Page 91 of Ronen
“Hmmm, shall I sell you ripe with your pup, or should I let you carry it and then sell you both? I guess that will depend on how nice you are to me.”
“I will fucking kill you,” I repeated, looking him in the eyes, my words slow and clear.
“Don’t touch my brother!” Matty growled, shaking both our chairs with the force of his body. “Your father tried to kill me when I was a child! A child! I watched him die and I cheered when he was put down! I’m going to do the same to you. I will stand over your carcass and cheer. I hear snake tastes good.”
Snake Eyes laughed, this time the sound was pure evil and chilled me to my soul. “See, I knew you knew the truth of your father.”
He slammed the door behind him, the sound echoing in the room. The key scraping in the old lock sounded like nails on a chalkboard.
“Ro?” Matty whispered, his shoulders slumping and pulling at the ropes holding us. The fight he had in him just minutes ago seemed to vanish. “How about you work a little faster on getting loose, huh?”
“I’m trying!” I almost had my thumb…nope. “What the fuck kinda rope did he use?”
“Come on, you used to get out of handcuffs like fucking Houdini,” Matty groaned, lowering his head.
“Well, I’m not eleven anymore, am I?”
“You’re as skinny as you were then, so…put some effort into it.”
Grumbling under my breath, I continued to work at the bindings a few more minutes before slumping in defeat. “I can’t get it.”
Suddenly, a horrible realization settled over me like a cloud of dread. Matty’s shortness of breath, his labored breathing, Snake Eyes saying the venom would travel faster in his bloodstream if he kept moving around.
“Matty, did he bite you?” I asked frantically.
Matty was a wolf shifter. He didn’t have my natural immunity to snake venom. And that bastard had known that! He said he’d had people watching us. People from Sweet Alps. If that was true, he had to know I was a honey badger. Matty had been back from spring break–the last time he’d been to England–for over a month now.
Snake Eyes had known I was pregnant. Had the people he’d hired seen me going to my doctor appointments? Had he waited until he knew I was far enough along that I couldn’t shift and wouldn’t be a threat?
But if he had bitten Matty, he would likely already be dead.
Matty barked out a laugh, but there was no humor in the sound. “Not him. Rattlesnake. It was under my desk. That’s how they got me.”
“Okay,” I sighed, “okay. That’s good.”
Matty gave a short, high-pitched laugh. “Tell that to my leg. It fucking burns, and it’s swelling. I’m dizzy and…it’s getting really hard to breathe. I’m not like you, Ro. I’m not immune.”
“But if he had bit you, you would already be dead,” I informed him. “Come on Mr. Smarty pants, you know this. You can’t tell me with all those random facts floating in that photographic memory of yours, you don’t know that it takes about fifteen minutes to die from a cobra bite. Rattlesnake, you’ve gottwo to three days. It’s fine. Dad will be here long before that and probably tell you to rub some dirt on it and walk it off.”
“Fuck, don’t make me laugh,” he wheezed, “I told you it’s hard to breathe.”
“Sorry,” I whispered, working my hands against the bindings. If I could just get my…nope, dammit. Frustrated at myself, I yelled, “I still can’t get my hands free!”
“It’s okay, Ro, you tried.” Matty’s voice was shaky and sounded weak. A far cry from the snark he had been dishing out not that long ago. “Is what he said true? Are you pregnant?”
“Yeah.” My voice was quiet in the room.
“And you can’t shift, can you? It will hurt the baby.”
“Yeah. I’m sorry.”
Matty coughed. “Don’t be sorry. You and Mason, huh? I’m happy for you.”
“Matty? Do you know who that man’s father was?”
Matty was silent for so long, I was afraid he had passed out or just wasn’t going to answer me.
“Yeah.”
