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I opened my mouth to do just that when someone cleared his throat.
“I’d let you two finish, but I have a feeling this isn’t going to be a quickie so…”
Fane turned to stone against me, and his fingers vanished from between my legs. “What are you doing here?”
“Well, since you didn’t show up when you were supposed to, I figured you might be in trouble.” The guy’s chuckle tumbled out like warm honey. “I was right.”
Fane backed away, but his hands remained on me, one gently around my throat and the other on my hip. I peered beyond him, and my brows knit at the demon casually leaning against a dingy angel statue, looking so out of place in his sleek black suit.
“Hello, Tatum Teague.” Lord Ruin Bacchus tipped his head. “I’m glad to see you alive and well, especially considering the circumstances.”
“Uh, hi.” I returned my attention to Fane whose gaze remained on the tree behind me. “What’s going on?”
The demon lord of Savannah smiled. “Since Fane missed our meeting, I came to collect what’s mine.”
Cold descended through my bloodstream as a sinking feeling washed over me. “Fane?” When the demon shifter didn’t answer me, I spoke to him through our mental link.“Fane? What’s going on?”I gripped his chin like he’d done to me multiple times.“Fane!”
“I didn’t have a choice.”
The world slowed as all the puzzle pieces fit together, and I watched them form a picture that stole every ounce of warmth from me. Lord Ruin Bacchus had been the one to hire Fane to steal the Infernal Sol from Karn. And since he couldn’t figure out a way to separate it from me, the demon shifter sold me out.
“How much?” I asked, my voice so icy I was surprised frost hadn’t crawled over my flesh. “How much did he pay you for me?”
“It’s not you he wants,” Fane hissed.
“But he gets me anyway.” I shoved him off and darted to the left, zigzagging between the rows of headstones and statues, dodging tree limbs and Spanish moss. My muscles burned and ached as I fought to escape yet another prison.
Fane Maverick had been my jailor for weeks, and I hadn’t even realized it. My time with him always had an expiration date. I just didn’t know he’d hand me over to Lord Ruin Bacchus.
He should have just killed me.
Glowing eyes popped through the shadows, and movement registered around me. My heart pounded out a wild, frantic beat as I jumped over a small stone wall while a presence closed in behind me.
I leaped over a granite slab and a small marble cherub, a line of sweat leaking down my forehead. A dux demon materialized through the shadows on my left, heading straight for me.
Shit!
My boots skidded to a stop, and I changed directions only to have an arm slam into my torso, taking me to the ground.
The air catapulted from my lungs, and fire slashed over my side where the stab wound hadn’t quite healed. Stars erupted in my vision, morphing into black spots as a heavy form crushed me into the softened ground. The loamy scent of soil combined with decay made me gag.
“You’re not going anywhere, vessel.” One of the two dux demons that met Fane and me outside Karn’s mansion last night grinned, his teeth sharpening in seconds. “I will bite your feet off so you can’t run if you try to escape. Your screams will be a sweet song that—”
The demon went airborne and was tossed into a creepy marble statue of a little girl, demolishing it.
Fane Maverick moved nearly as fast as a vampire, eating up the space between them. His talons flashed as his hand swiped through the air and decapitated the demon like he was made of soft clay.
I scrambled to my feet, ignoring the stabs of pain, while another dux demon approached from the right. Fane cut him off and released a ferocious roar that shook the statues and sent birds scattering into the starlit heavens.
“Touch her, and I will rip your spine from your mouth and use it to cut your ugly head off.” His voice had lowered several octaves, each syllable crashing into the next with a menacing force that had my limbs trembling. If the vivid image he painted wasn’t enough to scare the dux demon, then the curling of Fane’s shoulders and steam rising from him as he came close to shifting into his demon wolf definitely did.
The color drained from the demon’s face, and he shuffled back.
“We had a deal, Fane.” Ruin’s voice echoed through the shadows in multiple directions. “You know what’s at stake, and you can’t back out now.”
My ragged breaths filled the cemetery as I contemplated my escape plan. Ruin was out there somewhere with who knew how many minions.
Something cold pressed against my wrist, and I didn’t move fast enough to stop the heavy cuffs from locking my hands behind my back.
