black storage closet like a beast—my only consolation was that Satin was beside me.

“Anything you want to tell me?” I murmured, once the door had been slammed shut and locked on the other side.

“Why? Anything you want to know?” she asked, sarcastically, and then I heard her sigh. “They’re specialized implants. I really can’t see, not like you can, but they transmit positions and temperatures into my head—it’s a lot like sonar, but also with heatmaps. They also act as bone conduction speakers, so I can listen to my phone, where no one else can hear.” She left my side and started walking around. “We need to leave this place.”

“Agreed.”

“No, Ace—really,” she said with special emphasis. “Because I use only one of them for vision. The other one’s a bomb, cuedto go off once it reads lower than my body temperature. Once Salvio takes them out of his pockets for long…”

I was left reeling anew, flooded with respect for the clearly mad woman I…wanted.

For my mate.

“Understood,” I said. I wrestled with my cuffs, and tried to move the chain on the ones between my hooves to someplace that I could stomp it.

“Shit,” she cursed, coming back to me after having made a circuit of the room. “There’s nothing in here that I can use to pick your locks.”

“What, you don’t keep a special bobby-pin in your hair?”

“Ha, ha,” she said, without any humor. “No, I don’t.”

Then I had a flash of insight. “Uh…I’ve got something you might be able to use.”

“On you? Somewhere?” she asked, and started patting around the outside of my kilt.

“Yeah. So to speak. Lift it up.”

“Ace,” she said, her voice full of disappointment. “You havegotto be kidding.”

“I’m not. And please be certain that I’ve never said these words, in this order, in my entire life: grab my dick, unclip it from my leg, and pull the piercing out, for me.”

I could almost feel her body tensing, but then slowly she did as she was told, lifting my leather kilt up before fumbling underneath. The men outside had tied both her hands in front of her at least, which made things a little easier for her—but for me, things were a strange combination of horny and mortifying.

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