Page 6 of Caged By the Ruthless Thief

How do we get in it?

The front is an airlock. Come.

He pushes the button on his ring, and the entire roof opens up. Water floods into it. I’m not sure how saltwater rushing against such advanced electronics is a good idea. But there’s a lot I don’t understand.

Eros heaves the propulsion unit behind the driver’s seat and helps me in. He reaches across me and helps me buckle up. It’s beyond weird having water all around while sitting in what, to me, is a car. He’s buckled next to me, and with a push of a button, the roof encloses us inside.

Ready to shift?

I nod. And the water rushes out of thesolowith a roar. When it does, air rushes around us like a vacuum. I’m lifted from my seat. My hair is everywhere, in a tornado around me. My hair elastic is long gone. It’s shifting in a windstorm that could whisk anyone off to Kansas.

“Holy Harold, Eros.” When the wind stops, I’m still gulping air like I might disappear down the drain ducts with the rest of the seawater. My hair...I can’t even begin to imagine what it must look like. I run my fingers through the ends, but I’m barely able to comb through a few inches.

“I should have warned you about that.” He winked at me.

“Ya think?” My eyes might bulge out of my head. “I guess you tried. Maybe be more specific next time. Anything else you want to tell me?”

“Nothing else to bring up. Other than it’s going to take a while. I’m not the golden boy. We have to take a slightly different route.”

“Oka-ay.” I draw it out. “You’re going to make it back in time to help Nico?”

“Yes.” His jaw snaps shut.

We’ve been going for a long time. I don’t mean to drift off, but I do, and when I wake up, there’s a blanket over my shoulders. A blanket with a wet spot under my chin from where I’ve been drooling.

I glance up at Eros next to me. “Hi.”

“You fell asleep.”

“Yes, sorry. Swimming always does that to me.” Not that I used to swim before all of this, but he doesn’t need to know that. I did more wading or flailing. I sense he’s got tons of secrets he’s keeping from me, so I can keep a few things back from him too. Like how, until I arrived at the Veiled City, I couldn’t swim at all. Or how I was afraid of the water.

“I want you to trust me.”

Darn these Dorian males. It’s like they can read my mind. “Trust is something that’s earned with me.”

“Me too. But you fell asleep with me. I’ll take that. It’s a good start.”

I didn’t think about it, but that’s true; falling asleep with someone takes an awful lot of trust.

I fold my arms over my chest and wiggle in the seat. For having so much technology, it’s not a comfortable ride. In fact, my hour-long bus ride to high school each day was more comfortable. I can’t help but squirm in the seat.

“Sorry. The tech takes up a lot of space.”

“It’s fine. It won’t last forever.”

He beams at me. “Nope, just a bit. We’re cloaked and aren’t going to be taking the direct route, sorry.” He’s glancing at me like he wants to talk about something but he doesn’t want to say it.

“Oh. I’ll survive.” I move my legs around. There really is something else, though. “What?”

“Do you know much about shifters?”

“A little.” I rub my eyes. I have no idea where this is going.

“Right.” He presses a button on the console and turns to me. “Do you know about shifter widow illness? Because Dorian have something just like it.”

“I do.” I swallow. If a shifter or a Dorian mate dies, they risk dying from a horrible disease. It’s like literally dying of a broken heart, and it’s one of the reasons why I mated Holter. But that’s a secret.

“I think we should mate.” Eros takes his other hand off the throttle and puts it on my knee. “Autopilot.” He nods at me; I must have made a face.

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