Page 67 of Beg the Night

I gulped once.

“Sinner. Athena. Time to go.”

With a harsh breath in, I forced my feet to move.

I’d only made it a single step before Leon caught my arm. “Athena,” he whispered.

“What is it?”

“If you get out of here, and you have the chance to fight them…” He swallowed audibly, his face darkening. “Make them all regret it.”

Sadness washed over me, but I nodded. That was the best I could do. I couldn’t trust myself with words. How selfish had I been? I was getting out of here. I actually had a chance to survive this mess, to live life outside of this disgusting dungeon.

Could these other guys say the same? Monsters, I had called them. But could I blame them? They were trapped like animals down here. Stuck. Forced to do whatever it took to survive.

When death stared a person in the face, it was a hell of a lot easier to face it as a demon than as an angel.

“Hurry up!” the guard yelled.

Sinner glanced over his shoulder and locked eyes with me, his expression one of grim determination.

Good. He hadn’t given up yet, either.

If Leon was right, if something more than a typical blood moon claiming ceremony was going down tonight, we had to be prepared.

Sinner had to be prepared.

I gave him a tight smile and followed the guards out of the dungeon.

“Is this really necessary?”I asked. Not even ten minutes after being whisked away from the dungeons, Sinner and I were being shoved into the back of a van.

I really hated vans. Along with the men who handcuffed me and forced me into them.

This time, thank god, the guards didn’t make any flirty, disgusting comments at my expense. They kept their wandering hands to themselves, and they sure as hell didn’t look in my direction unless they had to.

I assumed I had Sinner to thank for that. He towered over every one of them, his broad shoulders and massive biceps making the trained soldiers look like teenagers.

He might not have noticed, but I did. They were afraid of him.

“If either of you try to use your powers, we’ll shoot you both. No questions, no exceptions.”

Sinner growled as he was shoved into the back of the van beside me. The two of us were positioned on a cold bench, and across the van, three guards sat, weapons at the ready.

The doors slammed shut, and the space darkened. “Well, this is cozy.”Yeah, humor was my coping mechanism, okay?

None of the men in the van responded.Tough crowd.

We maneuvered through the forest, the van bouncing violently for what had to be thirty minutes before the path smoothed out. My shoulder bumped against Sinner’s, and either of us could have moved at any time, but we remained that way.I was silently grateful for his presence, a tiny reminder that tonight, I wasn’t totally alone.

We might’ve hated each other, but our motivations were aligned. Survive, and fight like hell when this was all over.

Survive so we could come back here and kill every last one of them.

“Where are we?” I asked as the van came to a stop. “If you wanted to kill us, you know you could have done it back in the dungeons, right?”

As if in response, the van doors swung open. “Welcome to Director’s mansion.”

Holy. Shit.

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