Page 17 of Mated Exile

Iwake up, yet again, to discover that I'm moving. My stomach rolls as the ground beneath me jolts. It takes a long, horrifying moment for my brain to catch up to the fact that I'm in a vehicle of some sort. Restraints clamp around my wrists and ankles, and chains clink together as I push myself up.

"Hey. You're awake."

The soft voice is familiar. I blink, and Bastian swims into view, sitting opposite me. I stare at him for a long moment, completely confused as to his presence here.

As if reading my mind, he murmurs, "Apparently they decided to take me with you, since it seems their old location was finally discovered. Whatever magic was keeping it from view stopped working the other night, shortly before you showed up."

The lake waters must have done that. I peel my lips open to say as much, but all that comes out is a groan. My head swims and my stomach churns as I force myself into a sitting position.

Glancing around, I discover that we're both in the back of a van. The curved metal side of it is against my back. There are no seats, benches, or amenities at all, not even a window to speak of. A grate separates us from the front of the van; peering through, I spot a silhouetted figured and dark tinted windows. There's no sunlight outside, only the dark night sky.

My eyes widen as I do the math. When I woke up in the arena, it was late morning, and now it's night again. Several hours had to have passed. Which means...

"How long have we been traveling?"

Glowing eyes glance at me in the rearview mirror. Bastian frowns; we're being listened to. Scooting as close to him as the chains will let me, I lower my voice. "How long have I been out of it?"

"They'll still be able to hear you," he says, motioning towards the two vampires sitting in the front seats. "They have superhearing, after all."

"I know, but just go along with it. It makes me feel better to at least try."

His mouth quirks up in a devastatingly handsome smile that he hasno ideais so charming. "Sure, why not? To answer your question—I woke up a few times in the past several hours, all of it underground, in darkness. They kept using the powder to put me back to sleep. It was only this last round that I woke up in the van. I think they waited until the cover of darkness to travel with us."

I frown at that, doing the mental calculations. "Why wait for so long? Especially with our blood. They could've drained us and walked in the day... or at least the late morning."

Only high noon is so dangerous to vampires that they can't walk around in it, even with a belly full of werewolf blood to make them stronger.

"I don't know," he confesses. "My only guess is that it would've taken too much blood. Half of them were still healing, at least that I saw. The vamp riding shotgun only has one hand still."

A voice snarls in the front seat, "No thanks to you and your little friends, you whorish mutt."

I scowl in their direction, but ignore the insult for now. At least we know theycanoverhear us. As I twist my head to study the front seat, sizing up our enemies, I feel a sharp pain in the side of my neck. Reaching up with a manacled hand, I discover a small, scabbed over wound. Then another, and another...

"I guess they didn't refrain from drinking from us," Bastian murmurs. Reaching up to his own neck, his eyes widen. The tips of his fingers are smeared with blood when he draws his hands back. "They must really be weakened. That, and I know our blood does less for them if they have to fully paralyze us first. It's better to get a willing victim, since our strength is stronger when we're awake."

Thinking of Kieran, I grimace. "That makes sense. Otherwise they'd just be walking through werewolf territory blowing powder left and right. It's better for them if they can convince their dinners to stay up for it."

"Yeah," Bastian says softly, not quite meeting my eyes. I think of Demetri's words to him, and my heart fills with anger. "Anyway, I don't think they'll take us very far this first night. We're probably just going to a safe location so they can regroup and plan the trip to the quorum's headquarters. I doubt we'll go by van the whole way."

He gives me a meaningful look, and I understand what heisn'tsaying aloud. Right here, right now, is my—our—best chance to escape. While we're just being kept in the back of a van with two vampires in the front seat.

I have no doubt there are other cars on the road with us, filled with powerful vamps like Demetri and his band of unmerry undead. But that'll be nothing compared to the power that awaits us once we arrive in front of their ancient leaders. I'm absolutely certain I won't be able to escape the quorum—which means it's now or never for me and Bastian.

And itismeandBastian, I'm realizing now. I can't just leave him behind for another ten years of torture, or less, if he dies in their arena. His body is covered in scars from head to toe, and the haunted look that slips across his face from time to time is hard to miss. I have no doubt that as soon as I'm gone, he'll shift back into a wolf and stay there.

It's not hard to imagine why, given what awaits him in the vampires' lair.

Biting my lower lip, I nod at him meaningfully. Then I murmur low, hoping to be overheard, "I'm going to take a nap. Conserve my strength. Join me?"

He studies me for a moment, then nods sharply as he understands whatI'mnot saying.

Together, we each lean back against the metal sides of the van, and tilt our heads down, turning away from the front seat so it looks like we're falling asleep. In reality, we're lying await, hoping for our moment to come.

* * *

It feels like an entire hour passes before an opportunity to escape our captors presents itself. I'm starting to think that I'll need to trick them somehow—maybe pretend I have to pee, which I definitely do, or tell them I'm incredibly hungry, and convince them to pullover. Thankfully, time and inevitability is on my side, because eventually the vampires have to pull into a gas station to fill up the inefficient van.

The guy riding shotgun speaks into his walkie-talkie to a crackling voice that sounds like Demetri. "Should we wait for you guys to catch up? We're at mile marker 52."

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