Unchained (Men in Chains 3)

“I would agree. It’s amazing.”

He narrowed his eyes. “You’re not afraid of me, are you?”

“No, should I be?”

“I don’t know. I would never want to hurt you, Shayna, but I’m afraid you’ll get hurt.”

She figured something out and moved close to him, putting her hand on his arm. “Until right this moment it didn’t occur to me that what we’re experiencing would be new ground for you as well. But it is, isn’t it?”

“I’ve never worn a blood-chain before.”

“And you’re worried about me.”

He released a heavy sigh. “Yes, I am. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“Okay.” She nodded briskly several times. She analyzed the situation and decided it would be best to forget about this moment and move on.

She’d told Marius she would do this, to look at what she understood to be Daniel’s sex-slavery operation, involving human women, but she’d already made the decision that she needed to return to Seattle. This was not for her on any level. She was in no way trained to be part of what seemed to be a war within Marius’s world or to deal with him personally. “Then how about we shift our attention back to making a trip through Daniel’s operation.”

He turned toward her and held out his arm once more. “Good idea.”

But suddenly Shayna didn’t want to see what it was that Daniel did to women from her world. She’d read enough articles about human trafficking to know that if it came close to any of what she’d learned, the images would probably never leave her mind.

It was one thing to be tucked up in Marius’s bed with a fire burning in his fireplace and hearing about how vampires in his world steal human women and make sex slaves out of them. But it was another to travel halfway around the world and see it in person.

She crossed her arms over her stomach. “Actually, maybe you should just take me home right now. I don’t plan on staying despite how horrible this reality is.”

Marius lowered his chin. “It’s the only thing I’m asking, then I’ll take you home. But I need you to see how bad this is and why, against every principle, I would have brought you here in the first place. I’m asking you to have courage, most likely more than you’ve ever had in your life, and to see beyond your own life and plans.”

She felt sick to her stomach. Why had it suddenly become her job to solve either problem, the war in his world or the issue of trafficking? “Marius, please don’t make me do this. I just want to go home and resume my life.”

Only then, when she lost heart, did he come to her, planting his hands on her arms. “You can do this, Shayna, and I need someone from your people to see what’s being done to innocent humans. We’ve lived a secret life apart from your human world, but maybe that needs to change in order to protect women just like you.”

Taking the ball out of the vampire court and lobbing it into her very human one calmed her down. She knew in her gut she had to do this thing. Maybe he was right. Maybe if she saw what was happening, she could report back to the US authorities and get the kind of help that was really needed to resolve the issue. She could still help, just not in the intense, chain-bound role she was currently assigned.

“Okay. Fine. I’m ready, but I’m really hoping that we’ll do this fast. Get in, get out.”

He nodded, then drew close, offering his booted foot once more.

As she stepped on top of his foot, he slid his arm around her waist and pulled her close. Despite the tension in the air, her proximity to Marius got to her all over again; honestly it was all she could do not to bury her nose in his neck and just take a whiff. Did all vampires smell this good?

Ready?

That he could breach her mind so easily once more sent another layer of sensation flowing through her.

I’m ready.

Still, she flinched as Marius shifted to altered flight and immediately spun them in a circle and headed not up but down. She had that nauseous, roller-coaster feeling You’re traveling fast.

Have to. The speed keeps us invisible, but this will be a short trip.

She put her chained-up hand against his neck anyway. This time she felt a quick surge of power that seemed to set a block in place, preventing the pain. It was wonderful.

The next moment he slowed but didn’t leave altered flight. They hung suspended at the end of a long hallway.

A large, muscled vampire walked away from them, down what appeared to be a central aisle. Minimal lighting was strung along the ceiling in twenty-foot increments of bare, sixty-watt bulbs.

Can he see us? she asked.