Calistos (Guardians of Hades #5) - Felicity Heaton Page 0,2

This time, Marinda ignored it. She glanced at the carnage he had wrought, at the nurses who were slowly recovering now he had stopped speaking, several of whom were bleeding badly. She didn’t want to end up like them, and she had the feeling she would if she fought him.

He loosed another inhuman snarl and edged her forwards. He was heavy against her as he held her to him, his weight pressing down on her back, forcing her to support him. She struggled to move towards the door, her legs like jelly beneath her as she eyed the police officers, praying they would get out of his way. Fear crushed her lungs. She felt sure she wouldn’t survive the fight that would break out if they didn’t move.

As she neared them, she threw them both a pleading look. It hit its mark with the younger of the two officers and he moved back a step. The second joined him, easing backwards as the man moved her forwards, using her as a shield.

His grip on her tightened as they hit the corridor, the strength of it surprising her. With the amount of blood he had lost, and was continuing to lose, he should have been weakening, not growing stronger, but she swore he was doing just that. His steps grew surer too, the weight of him against her back lessening with each minute that trickled past as he slowly eased her backwards, keeping her facing the police officers.

He was surprisingly gentle with her as he guided her towards the exit and then out into the cool autumnal night air. He lowered the scalpel from her throat and turned her to face him, a flare of regret in his eyes as they dropped to the point where he had held the blade close to her vein. When his eyes lifted to hers again, she expected him to ask her where her car was.

Instead, he spoke in that unusual language of his and thunder rumbled overhead.

“I don’t understand,” she said in French, unsure he would know what she was saying.

When he clutched her shoulders through her white shirt and shook her, frustration crossing his features, she decided to try English instead.

“I don’t understand. What language is that anyway? Russian? Greek?” It was nothing she had ever encountered on her limited travels. It sounded similar to what her friend Cassandra spoke, although it might have something to do with how frustrated he sounded. Cass rarely spoke Russian outside of the times she was angry about something.

He snarled something else and blue light sparked across her vision, almost blinding her. She dropped her gaze to his right arm and the blue glow emanating from the tattoo of script that ran along the inside of his forearm. Maybe she had fallen asleep during her break and was dreaming all of this, because none of it seemed real.

That feeling compounded when he grabbed her and the light engulfed them.

She shrieked as she tried to break free of him, fighting his hold, and stumbled backwards as he released her. She hit the tarmac.

Or at least she should have hit tarmac.

She looked down at the smooth black ground beneath her that resembled tiles.

And then up at the man as he staggered away from her, muttering things under his breath, heading for an enormous four-poster bed draped with sky-blue linen. He collapsed onto it and rolled onto his back, breathing hard.

Marinda breathed hard with him, the pace of them quickening as she took in her new surroundings, unable to believe her eyes. The pitch-dark walls of the huge room seemed to close in on her as she struggled for air.

She shrieked again when a boom came from behind her and swiftly twisted onto her knees to face that direction.

A beautiful woman with scarlet hair that looked like blood against her pale skin and the delicate layers of her black dress drew to a sudden halt in the doorway, her emerald eyes falling to land on Marinda.

They darted to the man.

Marinda had the ridiculous urge to deny that she had been doing anything to him, that she hadn’t been with him in any fashion—not to harm him or seek pleasure with him.

“What have you done?” the woman whispered, her voice like a summer breeze as she swept towards Marinda.

Marinda lined the words up on her tongue, ready to deny that she had done anything, but then the woman glided straight past her, heading for the man, and she had the feeling