Into Darkness

40

Was that smile of his now admiring? He lowered his head and looked at her through his lashes, something she’d only ever known simpering heroines in romance novels to do. “He said you were a spitfire,” he murmured, and she grimaced at the thought of Dr. Evil describing her that way. It sounded much too . . . chummy. And grossly familiar.

He shook his head. “Please forgive me. I haven’t properly introduced myself. I’m Sebastian Thorne.” He had the nerve to proffer his hand.

Jenna said quietly, “I know who you are. And I’m sure you realize I can easily crush your hand if I wanted to. Or a whole lot of other things I doubt you’d appreciate having crushed.” She managed not to glance at his crotch, but only just.

Without lowering his arm, he said, “Yes, my associate now cooling on the floor of your cell is proof enough of that. However, you’d be dead before you could do any real damage to me. And I think you’re going to want to stay alive to hear my proposition.”

Still not afraid, just calm, cool, confident. She almost envied him his composure; she herself was feeling the first stirrings of an array of unpleasant emotions. He didn’t seem to care one whit she’d murdered his associate. Another “subject,” no doubt.

“You can’t really think I would shake the hand of my arch enemy.”

His brows pulled together. He lowered his arm, looking—the asshole!—wounded.

“There’s no need for us to be enemies, Jenna. In fact, I’d like to think we can become good friends.” He walked slowly to the windows, and clasped his hands behind his back as he contemplated the view. His tone offhand, he said, “As Leander and I have become.”

Everything inside her ground to a halt.

Leander! Leander! Leander! It began slapping against the inside of her skull, that name so long unspoken aloud, the name of the man she loved more than anything else in the world, and always would, regardless that she hadn’t seen him since she came to this place. He’d been ripped from her arms in that hellhole jungle in Brazil, both of them wounded and no longer able to fight, and she hadn’t seen him since.

He was here, somewhere nearby? And had been, all this time? And—she swallowed back the acid taste of bile in her throat—Sebastian Thorne and he were friends?

It was a trick. A lie. It had to be.

Only the thing was . . . he didn’t smell like he was lying. Everything in his posture and scent and bodily functions said he was telling the truth.

Very slowly, Jenna lowered herself to a nearby chair, just looking at Thorne. Waiting silently, while the animal inside her screamed for blood.

Still to the windows, he said, “One of my Enforcement operatives in New Prague captured one of your kind three weeks ago. Name of Alejandro Luna.” He turned his head and peered at her, his blue eyes as fathomless as the deepest reaches of space. “You know him.”

She did. Once the Alpha of the Brazil colony, Alejandro had been bested by his half-brother Hawk in a ritual power challenge. Alejandro disappeared into the jungle in shame just days before the attack by Thorne’s men, and she never knew what had happened to him.

“He was quite the fount of information, that one,” Thorne added with a faint, knowing smile, making Jenna’s skin prickle with dread.

She’d met Alejandro a lifetime ago when she’d gone to Sommerley in search of answers about her father’s disappearance. She hadn’t known what she was then, had only had her dead mother’s cryptic warnings of “If they ever find you, run,” as a guide. She’d been living in the human world with a human mother back in the days when all that meant was that she was different, not marked for death. In the days when what she wanted more than anything else in the world was to solve the mystery of what had happened to her father, and had followed a beautiful stranger named Leander all the way to England to find the answer. Alejandro had visited them there, as had the Alphas of the other colonies, as they tried to determine if she was friend or foe.

So yes, she knew him. And he knew her.

He knew all about her.

Thorne said softly, “Tell me the locations of the rest of the Ikati, and you and Leander will be reunited. You can live here,” he swept out his arm, “in luxury and peace for the rest of your lives. With your daughters.”

Her heartbeat, loud as thunder. Tremors in her arms and legs, her mouth as dry as bone.

“We already know the whereabouts of one of your daughters. Lumina, she calls herself. She’s incredibly powerful, that one. Blew up a good portion of New Vienna the other day. She escaped, but we’re tracking her.” His gaze flicked to the collar around Jenna’s neck. He met her eyes again. “It’s only a matter of time. But you can expedite that process, because you know exactly where she is, don’t you? And where your other daughter is. And where each and every single Ikati on the face of this Earth is, right at this very moment.” His voice had grown softer and softer, until his final words were so hushed they were nothing but a breath of air past his lips.

“Don’t you.”