Page 3 of Mated to the Enemy
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The wine bottle shattered into a thousand tiny pieces as she whipped it up and into the man’s face. Both of them stared in shock, caught completely unprepared by her sudden aggression. Jessica gaped at the stem of the bottle still in her hand, the only fragment still intact. Red wine mixed with blood as it dripped down his skin, pooling around the pieces of glass protruding from his cheek before falling to the floor in a steadily increasing stream.
“Why you little bitch!” the unknown shifter snarled, reaching for her.
Jessica screamed, ducked under his grip, punched him in the dick and took off down the hallway, ignoring the howl of pain that seemed to follow her like a living entity, growing louder as she went. Thunderous footsteps soon followed in pursuit, chasing her down.
She ran like the wind itself, arms pumping furiously, long wavy straw-blonde hair bouncing wildly behind her. Left, then right, a frenzied panic down a straightaway before she reached out to grab a wall panel and swung herself to the left down a side passage. The entire floor trembled as something large went skidding past her, tumbling to the ground as it tried to mimic her turn.
“Leave me alone!” she screamed as whoever—or whatever, she thought, reminding herself of where she was—came after her with renewed energy. “I didn’t hear anything, I swear!”
It didn’t make a difference. They weren’t going to take any chances. Not with a secret like that. Jessica had overheard their dastardly plan, and now they would have to silence her. It was nearly more than she could handle. Nearly.
A decade plus of working on a factory line had left her hardened to a lot of things. She’d seen gruesome injuries, and listened to some of the worst dregs of humanity come through her line. She’d long ago learned to defend herself from their advances, some of which had turned nearly violent. All those experiences served her well now, as she was able to immediately determine just how much danger she was in.
The answer: a lot.
Her first priority had to be escaping. Get to the garage, steal a car, and get thehellaway from Moonshadow Manor. Once she had some distance between her and her pursuers, she could think a little more clearly.
“Come here,” someone snarled.
Jessica ducked low on instinct. A second later, a hand swiped through the air where her neck had been. Whoever it was, they were right on her tail. Thankfully, the corridor hit a four-way intersection ten feet ahead. Leaning to her left, she let her body indicate which way she intended to let her momentum carry her. A victorious growl from just behind said her pursuer thought he had her.
But instead of heading left at the intersection, Jessica left herself go nearly limp, hit the wall just before it ended, and rebounded off to theright, pirhouetting as she drew on figure skating skills nearly two decades old, and dashed off down the opposite hallway.
Risking a glance over her shoulder, she saw the same evil shifter she’d hit with the wine bottle stumble to a halt, fooled by her momentum. His eyes followed her, and a grin split his face.
A sinking sensation filled her stomach a moment before she was snatched up in some sort of pale-green cloud. It wrapped around her lower body and lifted her from the ground, keeping her immobile.
“Let me go!” she shouted at the top of her lungs, struggling violently. The more she squirmed though, the more the cloud crept up her limbs, preventing them from moving. Eventually, she fell still when it reached just below her breasts.
The evil-looking man strode closer, and she could see his hand was outstretched toward her, fingers constantly moving back and forth. Was he controlling whatever it was that had her caught up like a fly in a spider’s web?
“I’ll let you go when I’m ready to let you go,” he said, his tone filled with false niceties. “And that will beafteryou tell me just how much you heard.”
Jessica rolled her eyes. “I told you, I didn’t hear anything. Just a muffled voice. I didn’t know you were in the room, and it startled me as I was walking by with the new bottle of wine. Next thing I knew, you were at the door towering over me like you were ready to kill me for some reason. I panicked.”
“And hit me with the wine bottle,” he hissed, making no move to let her go.
“Yeah.” She didn’t apologize. They both knew the game. It might have been Jessica’s first time playing with him, but she wasn’t naïve. “How are you doing this?” she asked, looking down at the green cloud wrapped around her.
“You are living in House Canis, yet know nothing of the world around you,” the man spat. “You’re here on the good grace of charity alone.”
“I’m beginning to suspect you don’t like me very much,” she said casually, trying to distract the man, to keep his attention on her.
“You are a human. It’s nothing personal,” he chuckled nastily. “I despise your entire race.”
Jessica looked him up and down. “You appear pretty human to me.”
“Pah!” the man spat, standing in front of her now, looking up at her as she floated two feet off the ground. “I am amagi, you pathetic inbred fool. I am nothing like you.”
“Uh huh.” Jessica tried to look bored. “If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck…”
The man frowned. “What?”
“Then it falls unconscious like a duck,” she said, altering the old saying as Zoe swung the metal vase at the man’s head.
An instant after it connected, the field holding her disappeared and she dropped to the ground with a yelp. The magi groaned from where he lay on the floor. Could it truly be a magician? Was magic real as well? Jessica had no time to contemplate that. More footsteps were coming, and she needed to get the two of them out of there.
