Page 57 of Held By a Monster

My skin itched and I flexed my hands as I paced. I didn’t like her idea. There were too many unknowns, too many risks. My ears swiveled as I searched for any sign of alarm. Time passed slower than before with nothing to do but worry.

I slid down the back wall, rested on my haunches, and focused on the bond lights. They were still strong, still dancedhappily in the air between me and the door that locked me away from my mate.

I counted my breaths, cracks in the floor tiles, the number of times the cameras whirled to life—anything to distract me from what might be happening on the other side of the door.

All sound ceased with a snap, and I plunged into darkness.

Isabelle’s distorted voice said, “Get ready to move.”

I crept toward the door to my cell, staying low. The last time she’d cast such a powerful spell, all the cell doors had opened and we’d been freed. This time was no different. The door slid open and sound rushed in.

I heard the clicking with just enough time to move to the side. The outer door blew inward, so close I felt the breeze it caused as it flew past.

A man with dark, swept back hair and an unhinged grin stepped in. I recognized him as Wasp—one of Zeus's people.

“Hello! This is your rescue.” He bowed low and swept an arm from me to the outside. “If you’ll please step this way. Hurry now, they’re bound to have heard that.” He chuckled.

I shook my head and followed him down a long corridor. Red lights flashed overhead and people ran panicked from one room to another, trailing papers like slug trails.

The man stuck his hand out at me. “I’m Wasp, explosives ordinance for Superhuman Security. Zeus says ‘hi’!”

"I remember." I looked at his hand, and then my own fingers tipped with claws. I waved.

He grinned. “Right, probably a better idea.”

“Isabelle?”

“She sent up the bat signal when she found proof linking the director of BioSynth to the fae councilman. I’d been standing by, waiting for the chance to blow something up.”

“Is she safe?”

He glanced over at me. “I can’t say. Her last communique was that the job wasn’t done, and she’d resurface when she knew more.”

“Fuck.” Roul was going to go mad.

Wasp shrugged. “Witches are unpredictable, but solid. I’m sure she’ll be fine.”

I smelled grass and water before we turned the corner and stepped through a hole that was blasted in the wall. The back door of an SUV with blacked-out windows opened and Kendal’s head popped out.

“Get in!”

thirty-seven

Drym dove into thevehicle and crushed me to his chest. “What are you doing here?”

I squeezed him as hard as I could and pressed my ear to his pec. Hearing the steady beat of his heart let me breathe. “We were the closest vehicle when Wasp called for exfil. Bull wanted to keep going and let someone else come, but I convinced him otherwise.”

From the driver’s seat, Bull called out, “As in, she pulled a gun on me.”

“It worked, didn’t it?”

Drym’s arms pulsed around me. “You should have listened. You could have been hurt.”

“Me? I could have been hurt?” I pulled back and poked him. “You were captured by mad scientists. I’ve gone crazy thinking about what they were doing to you in there! No way was I going to make you wait one more second if I could help it.”

The SUV hit a pothole and Drym pulled me onto his lap. “You would have felt it if they’d hurt me.”

“Don’t use logic. This is no time for logic.” I wrapped my hand around his muzzle and pulled his head down so I could look into his eyes. “Four days, Drym. You were in there for four days.”

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