SovereignsChoice Read online

  “Hello, Emma,” Emilio Sanchez grates, grinning at me. “Long time no see.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  I open my mouth to scream but Sanchez has a meaty palm slapped over my lips before I can make so much as a whimper. I want to gag at the gamey smell of his hand but I try to bite him anyway. Before I taste blood, he yanks his hand away and backhands me. My head rocks back and I see stars exploding in my field of vision as pain blooms across my cheek. I stagger backward but the satyr catches me by the elbow and drags me back up. He pulls out a roll of duct tape and slaps a thick piece over my mouth while I’m still stunned.

  “Figure that oughta shut you up for a little while, girlie,” he mutters in my ear and proceeds to tape my wrists together too. “Don’t know why you’re so surprised. I brought you the warning this day was coming, straight from the Council itself. Didn’t you get the message?”

  The message… He must mean the cryptic quote in the cardboard box he delivered to me. My head is aching and the world around me is reeling but from the corner of my eye, I see that Lexy has been similarly bound and gagged by another satyr. The save-the-tigers co-ed is long gone. I have a faint hope that she might have run to fetch the campus police…but then I see her body, facedown on the ground.

  “She’ll wake up eventually,” Sanchez grunts, nudging her with the steel toe of his work boot. “The Council said no witnesses—wipe her, Grant.”

  I look on in amazement as a man who is clearly a warlock bends down and presses the tips of two fingers to the unconscious co-ed’s temple. He murmurs a forgetfulness spell and I know when she wakes up she’ll have nothing but a headache and no memory of what happened.

  Male witches are rare and I thought I knew most of them in the community but this warlock is new. Why is he working with a satyr against his own kind? And what do they want from me? I stare at Sanchez uncertainly, looking for clues, trying to figure this out. As always whenever I’m near him I smell burning, hear crying. This time I don’t try to shut it out. I reach for the memory, wondering why it seems so familiar…trying to figure it out. The eyes…the slotted yellow eyes outside my bedroom that night… But what night? Why—

  “You better wipe the other one too,” Sanchez says, nodding at Lexy.

  Lexy shakes her head, her auburn hair whipping wildly around her face as the warlock called Grant approaches her.

  “Hold her,” Sanchez tells the other satyr. He’s a big, burly guy with hands like meat hooks, which he digs into Lexy’s upper arms, making her moan in pain.

  Grant manages to catch my cousin’s chin and press his fingertips to her temple. He mutters under his breath for a moment while she stares at him, wide-eyed. At last he draws back, an unhappy look on his face.

  “Well?” Sanchez demands.

  Grant frowns. “I couldn’t do much. She’s a powerful witch and she has a strong family behind her. They’ll be able to tell she was tampered with.”

  “That’s too fucking bad.” Sanchez spits to one side, a gob of greenish goo staining the concrete walkway. “Finish the job or kill her yourself—I don’t care which. But the Council says no witnesses so there better not be any. Understand?”

  “No one ever said I’d have to work against my own kind when I took this job,” Grant protests.

  “Your kind doesn’t mean shit.” Sanchez’s inhuman eyes narrow and he pokes a finger at the warlock. “And your only job is to do whatever the Council tells you. Now come on, we’re supposed to be there soon.”

  The two satyrs tow Lexy and I off the path despite our kicking and struggling. Grant walks to one side, his lips moving silently in a Don’t Notice Me spell. I can feel his magic tingling against my skin, enveloping us all in a silent, invisible net. We walk right past a pair of campus security guards and neither of them notices a thing.

  It doesn’t take long to get to a windowless black van—the exact kind of vehicle I imagine a serial killer driving. I nearly lose it here, kicking and clawing as well as I can with my hands taped in front of me. Finally Sanchez belts me in the face again, stunning me. I fall to the ground as Lexy makes indignant noises through her gag. I know she wants to come running to my rescue but her own satyr guard has a firm grip on her.

  “Listen up, girlie,” Sanchez says, bending down to look at me. “Settle down if you don’t want more of the same. I’d tell you that I don’t like hitting women but that would be a lie. I really fucking enjoy it—makes me hard, you know?” He grabs his crotch and shakes it at me, laughing. “In fact, when this is all over I might even fuck you.”

  The casual way he says it and the gleam in his slotted yellow eyes makes me cold all over. I feel frozen as they load Lexy and me into the back of the van and clang the doors shut, leaving us in darkness.

  Where are they taking us? I hear Lexy whisper in my head. I want to answer her but the mind voice, also referred to as the “witch-whisper” is yet another piece of magic I was never able to manage. It used to drive me crazy because I could hear everything my cousins said without being able to reply. So I know it’s useless but I can’t help trying to talk back.

  I don’t know, I send in Lexy’s direction.

  In the dimness of the van, I see her eyes widen. Emma, you did it! You talked to me! I heard you! She nudges me with her foot. Try again.

  What do you want me to say?

  Oh my Goddess! Despite the desperate situation we are in, she is suddenly ecstatic for me. You can do it. You can mind talk! I always knew it. I knew you weren’t a dud! First lighting the candles and now this—your magic is finally coming in, Emma. I just know it!

  It’s awesome, I admit. I don’t know where the magic came from but the sensation of it pouring into me slowly, like an empty cup being filled one drop at a time is undeniable. But it doesn’t get us any closer to getting out of here.

  What does Sanchez want with us, anyway? She shivers. Ugh. I always hated him.

  I don’t think it’s us they want—it’s me, I send grimly. Maybe….maybe Aiden was right about him having a lot of enemies that want to get to me. Just thinking it makes me feel sick. What are they going to do with me? Will they kill me just to make Aiden mad? And who are “they” anyway?

  Sanchez said something about the Council. Lexy sends back and I realize I have let the last thought slip past my mental barrier. Do you think he meant the Vampire Council?

  I have no idea. I hope not. I can’t imagine being brought before that most ancient and powerful ruling body. Why would theywant to see me?

  We mind talk back and forth together over the twenty more minutes the van is in motion but neither Lexy nor I can solve the mystery. We do, however, make a plan of escape. Having our hands bound and our mouths gagged rules out casting a spell. But we can still kick our captors in the balls when they open the van. We wait, lying on our backs, tense and terrified but determined to do whatever we can to get out of this situation.

  The van has been moving smoothly up until now but suddenly there’s a lurch and it starts rocking and jouncing over uneven ground.

  We’re going off-road, Lexy sends, her eyes wide with fear. They’re taking us into the wilderness somewhere.

  I want to protest that there isn’t a whole lot of wilderness around Tampa but apparently our captors have found some. We bounce around, being thrown against each other, unable to brace ourselves because of our bound hands. I’ve always been prone to motion sickness and the violent motion makes me nauseous. Then Lexy bumps her head and gives a little cry behind her tape gag.

  I’m still trying to crawl over to her and see if she’s okay when the van stops with a jolt and the back doors swing wide.

  “C’mon out now, girlies,” Sanchez says, reaching in to haul me roughly to my feet. “No funny business or—”

  I kick out and catch him squarely in the balls.

  He goes white, then green, then his face turns a dark shade of purple. But through it all, he somehow keeps his grip on to my arm. I couldn’t get away anyway, I realize with despair.