Page 4 of Trapped to Tame
He stepped forward again and she involuntarily took a step back, feeling the wall behind her. She cursed herself. There was nowhere to go. Why was she pretending to herself that there might be any outcome other than what was going to happen now?
‘I need you to open a portal to the Underhill,’ he said, and, for a moment, she simply stared at him in utter disbelief, wondering if she’d heard him correctly.
Of all the things she might have expected him to say to her, that phrase was definitely not one of them.
‘A portal, female,’ he said, impatiently. ‘Open one now!’
She gave him an incredulous look.Open portals?A laugh bubbled to the surface, and she covered her mouth, trying not to let it burst forth, but she failed. She practically doubled over with it; couldn’t remember the last time someone had made her giggle.
He looked angry … and something else. He thought her mind unhinged. She could see that same wariness in his eyes that were in her opponents’ sometimes.
She put her hand up to stay him.
‘It's been a long time since anyone made me laugh,’ she said between cackles.
‘I don't understand the jest,’ he said, sharply.
Inwardly, she flinched at his tone, but she didn’t let it show. This man did not like to joke.
‘Do you think,’ she asked, giving him a haughty look, ‘that if I could simply open a portal, I'd be here?’
She wiggled her bare foot and the chain clanged. His attention moved down to it, and he looked confused.
‘You don't know how to open a portal.’
Was he a simpleton?
‘No,’ she said with a roll of her eyes. ‘I don't, but if I did, I’d suck you into the darkest realm there is.’
He stepped forward and she darted back, tripping on the chain, and falling onto the pallet. She scrambled away from him, pulling the chain with her so that she could curl up into the corner of the room even though she was only delaying the inevitable.
The man reached for her and this time she did flinch away, fear rushing to the fore. But instead of using the chain to pull her towards him and spreading her legs immediately as the Bull would have done, his thick fingers wound around the manacle. She noticed, with an acute awareness that swept through her, the warm skin brushing inadvertently against hers as, with brute strength, he pulled the metal apart and it practically disintegrated in his hands.
Her mouth fell open. How many times had she tried and failed to get that cursed thing off?
‘Inferior iron,’ was all he said as he moved away from her, giving her space.
She rubbed the red, chafed skin where the manacle had been, not taking her eyes off them while she focused on the door behind them immediately. Could she make it without one of them catching her?
Even if she did, where would she go? She’d spent all her life in this town. She had no friends anywhere and no means of supporting herself bar on her back. Perhaps in the fights, but wherever she went, her steps would be dogged for there were very few female fighters. She would always be noticed in the ring and remarked upon. Remembered. Talik would find her.
For the moment, she stayed where she was, sensing that these men were not finished with her yet. Already she trusted the man in front of her more than she did any other she'd ever met before. In that one second, he had done more for her than anyone ever had. It wasn’t saying much, but it was enough to make curiosity win out over self-preservation.
Chapter 2
Priest
Priest stood behind his Brother. Her blood. This room reeked of it, and he knew the smell of that bloodline well, already disliking the small female in front of him for that reason alone.
‘Make her do what we came here for and let's be away from this foul place,’ he grumbled.
His Brother turned to him. ‘She's already said that she cannot.’
Priest gestured to the door and Drax followed him out to where the woman couldn’t hear them.
‘Then why did you free her?’ he said, his tone low. ‘She doesn't even know what she is. She doesn't know how to conjure.’
‘We’ll take her with us.’
