Chapter Three

Vivienne Kinley’s throat constricted. She’d lost years in this place?

Two years.

A gripping sensation hit her chest as if something external squeezed. Shaking started in her hands and progressed everywhere. Her heart beat so hard it hurt. Dizziness rocked her racing mind, which scared her and made all of it worse.

How was that even possible when it felt like months? The tranquilizer was made from lotus flowers, which were known to induce a state of forgetfulness. It seemed if the lotus was combined with a powerful elephant tranquilizer, it not only knocked out lycans for hours but also made them amnesic.

“Are you okay?” He shifted a micro movement in her direction, with eyebrows drawn together.

She heaved in a breath and pointed. “Keep your ass parked. I’m fine.”

He held up his hands and leaned back against the wall. “You don’t look fine. I suggest slowing your breathing. Take deeper breaths. It helps.”

Her breaths came in short gasps.

He shifted as if about to move her way.

“Deep breaths. Got it,” she choked out. “You stay.” She would kill this guy if he got near her. At least, she tried to convince herself she would. She abhorred violence to the point where she was the girl who swerved the car at her own peril to avoid animals, and during rain hunted sidewalks for worms to push them back into the grass before they dried out. Being in here had forced her to fight and hurt others, mostly to protect herself. She hated the vicious, paranoid person she’d become.

Long exhales helped. Air moved easier.

The humans had never subjected her to anyone like him. Someone who was almost nice.

Lycan males? Yes. But younger ones who were less experienced and certainly not well-versed in fighting.

Lycans were sexy, especially him, even if he was loopy on the sedative. She no longer trusted those with beautiful exteriors. Based on experience, having lost her heart stupidly to a gorgeous one of her kind, she knew firsthand that the betrayal lycan males could inflict hurt.

His way of speaking suggested he’d been around a long time, which might explain why his latent sexiness was exponentially higher than any lycan she’d ever met. And why he had such disciplined control. Nothing was more attractive and surprising than his restraint.

Lordy, she was losing her bloody marbles. But the power of him, with his long limbs and all those muscles… He was so hot that she felt woozy and turned on at the same time. He cannot be sexy in your head. He’s a stranger.

The second his greenish-blue eyes had first met hers, she couldn’t remember what came out of her mouth or whether he replied. His stare sucked thought right out of her head. That whole thing about the moon being blue was only half her screwing with him and half from her brain glitching as she fought to find coherent thought.

In her mind, she started a list. Lists kept her focused, and arguably sane while locked in quarantine. She could create a list for almost anything, so a list of what she knew about him came up right now. First, he was a fighter, built into every line of his thick muscles, huge body, and tall frame that had to be almost six-foot-five. His biceps alone were gigantic. Second, there was something about him beyond physical appearance. Something beneath the skin. A deeper confidence? A purpose or drive? She couldn’t put her finger on it. She believed him when he said he’d leave her be, unlike the male previously thrown into a cell with her who gave in to the drive to mate within a half hour. A hint of the moon, and that guy had attacked, forcing her to fight him. They’d fought for hours until he bled so much the humans zapped her collar and removed him. Third, she detected some form of bad magic inflicted on this guy. It made him somewhat vulnerable in a way that put a few points on the pity card.

This list sucked. She wasn’t assessing important information. She was dwelling on his biceps.

The last thing she wanted was to be stuck in a cell with the full moon rising while being at the peak of lycan heat, and tempted by someone like him. Being in heat happened only once every three years for most lycans. And occurred only on a full moon. During the nightmarish twenty-four hours, unless she had sex, which she’d never done during this time, she was racked by a continuous hormonal drive to mate that was so intense, it grew painful. Sex during this time was the only way for a lycan to become pregnant.

She had to unglue her fixation on this enormous guy’s chest, where tattoos peeked out of the dip in the scrub top. His body, still damp from a bath or maybe the rain outside, was full of deadly promise. She bet he could put his body to use for far more than killing. The power of him…

Her abdomen clenched as a wave of painful desire rippled through her. She bit her lip against a moan and looked away from him.

Not thinking about the way his arms flexed as he rested his head in his hands or how thick his forearms were. Not boarding the sexy train. He wasn’t the right male. And she certainly wasn’t the right female.

But everything about him made her mouth water. This was trouble.

Big trouble.

Think about Nova. It’s why you’re here. You have to find her. Her older sister was the only family she had left. It wasn’t Nova’s fault they’d both been caught. It was hers. Her need to find her sister was why she hadn’t fought or planned escape every waking moment. She needed more information on where Nova was being held before she left.

He lifted his head from his hand and pulled back his damp hair, which was drying blond. Oh, Holy Mother, the angles of his face and that sculpted nose, and the deep hue of his green-blue eyes… She slammed her eyelids closed. This was going to be a very long night.

“Are you okay?” His eyebrows drew together.

“Damned if I know.” She felt as if someone held her by the throat and slowly suffocated her.

“Breathe,” he whispered.

She tugged in a few rough breaths and rasped out, “Years. I’ve been in here for years.” Her voice cracked. “How’s that possible?”

He stood. She tensed, fully prepared to fight if he offered her an ounce of physical comfort. That she couldn’t handle. It’d for sure push her over the edge and make her cave to temptation. Then it’d be her attacking him, and not to push him off. Her heart escalated as he took a step closer. Desire rolled through her.

But he turned away to evaluate the door. With a hand outstretched, palm toward the door, he stood frozen as if willing it open with his mind. Maybe they hit his head a little too hard during his capture so that he believed he had Jedi powers. She almost called out to warn him not to touch the door, but he seemed happy to remain several feet away from it.

His back end was built as solidly as the front.

No looking. Oh, so looking. Gorgeous view. Round, muscular, tight.

With a curse, he sat down.

He crossed his arms and glared at the door. “I can’t open it yet. This drug is fucking with my abilities. Everything about us in here is wrong.” He released a long exhale of air. “I swear to God—whom I know exists, since I’ve met one of his angels—I won’t be manipulated into this with you. Not by a bunch of psychotic humans. We’re getting out of here.”

For the first time in ages, she felt an unexpected release of tension as if she believed him.

She observed him for long minutes as he closed his eyelids and pretended to ignore her. He remained tense, obviously as fully aware of her as she was of him.

“My name is Vivienne. I go by Vivi.” She shouldn’t have given him her name. A name had power. But she believed him when he said they’d escape. Her breath bottled up in her chest as a floaty sensation tingled her limbs. Somehow, his words lifted the weight of being trapped and of having lost years to this place.

Years.

Oh my God.

She had to escape. The find-Nova plan needed to be accelerated. She’d thought it might be a few weeks since she last saw Nova, but it’d been years. First, she needed out of this cell to be free to roam and get access to one of the humans’ computers.

“I’m Ky. Short for Kylan, but no one calls me that. I don’t even know why I told you. I never tell anyone, because they like to use it when they think it’s important to get my attention. Don’t use it. My full name makes me a little”—his eyes widened—“angry.” He stared at the door again. “As soon as this drug wears off, I’ll open the door.”

He had an escape plan, one she fully intended to capitalize on. “You got some sort of magic up your ass, Ky?”

“Something like that.”

She perked up. Was he a typical lycan who was repelled by the concept of using big magic? Lycans used little bits like their glamour but nothing significant beyond that. Their society as a whole distrusted witchy and elemental magic. With good cause. Witches tried to purge them from the world in the last century. The ruling Lycan Council had made magic use illegal. She didn’t fit with their society, since she believed in elemental magic, which used natural elements like wind, water, and fire as power sources. Her whole family were elementals, unlike witches who used spells, potions, and curses.

Now she had questions for him, but asking would reveal herself to be more than someone fascinated by magic. Not doing that.

They fell silent. The storm raged above. They might not be able to see the luminous full moon in the dark sky, but she felt it. Its hidden gibbous state pulled her downward into a primal condition where all she felt was the instinct to mate. Minutes stretched to feel like hours as the lust racing through her worsened.

Ky leaned forward to bury his face in his hands. His forearms flexed, large, tattooed, and powerful. She squinted into the dark to try to make out the designs of his ink.

Her body tensed, hard, as sensation roiled through her, bunching muscles and spiking nerves straight to her core. This was far worse with a guy several feet away. A super-hot one.

The pain of desire tormented her. Need to lie flat. She stretched out on the bench and breathed through it. Each shaky, indrawn breath ricocheted pulsations of lust.

“Vivi,” he said low, not uncovering his face. The mere name rolling off his tongue ignited nerves that spiked through her breasts. He leaned forward, dropped his hands, and cursed. “I’m no saint. Christ, you’re—” he rasped out at a whisper. “I swore I wouldn’t touch you, and I won’t, but… Can you do anything to tone down the hormones? That sounds stupid when I say it out loud. Of course you can’t do anything.” He dropped his head lower toward his legs and shook it from side to side. “We’re both fucked.”

“I’m trying,” she whispered. “I’d curl into a corner and try to disappear, but everything is all cramped tight. Hurts. This is the only position that helps the muscles relax.” Distraction. They needed something else to think about.

She crossed her legs and stared at the skylight. She’d been through her time of need before, but this was the first time she remembered it happening in this prison. Her mind rolled through gyrations about her time here, trying to rewind and account for all the lost years with little success. She was about to fall into the rabbit hole of panic.

His studious scrutiny of her zeroed in on her arm.

Shit.

His eyebrows shot upward. “That mark? You have abilities?”

Was that a judgy tone?

Not the kind of distraction she wanted. She threw a hand over the red, raised magic sigil on the skin of her left arm. Her mistake to show the stylized pyramidal shape called Dragon’s Eyes. Use of the elemental magic necessary to induce such a mark was punishable by death, something she knew only too well, since her parents had paid that price. Her screw-up had exposed them, but her parents had shielded her and Nova. They’d kept them out of the Council’s eye. The risk of Ky turning her in faded into the background. The largest threat lay in the humans here who listened to them. She snuck a peek at one of the three cameras on the ceiling. If they found out she was more than lycan… She shuddered. They’d do tests on her to try to find out her abilities beyond normal lycan ones. She rubbed a hand over her chest as images flashed into her head of her on a table, flailing as they hit her with jolts of electricity.

Something that had been buried deep in her subconscious. Something she didn’t want to remember. Maybe they’d tried to erase it? What else had been taken from her mind?

The fact they’d done things to her and stolen her memories meant she had to find Nova and get out of here before she lost more than just time.

With a swallow, she realized he still stared at her.

“What mark?” she choked out way too late to be believable. One more meaningful glance at the camera above the door. Maybe if she played off as unaware, he’d buy it. She rotated her arm to look and traced the raised stylized triangle. “Do you know what it is? Did they brand this onto me one of the times I was drugged?”

Come on. Buy me playing stupid.

His lips compressed. He wasn’t going to go with it. “That’s a mark of elemental—”

“Stop talking,” she said in Gaelic to him as she rose to a sit. She risked him not understanding. She chinned toward a ceiling camera. The humans didn’t understand it. She’d tested them multiple times. “They watch.”

He glanced up.

Did he understand?

In Gaelic he asked, “Can you use magic?”

He understood and could converse. Advanced linguistic skills. Call her impressed. Few knew the old language. It confirmed her suspicion he was much older than he seemed.

The magic? She’d only begun entry-level magic before her parents’ deaths. Prior to that, she’d done hiccups of instinctual things, even if she was nothing like her sister. She’d struggled with basics like starting a candle with a finger snap or heating water for tea with a wave of her hand. Those were easy things to an elemental who could control fire.

With a headshake, she moved to make sure the mark was facing away from him. She’d vowed never to use magic again for anything, not since her mistake led to her parents’ deaths and she and her sister had been captured by these freaks. All her fault and the freaking magic’s.

He crossed his arms and said low in Gaelic, “It’s important we get out of here. I don’t care about society rules. If this drug wears off, I’ll prove it. If you can”—he glanced meaningfully at the door—“it’d make things easier.”

“No shit it’s important we get out of here.” Helping him get out of this cell would get her out of the Temptation-Island hell that’d been thrust on her.

They lapsed into silence. Periodically, she squirmed to get comfortable. A brief glance at him found him rigid and gripping the sides of the bench with both hands as if holding himself in place.

Then his stomach let out a loud growl.

He glanced down at it. “They give us any food in here?”

She giggled. Freaking giggled like a teenager. “Sure, there’s a mini-bar next to the toilet,” she said sarcastically. “Take what you want and put it on my tab.”

He rested his head against the wall and closed his eyes. “I could go for a whisky.”

The long column of his throat fascinated her, right up to the edge of his jaw, where bristles of new hair growth started. Its color was light, probably blond like his longish hair, which fell past his ears but above his shoulders.

She said, “This night is going to get a lot worse. I can’t control it. You have to try to take your allure down a few pegs. I’m…” She swallowed hard. “If it gets too much, knock me out.”

His eyes flew open, and he rocked forward—she thought there was some gray mixed with his green and blue in those irises, but she needed better light to see. The intensity of his regard stole her breath. He might’ve reached his breaking point.

Unflinchingly, he said, “No.”