He handed the rest of the pills to me. “That proves nothing,” I told him stubbornly, and he lifted an eyebrow.
I was learning he wasn’t a man of many words. “You could be hiding the pill in your mouth or something.”
“Believe me, if I wanted to kill you, I wouldn’t have gone through the effort of kidnapping you. You’ll learn that I’m a very busy man, and I don’t usually play with my food,” he drawled.
My head felt like it was splitting in half, which was the only reason I took the pills. It was either die by headache or die by poison.
Hendrix passed me an unopened bottle of fancy-looking water and then went back to reading whatever was on his tablet.
I popped the pills into my mouth and swallowed some of the water. The effect was almost instantaneous. Almost as soon as I swallowed them, my headache was gone, just like that.
“Fantastic, isn’t it?” Hendrix mused. I looked at him in shock, but he was still studying his tablet.
“How did that work so fast?” I asked.
“It’s a little something one of my doctors came up with. I like to be on the cutting edge of everything, and my clients do like their painkillers,” he explained.
I looked down at the band on my wrist. Having medicine like that available would’ve been handy in the past. My healing didn’t work like a real shifter with the bands on…speaking of bands.
“You said you could offer me the world. You could start by taking these off,” I snapped, holding out my wrist.
Hendrix’s eyes burned with disgust as he stared at the band.
“We’ll be taking care of that as soon as we get to the compound,” he said through gritted teeth. I watched in awe as razor-sharp claws extended from his hand before abruptly disappearing as he cleared his throat and seemed to get ahold of himself.
The claws had been at least five inches long. They looked like the freaking raptor claws in Jurassic Park. I’d never seen claws like that on a wolf shifter before.
I eyed him questioningly, but his face was perfectly blank. I’d think about that and his use of the word “compound” to describe his house later on. There was a more pressing matter…
“Why can’t you take the bands off now?” I asked, and my wolf huffed in agreement with my question.
“I’m sorry, little wolf, whatever magic they used for those bands requires a witch. And I don’t happen to have one of those around. I tried to take it off while you were sleeping and it zapped me. There’s a witch on one of the islands nearby though. I’ll have her summoned as soon as we arrive.”
Before I could question him about the million things he’d just so casually mentioned, ringing filled the cabin.
Hendrix pressed a button on a panel next to him. “Is it done?” he snapped succinctly.
A chuckle filled the cabin…a sexy chuckle. Who were all these guys who managed to sound like sex when they laughed?
And what was wrong with me that I was even thinking about that?
“The deal went through. Farsi wants two thousand of the AR 500s. He barely blinked at the price.”
“Excellent. Leak news of the purchase to our old friend. Then call the Russians. Tell them they’ll be needing the ARs shortly, and double the price. Lev won’t hesitate after he hears about Farsi’s purchase.”
My mind was whirling. AR 500s were guns. Fancy guns, if I was remembering correctly. Anton was a collector of weaponry, and I knew he had that one displayed in his office with a million sensors surrounding it just in case someone wanted to steal it. What was this talk of Russians though? What did this guy do for a living?
Looking around, it was obvious that he was wealthy. This limo was even fancier than anything I’d seen in the movies, and staring at Hendrix in the daylight made it clear that everything about him just screamed wealth. He was wearing a black button-down shirt, made of a super shiny material that looked so soft I was almost tempted to touch it. The shirt was unbuttoned to show off the top of his sculpted chest, of course. Because the eye candy on his face wasn’t enough, apparently. He had to have what looked like a fantastic drool-worthy body too.
“I’d advise you to stop looking at me like that,” Hendrix growled, and I realized that the call had ended and he’d caught me drooling over him.
“I wasn’t looking at you like anything,” I told him, and this time it wasn’t a hint of a grin that I got, but a full-fledged smile that almost made me gasp. It transformed him from beautiful…to otherworldly.
I turned my attention to the window on the other side of me because I knew there was no way I could hide the effect he’d had on me with that smile.
“Wow,” I murmured as I looked out, and I leaned closer, trying to see through the screen he’d put up earlier to block out the sun.
The ocean was out there. The screen began to retract, giving me a clear look at a view I never thought I’d see. The Hallow Sector had been barren, ugly…dry. I’d kind of thought that it was a fitting landscape for the state of my life. I’d heard that the ocean was only a few hours away, but it might as well have been on the other side of the world.
My wolf circled around inside of me, just as delighted about the view. If Hendrix was telling the truth, and he actually got these bands off of me…well, I knew my wolf would be just as excited as me about that. I could tell she was already picturing running in the sand and jumping in the waves.
I’d always been a big reader. With all the medical procedures after the fire, I’d gotten really behind in school, and no one had bothered to help me catch up. So I read. There was a small library in the town that hardly anyone used, and whenever I got breaks I would sneak over there. They didn’t get new books very often, so I’d gone through all the books in the building several times, but it had been my escape, the only time I could see the world.
For some reason, there had been a whole aquatic section in the library, a little strange for a town located in a desert-type climate. For a while, I’d been obsessed with reading everything that I could about the ocean. I’d gotten lost in the pages of Treasure Island, learned all about Great White Sharks, and gone 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.
But I never thought I would get to see the ocean in person.
I watched in awe as the waves lapped against the sandy shore. Families were playing on the beach, girls laying out under the sun, and surfers cresting the waves in the distance. The water was a light blue color, so light it reminded me of Hendrix’s eyes.
Not that I was thinking about his eyes.
I turned to see that he was watching me way too knowingly, like he could see everything that was in my head, see the desperation I’d felt for so many years being trapped in that place.
“You mentioned that the witch lived on a nearby island. Does that mean you live on an island?” I asked quietly, trying to hold in how excited the thought made me.
He nodded, his gaze trailing across my features thoughtfully as if he’d just come up with a plan. “We own several islands. Our main compound is located on the largest one, but we have people and different businesses that live on the others.”
A wave of exhilaration passed through me. Even if I was trading one prison for another, at least there would be a better view.
That was, if they kept me alive.
I turned my gaze back to the beautiful scenery, going over everything that I knew about Hendrix so far.
Still a whole lot of nothing.
“Have you ever been out of the Hallow Sector?” Hendrix asked. I glanced at him. He was typing away on his tablet.
“No. I haven’t. But I always…wanted to.”
“Hmmm..” he said, without adding anything else.
I sighed as I went back to the pretty views, neither of us saying a word. I tried to keep my eyes open, but the gentle purring of the car, combined with the classical music that was still drifting through the speakers, soon pushed me gently into dreamland.