Not that it mattered at this point.

Jerry got behind the wheel, looked back at me with hard hazel eyes in a craggy face beneath receding brown hair. His gaze traveled to my chest and stopped there in a brazen leer, and I didn’t have to fake my slight recoil.

Sonny slid in beside me and made sure I was buckled, then nodded to Jerry, who gave me a nasty smirk before he turned to face front again. As soon as the car moved out, Sonny zip-tied my wrists together in front of me then tapped my wrist twice, face impassive. I dropped a quick glance down, relieved to see the notch he’d made in the plastic. If things went to shit I could snap it without too much injury to myself.

“Where are you taking me?” I remembered to ask in a quavering voice, carefully balancing how calm I felt with what I figured a normal kidnapped woman would feel in this situation.

“To a place you’re going to stay a while.” Pain and guilt flashed in his eyes for a sliver of an instant before he shuttered it. If I hadn’t been looking right at him—and known what it was—I’d have missed it. He hated this. Hated who he’d become.

A place I’m going to stay a while. I twisted my face into an I-might-cry expression to mask the fury that swept through me. All of those girls, yanked out of their lives to be sold to the lords. I hadn’t thought it was possible to hate Rhyzkahl any more, but that hatred flared supernova hot now. And Farouche. I fully intended to make absolutely sure that motherfucker went down in flames.

I pygahed, since even Sonny’s talent couldn’t fully tamp down the spike of fury, and did my best to look scared and not like a fucking pissed off bitch. “I don’t understand. Who are you people?”

“My name’s Sonny and that’s Jerry,” he told me. “That’s pretty much all you need to know right now.” He reached to the front seat and retrieved a black cloth bag. “Time for you to wear this,” he said, holding it up. Not a bag. A hood. “You gotta trust me,” he added, with another touch of calm. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

I’d been prepared for this, so I faked a tremble and allowed him to slip it over my head. Pygahing again, I extended all senses and listened as Paul murmured location updates in my ear, for which I was surprisingly grateful. Sure, Sonny was on our side now, and Mzatal would have detected any hesitation or duplicity on his part, but I was still going undercover into a snake’s den. Paul’s running commentary was a reminder that I had a significant safety net.

But more importantly, Paul’s periodic murmur of my name in my ear helped me maintain my Self against the role I played. I’m Kara, I repeated silently. No one else but Kara.

After about an hour I heard gravel crunching beneath the tires. A few more turns, and the car slowed to a stop, then I heard the hum of the driver’s window going down.

“Any problems?” A man’s gruff voice from outside the car.

“Smooth as silk.” That was Jerry.

“That’s the best way. Unit twenty-three is prepped.”

The window went back up, and the car started forward again. My skin prickled and arcane flickers abruptly appeared in my othersight. We’d gone through a security gate, I realized as I peered at the wards, smiling within the hood that I could do so without seeing. The warding was good, but even the quick glance was enough to tell me they weren’t demonic lord good.

Sonny placed a hand on my wrist, interrupting my musings about warding. “Here’s what’s going to happen, Amaryllis,” he said. “Once we park. I’m going to get out. You’re going to stay right here in the car with Jerry. I’ll be back in a few minutes, then I’ll open your door and walk you to the place where you’ll be staying. You understand?” He delivered it all in a smooth recitation that told me he’d said this many times before.

I did the scared gulp-thing. “And th-then what?”

“I’ll get you settled in for the night. You’ll be staying here for a while.”

“A while” being less than an hour, I thought grimly, but I made the sort of shocked-scared sound a different girl might make at the terrifying vagueness of his statement.

Jerry drove for a few more minutes before pulling to a stop. “Sit tight,” Sonny told me. “I’ll be back in a couple.” With that he opened the door and departed, taking the palpable sense of calm with him. Damn, that was a hell of a skill.

Jerry certainly didn’t exude calm of any sort. Out of curiosity, I let out a low whimper to see how the hard-faced man would respond.

I heard him shift in his seat. “You got it good, honey,” he said with a low snort of rude amusement.

Sucking in a sharp breath, I stiffened. “What do you mean?”

Fabric slid across leather and, judging from the sounds, I figured he’d turned and laid his arm across the back of the seat to look at me. “Because if you’d been my mark, I’d be having some fun pretty soon,” he said, ugly smile in his voice. “Can’t say the same for you though.”

Shrinking back, I took a few seconds to control the fury. Had he taunted Amber like this during the trip to Austin? “D-don’t you dare touch me!”

He let out a dry chuckle. “You get turned over to me, and I’ll touch you all right. You’ll be begging me to stop, but I won’t.”

Teeth clenched, I seethed but let out another whimper to stay in character. The rape of Amber had been part of his goddamn job. How many other women had he been allowed to use simply because they were available? Even one was too many, and I knew damn well the number was far higher.

“Oh, yeah,” he drawled. “I’ll have some fun with you when they’re done playing around.”

“Kara,” Paul murmured in my ear. “Please wait until after you do your thing in the server room to feed this asshole his balls.”

I smothered a laugh and had to quickly turn it into something that sounded like a frightened sob. But if Sonny doesn’t return soon I probably will blow my cover and commit violence against this worthless piece of shit.

As if my thoughts summoned him, the door beside me opened. “Come on out,” Sonny said. I did so, weirdly relieved as the calm descended again and hideously glad to get away from Jerry. Sonny took my arm, then paused. “Goddammit, Jerry,” he said, voice tight with anger. “I’ll deal with you later.”

Interesting, I thought as he led me away. He’d sensed that Jerry had fucked with me. Jaw tight, I moved where Sonny guided me: gravel and then a sidewalk beneath my feet. I actively sank into the ease he projected, using it to center myself.

He paused long enough to open a door, then led me inside, closed it behind us, then pulled my hood off. “No surveillance in here unless I turn it on,” he told me, fatigue and stress coloring his voice. He took a folding knife from his pocket and sliced the zip tie on my wrists.

“Jerry’s a real prince,” I said. “I intend to castrate him with a dull knife, first chance I have.”

A muscle in his jaw leaped, and he nodded. “We need to wait about fifteen minutes before going to the house,” he told me. “It’ll be quieter then.”

“Not a problem,” I said. “I trust your judgment.” I looked around. We were in an open-plan room with kitchen area, table with two chairs, sofa, bookshelves, TV, bed, and a door to a bathroom. All nicely appointed, like one would find in a decent hotel. “How long do the women you bring in for Rhyzkahl usually stay here?”

“Anywhere from a few days to seven or eight weeks,” he said. “And not only women. Three men so far. Ones the boss said deserved harsh punishment.”

I was pretty sure that if the men were sent for punishment, they were going to Kadir. The men were dead or worse by now, but the women were far more likely to still be alive. “Are there any others being held here now for Rhyzkahl?”

He shook his head. “Amaryllis was to be the first of two,” he told me, then looked away. “The ones for him weren’t the only ones—not the only grabs I’ve done.”