Page 38 of Sass Me

She grasped it in her hand and closed her eyes. The love she felt for Steele bubbled up through her, giving her strength.

Yes. Love.

How that was possible in such a short time, she didn’t know, but it was true. Sure, he was sexy hot, and whoo-boy was he a rockstar in the sack, but this was something more than lust.

He was protective, even when he didn’t need to be. Which she found adorable, not that he needed to know she thought so.

But what really melted her heart was the way he was strong, yet gentle, the way he was so alpha, and yet let her have control.

She’d never felt in control of anything in her entire life. Destiny had always been the one calling the shots.

Steele changed that.

No. Hold up. That wasn’t entirely true. He’d shown her there was another way. She was the one who quit waiting for destiny to happen, and started making her own life happen.

That life was with Steele.

When she opened her eyes, the room, or rather cave, was filled with light from the shard. It surrounded her like a protective layer. The air felt less hot and she could breath again. Awesomesauce.

Maybe if she got up off her butt and took a proper look around she could find some way out of this mess. Fleur got to her feet and took a second to evaluate life and limb. She wasn’t missing any bits and the only part that didn’t feel normal was where her back had been pressed against the pokey bits of the rock.

Either her captor hadn’t injured her, or she was dead and couldn’t feel the pain anymore. If it was the latter she was going to kill somebody. Then they could hang out together.

She took a deep breath, and coughed at the acrid smell. Okay, so probably not dead. That meant she needed to find a way out of here.

Fleur slowly spun in a circle hoping for any hint of light to guide her way.

Nothing to the right, nothing behind her, but, aha – there, to the left a small glimmer of red.

The light from the shard faded, as if it knew danger lay ahead, and it didn’t want her to be seen.

She gingerly felt her way along the wall toward the light. The red glow brightened as she got closer, and illuminated a tunnel.

There was only one way out. That was never good.

No matter how hard she tried to be quiet, the rocks crunched beneath her feet, and she sounded more like a herd of garbage trucks than a stealthy escapee.

A few more feet ahead and she saw the tunnel would open into a larger cavern. There were voices in there. Voices like these ones meant bad guys.

“Damn it, boy. Why haven’t you taken the shard for yourself? It’s the only way.” A voice, that could only be described as angry Mrs. Claus echoed through the chamber.

Yikes. If that was her kidnapper’s mother, no wonder he’d turned out psycho.

The crash of a rock smashing against the wall shattered cranky Claus’s nagging. “You think I don’t know that. I already tried.”

He had? It wasn’t like it would have been hard to slip the cord over her head while she’d been unconscious.

“Try harder.”

“It doesn’t work that way.” Each word was a growl. He did not like this woman.

“Then kill her.”

Uh-oh.

“You’re losing your mind, witch. Why do you think I didn’t kill the green dragon?”

At least there was that bit of good news. Steele was alive. She would get back to him.

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