Page 7 of The Vipers' Vow

I take his hand and tug him a little closer. “Thank you, Saint. You’ll see it’s for the best. You wouldn’t forgive yourself if Lex came back while we were gone and needed you. I promise we’ll keep you informed of everything we find out.”

His lips quirk in a half smile, and I stand on tiptoes and kiss him, careful of his split lip. “We’ll get your brother back.”

3

LEX

My head fucking hurts. I can’t bear to move it, so I don’t. My back is propped against something hard and cold. I sit still and try to breathe through the nausea and pain, anything to get to the next second of agony without puking.

Where the fuck am I?

Everything is fuzzy, and I try to bring my brain online, gently, so I can recall what the hell went down and try to figure out where I am without passing out.

Then it comes back to me and, involuntarily, I jerk. I moan as blinding, white-hot pain burns across my skull, painting the inside of my head in shades of red and orange. It’s as if there’s a sunset dancing behind my eyes, but it’s not pretty. It’s nothing butpain.

I vaguely remember being at my car and trying to fix the damage that had been done to the interior using baking soda. Then there had been armed men, and they’d dragged me from the vehicle, and one had slammed the butt of his gun into my head. Do I have a fractured skull? Is that why the pain is so bad? Or have I gotten away with only a concussion?

“Oh, he’s awake,” a sarcastic, accented voice says.

A palm connects with the side of my head. It’s brutal enough that my head snaps back, and I bite my lip so hard I taste the metallic tang of blood.

Shit, I’m going to pass out. Can you pass out purely from pain? I think I read somewhere that you can, and if so, I’m about to do it.

“I will go and tell the boss you are awake.” The man’s accent and broken English sound as if he’s from somewhere in Northern Europe.

His footsteps pound across the floor, every single step like a nail into my skull. The creak of a door opening is followed by it being slammed shut. I wince at the sound and, for a long moment, simply sit there, my head hanging, my breathing ragged.

When I finally have enough control over my roiling stomach to risk lifting my head slightly, I do so. Carefully, I open my eyes, blinking a few times to get accustomed to the light, or lack of it. I'm in a large room, the only light the glow from some emergency spotlights in the baseboards. To my right are sleek stainless steel cabinets and what looks like a huge industrial stove and sink. It’s a large kitchen. I’m positioned at the far end of the space, my back against yet more cabinets. A huge chrome refrigerator hums nearby.

Am I in the kitchen of a restaurant? Or maybe a fancy hotel?

There’s a smell in the air that does nothing to ease the sickness gnawing away at me. Gas, fumes, and a faint odor of fish. I realize the floor beneath me is moving slightly. There’s a gentle rolling motion, and things suddenly begin to coalesce in my mind.

We're on the water.

I doubt we've gotten as far as the ocean in the time I've been out cold, so we’re most likely on a lake.

There are plenty of lakes in the area, and if Jarl and his men have taken me, it would make sense for them to hide out somewhere no one would look for me. I wonder if we’re moored somewhere or if we’re out in the middle. If they don’t want to either be found or for me to have a chance of escape, it would make sense that we’re nowhere near shore.

My stomach churns again, but for an entirely different reason. If they've brought me here, to the middle of nowhere, on a boat far from shore, then do they mean to kill me?

I think back to my car and the mess that was made of it, and a grim smile tugs at my mouth. That car mirrors the mess my life is. Everything has been spiraling out of control for weeks now. Ever sinceshearrived. That curvy girl with the dark hair and bewitching eyes who’s cast a spell on all of us. They say the Preachers are the ones who dabble in witchcraft, but Vani is the one who is magic. She really is the venom running through our veins.

She poisoned us, and everything between us is weird now.

Me and my twin. Us and Zane. Most of all between the three of us and Vani.

I might die with her thinking we really do see her only as our fuck toy to degrade. That's not the reality. At least not for me. Even if she has betrayed us by spying on us for Jarl Olsen—which, considering my current situation, seems highly likely—I've developed feelings for the girl that go way beyond the game we're playing. I wish I'd had the guts to tell her the truth. Maybe things would have been different then. She might have decided to side with us instead of Jarl, and I wouldn’t be here now. I think Saint feels the same way, if only he could admit it. As for Zane, I never really know what's going on in that guy's head. He's the very definition of still waters running very,verydeep.

I might never see any of them again. The idea of me no longer existing, and my twin still being in this world, tears something inside me. We've done everything together. We shared the same womb. We were dressed the same as children. We even lost our virginity together, and that might be sick and twisted, but it's just another way in which we've become inseparable.

If I get out of this alive, I swear to myself I'll make amends. I'll let the people I care about know, and I'll give Saint the tough love he needs. Because sometimes caring about people isn't always giving in to them. It is standing up to them too.

If I get out of this, and if we can somehow work out all this fuckery, there are going to be new rules. If we hadn’t treated her so badly, Vani might not have betrayed us. I don’t know if we can all come back from this, but if we do, things have to change. Saint can be the asshole he needs to be when we're playing, but, when we're not in a scene, he needs to start treating Vani with more respect.

Christ, I need to get over this self-pity streak. I need to get out of here. I try to stand, but my left arm is jerked behind me. It dawns on me that I’m attached to something. There’s a handcuff around my left wrist, and the other end is around the foot of one of the huge stainless steel cabinets. The cabinet appears to be welded to the floor, which I assume is to prevent people being crushed if these massive items were to move around during a storm on high seas.

Great. I’m not going anywhere.

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