Unchained (Men in Chains 3)

Shayna, I’m sorry. I thought this space would have been cleared by now. Let’s get out of here.

No. Wait. You brought me here for a reason, so let’s finish this. Why were so many women killed here and what did it have to do with you?

Marius stayed in altered flight. He’d intended to set down, but not now. He felt the horror return, and for a moment was back in chains forced to watch each death.

Marius, tell me. I need to know.

He gestured in a forward motion. I was strung up against that far wall. Daniel used a whip on me and a dagger at times for deep puncture wounds. He used the pain to try to force me to join him. Each time I refused, he tortured and killed another woman.

Oh, God. She took more deep breaths. Is this why you feel so guilty?

One of many reasons, I’m afraid.

Marius, something is wrong. I’m feeling something strange. I think you need to get us out of here now.

He didn’t know what she meant by that. But the next moment he heard a voice behind him. Hello, son. Have you returned to me at last?

As soon as Marius heard his father’s voice, he reacted on instinct, refusing to turn to face him. Instead he gripped Shayna harder still and a split second later shot straight up through the cavern system, into the air, hurling them both in the direction of The Erotic Passage.

He opened a telepathic channel to Rumy. Daniel found us. We’re coming to you.

Aw, shit. I can’t let you in by either the front or the back door because Daniel left some of his men here in case you came back. Looks like he’s determined to take you down this time.

Then I need fighting support. He glanced back and saw that Daniel was keeping pace and had a large detail with him. I’m thinking we go with one of our earlier plans involving your security team. Daniel has about twenty men with him.

How far out are you?

Two minutes.

Jesus H. Christ. What? Are you like flying at super-Ancestral level?

Hell if I know. I’m just damn determined to save Shayna.

All right. All right. Let me think.

Marius knew there was no place in the vampire world he’d be safe with Shayna, not right now, not with Daniel so close.

Marius had a safe house in New Zealand that Daniel didn’t know about, but if he’d headed there with Shayna, Daniel could have followed them, just as he was doing now.

His only hope was in facing off with Daniel and his force, making use of Rumy’s security personnel. Rumy could summon at least a hundred men, but it might take a few minutes.

The only problem was speed. Rumy would have to orchestrate and pull his team together while Daniel was right on Marius’s ass.

Timing would be critical.

However, Marius was confident he could hold them off long enough for Rumy’s men to arrive.

As he flew the last stretch to Italy, Marius now questioned his wisdom in taking Shayna to the Dark Cave system in the first place. Except that in his desperation, he was hoping against hope that if she actually saw the atrocities committed against her people, then she might be willing to engage with him and help him find the extinction weapon.

It had been a last-ditch effort that might just prove fatal to Shayna. Then he’d have one more death on his hands.

But what else was fucking new?

Rumy came back on the telepathic line. Okay, we’re moving to plan B. I’ll contact you as soon as I have a location locked in, about thirty seconds.

Got it. Plan B involved Rumy setting up a battlefield deep inside the Como system, well away from the various clubs and restaurants associated with The Erotic Passage.

Because Marius was flying at top speed, he could feel that pain piercing Shayna’s head once more; even the power she streamed from the blood-chains wasn’t helping.