Wild Lands (Savage Lands #2) - Stacey Marie Brown Page 0,2
crashing into everything. Twisting, breaking, and flipping everything upside down the moment you enter.” He smirked, his fingers tapping his full bottom lip. “I have known Warwick for a long time. Ruthless. Cutthroat. Cruel. But with you…” He shook his head. “You even have my sentinels here completely bewitched.”
My gaze dropped to the blond guard behind him. He still stood at attention, but his eyes darted to me, his cheeks blooming with a deeper shade of crimson.
Killian folded his arms over his chest. Even in his fancy suit, I could tell the man was muscular.
“What should I do with you, Ms. Kovacs?”
“Is this a multiple choice or fill in?” I countered. “Because I vote you set me free.”
“I could always kill you.” The sentiment rolled over me like butter, hiding the danger in the velvetiness.
“But you won’t.”
His eyebrows curved up. “And why is that?”
“Because you need me for something. Bargaining. Leverage. I don’t know, but you didn’t scour the Savage Lands for me, lose your greatest asset, and keep me here for weeks just to kill me.”
A slight smirk tugged on his full lips, his eyes running down me. “You are nothing like I thought you’d be.” His violet eyes locked on mine, holding me like I was caught in a web. My heart sped up under his scrutiny. “You’re right. I would not kill you right away, but you’re wrong for the reasons why I want you. I don’t care about your pathetic humans. The ones whose arrogance let them think they have a hold here when all it would take is a word from me to end them.”
“You don’t want to use me for bartering with Istvan?” I swallowed.
“Barter?” Killian’s head tipped back with laughter, the sound plunging tingles of warmth through me, hitching my chest. Fury at my body’s response to him showed on my face. I tugged my legs tighter into my frame.
“What would I possibly need to barter for, Ms. Kovacs? I am quite curious what you think I’d need from your kind.” He tipped his head to the side. I pinched my lips together, not answering. “You humans always believe you are far more important than you are. Your lives, your needs, are above all else: earth, animals, nature’s resources, even people of your own species.” He smiled. The flare of something feral underneath his pristine image radiated off him, his eyes flashing. He leaned into my face, and I could barely breathe. “But it’s a lie, Ms. Kovacs. You can all walk around in your delusions, telling your offspring the same falsehoods. But your species is at the bottom of the totem pole. And in a blink…” He snapped his fingers against my cheeks. His breath brushed down my throat, hitching my own breath. “You can be taken out.”
Air ripped raggedly through my airways, his words settling in around me. This whole time I thought I would be a carrot to be dangled, a prize to be used against the Human Defense Force’s general. It was something Istvan always warned Caden and me about—that our enemy would use us.
“So, what do you want with me then?” Dread sparked with adrenaline tore through my nerves.
“Wrong question.” His voice slipped down my neck, spearing my skin with shivers. “It’s what am I already doing with you, Ms. Kovacs.” His fingers slipped over my ear, tucking a strand of hair, sparking goosebumps down my flesh. “You are turning out to be far more interesting than I could ever have imagined.” His proximity pinned my spine to the wall, my lungs hitching as fear rushed into me. His eyes drifted over my face. “I can’t figure out why you are different from the others. Why have you not succumbed? How are you able to resist it when no others have?”
“What others? Succumbed to what?”
A sneer curved his mouth, his violet eyes glistening. He stepped away from me, his hand digging into the pocket of his jacket, pulling out a tiny pill, holding it up.
My gaze dropped to the object, my throat clogging at the sight of the neon blue pill between his fingers. I recognized it instantly, the color so unique. It was the same kind I had stolen from the train the night I got captured.
“As soon as I discovered who you were, I had your items sent here from the night you were apprehended. I was curious. Why would the ward of General Markos be on the train robbing from her own kind?”