Page 39 of Sass Me

“You give more credence to the mating than it deserves.”

Oh, yeah? The mating had meant everything in the world to her. Steele was her family, her people, her tribe. But what did psycho kidnapper think it was important?

“Dammit. The shard is useless to me of the soul inside of it is dead.”

Umm. So, if he killed her, Steele would die too? No, no, no. She backed away from her not so secure hiding spot. If she had to dig herself a new tunnel out of that cave with her fingernails, she would.

Steele would not die because she made a dumb move and tried to get herself killed escaping.

“You don’t know that, you’ve never—”

“Shut. Up. Now.”

“Ungrateful whoreson.”

“Jealous harridan.”

Oh, yeah. Definitely bad guys, and also kind of whiny twelve-year olds.

What if she couldn’t dig her way out? This was crunchy, hard, sharp rock. Just walking on it made enough noise. If they heard her scraping or banging on it, they’d probably come running.

Shit.

She had to go back. Maybe if they kept arguing long enough she could sneak by them.

Yeah, right.

“Give me the soul shard and you can go.”

Great big piles of stinking shit. That dark and scary voice had come from right behind her.

She’d take a deep breath and sigh, but then she’d have to smell his ass gas.

Fleur grasped the talisman that contained part of Steele’s soul in it. He’d given it to her both figuratively and literally. Letting this asshat get his hands on it would be bad news bears. She turned and faced the kidnapper. What did one say to the uber bad guy of the underworld? “Bite me.”

Asshat grinned, or smirked, or scowled, Fleur couldn’t tell the difference. “These teeth are more than you can handle, little witch. Don’t make me use them on your delicate flesh.”

“I am no delicate freaking flower. Bring it on, dickwad.”

Yeah. It was all bluster. She was scared out of her mind. But, he didn’t need to know that. He’d said he’d tried to take the shard from her and couldn’t. That had to give her some sort of advantage.

Her kidnapper shook his head. “The mouth on you. My demons will enjoy shutting it up.”

Demons? Like those weird black snake-like dragons at the battle outside her apartment? Not good.

Time to get the dodge out of hell. But, how? The dark cave or the cavern o’ bad guys were both horrible choices.

She backed away, ready to turn and sprint back to the cave. Maybe she missed something in there, like a magical wardrobe that could transport her away from here.

Good Gods. Her best plan was playing hide and seek to stay away from asshat and cranky Claus.

“Come here.” Asshat grabbed her arm and drug her out into the cavern. Holy Hades. Were those boiling pools of magma?

There were half a dozen other tunnels leading out of the cavern, but to get to most of them she’d have to recall all her best childhood skills at playing the floor is lava. Because it was.

She was never very good at that game.

Cranky Claus came up to her, totally invading her personal space bubble and tried to grab the shard. Fleur jerked away and the crone only grasped empty air.

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