5
Punishment
Translation of the Prophecy of Lukos
From a manuscript held in the archives of the Royal Society for the Investigation of Mysterious Phenomena
A rend in the earth shall set him free. Signs shall be sent to his disciples, to those who serve him nobly. They will feast in blood in preparation of his rise, until the seventh day before Samhain, when they will fast in honor of the final ascension. And once he steps upon the earth, he shall summon those disciples and they shall stand at his side, an army of unthinkable power and infinite evil.
He shall find the woman bred to be his mate. Vampyre, mortal, and descendent of a god. His mate has been created to destroy God’s creation: man. But as he prepares to launch his army and subject the earth to eternal darkness, the mate of his soul will bear him a son, and that son shall bring him to his knees and take his very life.
His army will continue and much blood will be spilled, and the earth will be plunged into two hundred years of darkness, doom, and strife, and then the world will come to an end—
Something unexpected happened as the woman—Miranda—came for him. Lukos felt it in his mind. It was as though he had thrown open a large door and had let blinding light fall upon him. He’d opened himself to her. He could feel his thoughts racing into her mind, and hers flooded into his.
He had Miranda’s skirts in his hands—a bunched swath of silk that carried her rosy, innocent, and alluringly feminine scent.
This had never happened to him before. Since the first night he had gone into Lucifer’s labyrinth, he had been able to keep his mind closed to anyone and anything.
He had not even experienced this with Serena Lark, the half-vampire woman who he’d believed was his intended mate.
Another smell came to him—the earthy, rich perfume of Miranda’s juices as she rocked in her climax. It called to him. His desire surged. He yanked up her gown and put his mouth to her damp nether curls, letting her skirts and lacy petticoats fall around his shoulders.
Thrusting his tongue out, he licked her creamy cunny, tasting the pleasure he’d given her. With one hand, he freed his cock. He moaned as it sprang from his trousers, standing up to the heavens and pointing to Miranda’s slick passage. The purple lights whirled around her, brighter now. The energy of her orgasm was combining with his magic, lighting the carriage with a beautiful, unearthly purple glow.
It reminded him of a sunset, and that made him bury his face between her thighs and lick her harder.
“Lukos.” She spoke his name breathily. She clutched his shoulders. This was his world—the darkness of a bedroom, the gloom of a carriage, the crisp, cool dark of the forest, where leaves crunched underneath a woman’s arse as she fucked. His world was night, and he could glimpse in Miranda’s mind and see her thoughts were always about sunshine. His only pleasures were erotic ones, and he saw in her heart a great love for family. Dimly, he remembered that—what it was like to be part of family. To love others.
She opened up too much in him, this woman. So he clasped her firm bottom and pulled her quim tight to his face. So he wouldn’t have to think.
You are magical, Miranda. And she was. Her cunny was still pulsing, the walls clutching his tongue as he thrust it in. She tasted of ripe, earthy juices.
Touch yourself, she whispered in thought.
He saw her hands at her breasts, kneading and squeezing.
Her climax had shattered her defenses, and the magic was igniting her natural wanton urges.
I don’t need to, he answered in her thoughts, and he held her hips as she began rocking against his mouth.
She looked down, her now disheveled hair falling free of her pins. It hung in spun-gold waves around her face. He knew his cock was standing proud, bobbing in rhythm to her gyrations on his face.
He still sensed a hesitation inside her, a ripple of fear. He wanted to free her completely. And he knew how to do it. He added another spell to the magic already swirling around the carriage. This one would control them both; it would tap into Miranda’s most private, darkest fantasies and bring one to life.
“What do you mean—my most private fantasies?” Miranda asked sharply.
She realized she was clutching her breasts, her skirts were bunched up on Lukos’s broad shoulders, and he was licking her silly. But she’d glimpsed his thoughts.
And they were extremely naughty.
Since the moment he’d saved her from Ryder, she’d felt a kind of connection with him. Energy crackled when he’d touched her like tiny bolts of lightning.
“Now,” Lukos growled.
Suddenly, the blue lights lifted her, and a stream of blue stars forced Lukos to the floor of the carriage. He was lying on his back. She actually saw surprise—and fear—in his reflective eyes.
She was hovering twelve inches above the floor.
Lukos’s arms were outstretched above his head, and the blue light spun around his wrists, locking them together. The lights transformed into blue velvet—a band tied neatly to bind his hands together. Another band of velvet appeared at his ankles to secure them. And one, to her shock, wrapped around the very base of his . . . his erection, and magically tied a bow.
You dream of being in control. Dominating a man. His deep voice vibrated in her mind.
Blushing hotly, she protested, “No, of course not. What madness.”
Deny it all you want, he chuckled. Why else are my hands bound? I’m enjoying this, my love, and want to share this with you.
She had to admit she liked having him this way. Though she suspected he could use magic to break those bonds whenever he wanted.
The blue lights suddenly rushed around her. Her dress opened by itself, buttons popping free of their loops, one after another, like tiny fireworks. Her bodice fell and was dragged down her arms as though by invisible hands. Her corset laces undid themselves—she twisted to watch—and the ends whirled through the air as they loosened by magic. Her corset dropped just below her bosom; her shift disappeared. Simply vanished, leaving her bared breasts propped on the firm shelf of her corset rim. It made them stick right out, made them look huge, the nipples dark and hard.
The sight was unbearable exciting. It felt wanton and delicious.
Lukos licked his lips.
He grinned. “I can control myself, my dear. Even when faced with the two most perfect tits in existence.”
Even that word in his husky voice—tits—felt deliciously naughty. She wriggled on him, making her breasts sway. Blue lights appeared at the tips of her breasts. “Oh,” she moaned, as the tingling sensation struck her nipples. Then she felt a jolt of agony. A thrilling, shocking pain. She could barely breathe.
Then saw. The lights had vanished, leaving two metal devices that were hanging off her nipples, pinching them. They were lined with velvet, but the pressure was so intense.
The lights swirled again, and her hands were pulled back.
Ropes wound around her wrists, just as they had done to Lukos; then they whirled up her arms and wrapped around her breasts, making a tight figure eight. The ends suddenly threaded through rings on the clamps on her tits. And when she wriggled her hands, she tugged those vice like clamps, and sent pleasure and pain rushing from her nipples to her quim.
Dominating him, indeed. She liked the feel of the ropes.
Surely this couldn’t be her doing? Her fantasy? How she realized, in that moment, she was not a normal proper woman at all.
More ropes materialized, looped around the one binding her hands, and these wrapped in an intricate pattern of knots around her thighs, then encircled her ankles. She was bound, and each time she moved, the roughness of the rope teased her skin.
Her quim ached. She was fluttering the muscles herself. She wanted, wanted, wanted to come again.
“Then put me in your fantasy, love.” He laughed. “I’ll be happy to oblige.”
“Hush, I’m in charge,” she admonished. To her shock, a gag of silk appeared over his mouth, tied so tight she could see the curves of his smile through the fabric. Had she summoned that?
She was lifted by the blue lights and set down on Lukos’s face. Underneath her gown, she wore snug drawers with a lace-trimmed slit. She straddled Lukos’s chest, and he lifted his head, his eyes drinking in the sight of the drawers, pulled taut against her pubic curls. His hips gyrated slightly.
Instead of moving back down toward his groin, she pinned his biceps with her knees, and pushed her hips forward so her now damp and aching quim brushed his chin. She wriggled again, so her sex and its lips—exposed just at the tips—sank down against his gagged mouth. Her drawers and the pretty lace edging were growing wetter and she could smell her potent arousal.
Lukos breathed deeply. She felt his tongue push the silk into her. His mouth worked against her, trying to suck the lips of her sex but unable to capture them. As the blue lights rushed around them, Miranda danced her hips on him, twisting and grinding her mound into his mouth. She rocked ahead to bury his nose into fragrant silk and wet curls through the slit in her undergarments.
Ah, love, I think your fantasy is to torment me.
She heard a rhythmic pounding, turned, and saw his hips lifting and his bottom bouncing against the floor. It was thrilling to be in control—to have her wet, aroused, ripe sex on his face.
Feeling naughty, Miranda turned herself around, her cunny still against his mouth, but her silk-clad bottom pushing against his nose.
The swaying of the carriage sent her rocking against his face.
“You are not to climax,” she admonished, in a deep and threatening voice.
As you wish. I’m your prisoner, and this, my love, is your fantasy.
The erotic smell of her excitement was becoming too much to bear. His silk gag was soaking wet from her leaking fluids and his saliva as he tried to manipulate her with his mouth.
Even bound, he was trying to pleasure her.
She was so excited she could barely think. He thought she wanted to torment him? She could think of no better torture than reaching orgasm on his handsome face while he was destined to remain unsatisfied. The ties at her hands released.
Dipping a finger between her curls, she found her throbbing, aching clitoris—Caroline had told her about that—and rocked on him while rubbing herself. He let out a muffled groan. She wriggled to and fro, engulfing him with her generous bottom and growing closer and closer to an explosion.
His arms and wrists and hands strained at the bonds as she worked faster and faster. His hips began to thrust up in a rhythm to match hers, and she realized he was going to please himself.
“No,” she cried. In a desperate action—without thinking—she bent forward and slapped her hand down on his thick shaft to stop him from moving.
He came. His whole body went tense and arched up from the floor of the carriage. His face lifted, burrowing right into her sopping, melting, eager sex.
There were no more magic lights. Suddenly, Miranda saw that the twinkling blue and purple stars had vanished. Lukos’s magic wasn’t controlling her—she was doing this because she was wild and wanton and she wanted it.
The shocking realization hit her just as she climaxed.
She writhed with the powerful explosion. Lights burst before her eyes—not magic lights, ones triggered in her own head by the wonderful pleasure streaking through her. She was crying out, loud enough to be heard in London.
As it died away, she fell back and hit the carriage wall. Miranda didn’t care. She clutched the two seats to keep upright and greedily sucked in breaths of air.
She had just flown. She had whirled and soared. And now she was damp with sweat and barely able to breathe.
Lukos sat up beside her and she impulsively reached out to him. She put her hand against his broad chest, right above his heart—
Blackness. It enveloped her, and she suddenly couldn’t see anything, even with her eyes wide open. She heard a distant crackle and roar—the sound of flames. She smelled a sharp, acrid odor that made her stomach churn. Footsteps. Shuffling ones.
And rasping breathing. The sounds came from all around her.
She was twisting, trying to see in the heavy, hot darkness. Panic rose. Her limbs were shaking, and they felt numb, unable to move.
Something was coming for her and she was trapped.
An image suddenly appeared before her. It was a young man without hair. A woman grasped his jaw and wrenched his head back. A red light glowed. Suddenly that glowing tip plunged forward and Miranda saw it pierce Lukos’s eye.
She screamed. The vision vanished and another came. She felt pain through her entire body, and she saw Lukos strapped to a smooth rock surface. He was being whipped, punished because he had failed to learn the magic he was being taught that day. Blood ran freely on his back. His brain was swimming with the pain, but some magic prevented him from finding the escape of unconsciousness. She heard a deep, angry voice: I will whip all the rebellion out of you, Lukos. You are my servant. An apprentice of Lucifer. Defy me one more time and I will destroy you. I will have your body torn apart inch by precious inch . . .
The blackness and the images whirled away before Miranda.
They sucked into a glowing point of light, then vanished.
“You were tortured,” she gasped to Lukos. “I—I saw it.”
She shivered and realized she was perched on the carriage seat, her wrinkled skirts spilling out around her. She was shaking.
The blue ropes had vanished, but Lukos was sitting on the floor, staring at her with his brows slanted down over his glittering eyes.
He leapt up to her side and drew her into his embrace. He was the undead, but he was warm, and the fear and icy darkness inside began to fade away. “I saw you being whipped. I saw your eyes—” She had to stop. Just thinking of it made bile rise.
“I felt your pain.”
“Angel.” He crooned it, rocking her.
She could not believe she felt such comfort in the arms of a vampire. But he had been tortured. “Who?” she gasped. “Who did that to you?”
His hands stroked gently. “What did you mean you saw it?”
Halting, she described the vision of him being whipped. Miranda knew it was dangerous, but as she stared into his handsome face, her heart lurched in sympathy.
Lukos wrapped his arms tight around Miranda. He had not embraced a woman to comfort her for a thousand years, not since he had last hugged his sister and had promised her that he would be fine, that his apprenticeship with Lucifer would bring peace and security to his home.
“Are you an empath?” he asked her softly. He had thought her only a mortal woman when he had first seen her on the road; now he realized she was a unique being, one he had never encountered before. If she was an empath—
She had to stay away from the likes of him. His memories of his time serving Lucifer could steal an empath’s mind, could send one into permanent madness. The devil wove magic to block some of the torture and fear, to help his apprentices survive, but an empath would feel it all, without any relief from Lucifer’s shields.
“I don’t know. All I know is that when I touched your heart, I saw images—dark, horrible, nightmarish ones.”
“Don’t touch me there again,” he warned. He did not want her to release his memories. If she could see them in her own head, experience them herself, she risked condemning herself to insanity.
“I felt something. A deep sort of tug in my soul, and I thought I could help you—”
“Don’t,” he snarled. “You can’t dare.” He had to push her away. He had to stop her, and to do that he had to make her see him as an evil demon again. Which was what he was. He brusquely released her and pointed to her dress. “Straighten your skirts or everyone will guess you’ve let a vampire beneath them.”
She jerked back. She moved down the seat away from him, smoothing her clothes. The surprise and betrayal in her eyes lanced his heart. It had been almost a millennium since he’d felt pain there. He remembered now why he had turned that kind of pain into hatred and thirst for revenge. He, who had known torture at Lucifer’s hands, found the hurt in this woman’s eyes crippling. He couldn’t understand it.
She had captivated him with her arousing fantasy. She had not wanted just to dominate him. She’d fantasized of bringing him to his knees with her sensuality. He’d learned what English ladies were like in the nineteenth century. Even though he’d been imprisoned for a thousand years by Lucifer for his act of rebellion, he had been allowed, on each solstice and each equinox, to cast himself into the body of a mortal man.
For one night each season, he had been able to experience life. It was meant to be a torture as much as a reprieve. One night gave him a hunger to live again, but he would be banished from the mortal body with the dawn. As the sun rose, he would find he was once more in his rock prison.
Nearly four thousand nights he’d been free of his prison—almost eleven mortal years. For the first decades, he had spent those nights in search of his younger sister, Ara. Lucifer had taken her prisoner to make him obedient. Had the devil released her as he’d promised?
But he had not found Ara. And after one hundred years of searching on those four nights of freedom, he had known there was no reason to hunt anymore. If she had been freed, she would have been dead. She would have gone on to the afterlife—an innocent, good woman—which meant he, the demon, had lost her forever.
For Ara, he wanted to rip Satan apart with his own hands.
But he needed power to do it—the power of the mate described in his prophecy. He’d thought he could find that power with Serena Lark, the woman who had been the child of the union between Eve, the first vampiress, and a fallen angel. He had thought she was the woman of the prophecy. But Serena had never glowed with the power that radiated off Miranda like a golden halo.
Could he take Miranda’s power and use it to find the vengeance he craved, once and for all?
And he, who lusted for revenge above all else, wanted now to get on his knees before Miranda, kiss her hands, make her forgive him for his sudden cold cruelty, and speak to her heart—
He couldn’t let himself do it.
The carriage door flew open, and Zayan leaped inside, cape flowing around him, eyes silver and wild with feral excitement.
“They are on the hunt for the woman they believe is a witch.
We must—” He broke off, and Lukos saw the vampire’s gaze lock on Miranda’s crumpled skirts. No doubt the vampire could scent the smell of sex in the carriage. Even a mortal man would be able to do it.
Zayan’s eyes turned vivid red with rage.
Lukos tensed, ready to fight to the death—or for them, since they were undead, the ultimate destruction.
It took a great deal of trust for him to let himself be tied up.
Drake Swift pulled at the ropes that bound his wrists and secured him to the posts of the enormous bed. Had he not done exactly the same thing to Serena, long ago, while trying to seduce her and capture her heart? She’d trusted him, and that meant he could not refuse her wish to be the dominant in this erotic game now.
He did trust her. After a lifetime of trusting no one, he would trust his wife Serena and Jonathon, the Earl of Sommersby, with his life. Or rather his existence, not his life, since he was a vampire.
He glanced up now to see his lovely wife. She was pacing at the end of the bed. Her hair hung in loose black waves to the small of her back. Her wrapper was open, revealing her larger breasts and the taut curve of her ripened, pregnant belly. She tapped her chin, letting her gaze slowly slide up his body from bound ankles to secured wrists. Heat rushed over his skin in the wake of her blatantly aroused look. “Now that I have you bound, I am not certain what I should do with you.”
“Leave him there,” urged a masculine voice from the door.
“Leave him and come to my bed.”
“Don’t even think of it, Sommersby,” Drake called out. He craned his neck to see Serena’s other husband—and his former partner when he had been a vampire slayer—lounging in the doorway. “I’d shift shape to a bat and reach your bed before you did.”
Jonathon chuckled.
Serena placed her hand on her hips. “I thought you had both agreed not to argue while I am enceinte. I do not wish my twins to be learning these habits.”
“We’re not arguing,” Drake and Jonathon protested together.
Serena, though married to both he and Jonathon, had taken Jonathon’s name. Drake had insisted on it. She should be a countess, he had decided. English society would not have accepted a love affair between an unmarried woman and an earl, so it had to be marriage. And Jonathon and Serena were obviously so much in love that society would have noticed. Of course, Drake and Serena were deeply in love too. But no one cared who Drake Swift was married to. Only their closest friends knew they lived in a ménage à trois. And those friends were those who knew they were also vampires.
Drake grinned. “I think you should be fair, little lark, and tie
Jonathon up too.” His cock lifted from his groin as she crooked her finger to bid Sommersby to come for a little punishment. . . .
Serena sighed. They had fallen to the mattress in a tangle of heaving chests and sweaty limbs. “A bath,” Drake suggested.
“I’ve ordered one to be prepared.
“Ooh, lovely,” Serena gasped. But she rolled away from him, cradling her heavy stomach. She was a lucky woman to have two such delicious men. Drake would be the leader in bondage games, and she and Jonathon would follow. Then Jonathon would lay her down afterward and lick her cunny for an hour, as he’d done tonight, until she was weak from orgasms and wondering if she could melt away to nothing in sheer sexual exhaustion.
Tonight, she had tortured her two bound men by sucking each one in turn but stopping as they came close to climax. She was certain they could break their bonds, but each played the game. And then, to add to their exquisite torture, she’d slid two ivory wands inside their tight derrieres and one up her own.
She’d ridden them both and climaxed hard for each one, before they had exploded in their own ecstasies.
But now, glancing up, she saw the strain in both men’s eyes.
She knew the men, just as she was, were terrified to face the truth that their twins might not survive. She knew both were working to find a solution in their own ways. Drake through using his charm to coax all the knowledge he could from the vampire queens. Jonathon had been forcing himself to work in his laboratory even during daylight hours.
They were men and believed they must be stoic—unflappable, unemotional, rational, and strong. They must be the strength on which she could rely.
In silence, she took both men’s hands and led them to the bath.
* * *
Serena’s belly floated, buoyant in the water. It took some of the weight and pain away, and soothed her back. Her breasts were large and full, her nipples dark, and they bobbed as the water sloshed.
She finished washing Jonathon, soaping her hands and rubbing them over his solid, well-muscled chest. Each man possessed shoulders as wide as the huge bathtub, and because of their large, long-limbed frames, Drake and Jonathon sat at each end of the tub, and she nestled in the middle, between them.
Serena hated to spoil the erotic pleasure of the moment, but knew she could not avoid it any longer. “There is something we must speak about,” she said. “I know you men will not. You are afraid to worry me.”
She stepped up out of the water, and the rivulets ran down her body. Drips gathered around her protruding navel. Instantly, both Jonathon and Drake were on their feet to help her from the tub. With each of her men’s hands clamped securely on her wrists, she clambered to the step, then stepped down to the thick mat beside the tub. She reached for a towel that hung by the fireplace.
The men were waiting and she had to speak of it. “Althea’s baby is not thriving,” she said softly.
Jonathon swung out of the bath and grabbed a white towel to wrap around his waist—actually below his waist, just at the line of his hipbones. He picked up another and rubbed at his hair with one hand, but wrapped the other around her and drew her close. “We’ll find the answer, Serena. Your mother has agreed to help us.”
She clutched the towel to her heavy breasts. “I don’t think she knows how, Jonathon. I have searched through the library here, and the one at the monastery—” That one was a famed library of the Royal Society, tended by the monks for several centuries. She and Althea had been the first women permitted to enter.
And that had been only at the insistence of Lord Denby, the Head of the Society. He was the only member of the society who knew that she and Althea were here. He was too afraid that rogue members would try to destroy Althea’s child—a vampire child—and would try to kill Serena before she could give birth to her twins.
“There is an answer, Serena. The books talk of born vampires.”
“But we’ve never found any. And no book speaks of how the vampire children survived. If we cannot figure out how to feed them—”
“We will.” Drake’s deep voice cut through her rising panic.
She trusted both Jonathon and Drake, but she knew there were some disasters that even the deepest love could not prevent.
“I don’t believe my mother can help. She barely remembers how I survived. She surrendered me to a mortal wet nurse. And that has not worked for Serry.”
Jonathon tossed aside the damp towel he’d used on his dark brown hair. Wild and tangled, it hung rakishly around his dark eyes. “I just received a letter from Denby. I just read it before our . . . session.”
She had to smile at his choice of words. They had all just done the most erotic things. And she heard the uplift of his voice.
The hope.
“Has he found an answer? A way to save our children?”
Jonathon kissed to top of her wet hair, then turned her and began gently drying her hair with a towel. “The Society has discovered a young woman living in London with a power they have never seen before. Apparently, she has the power to resurrect the dead.”
She jerked around, which meant he tugged her hair.
“What?” cried Drake from the tub. Sloshing water told her he was getting out.
“Miss Eugenia Bond claims that her niece has this power.
She finally revealed this to Lord Denby. She was attacked by a vampire with her own stake, and the lady in question—Miranda Bond—brought her back to life. Just by laying her hand on the victim’s chest, Miss Miranda Bond is capable of returning life. Either by bringing back the soul or imparting some sort of force into the body that jolts the heart back to life.” He paused, thoughtfully. “I would like to study her.”
“Jonathon . . .” But she knew his methods of study would not be like his father’s. His father cut vampires open to try to understand how they worked. The late Earl of Sommersby had dissected dead vampires and “live” ones.
Serena bit her lip. “Do you mean that you think this woman could bring our children back to life if they . . . die?”
Drake was at her side. He stroked her shoulder and faced Jonathon. “Or return their souls to them and make them mortal before that happens?”
Jonathon nodded. “This may be the only answer.”
“But we don’t know. And this lady is in London.”
“We would have to travel. With Althea’s young baby and you—”
“Ready to pop out two babies at any moment,” she added ruefully. “But it’s March and some of the passes are still filled with snow.”
“Denby says the Society is trying to protect her. Eugenia has been keeping the girl’s power a secret, but a slayer named James Ryder has found her.”
“Ryder,” Drake spat.
Serena swallowed hard. “I’ve never heard of a slayer named Ryder.”
“He’s rogue. For years he’s worked for himself—he offers vampires protection for a price. He’s even killed some of the demons that the Society has been protecting because he was paid to do it by other vampires. He’s driven by greed.”
“So someone wants to kill this woman?” Serena asked.
“If she can revert vampires to mortals, there are a lot of the undead who would want to see her destroyed,” Drake answered.
She shivered. She knew what it was to have both demons and the Society in pursuit of her.
“So we must go to London.” There was no other choice. She looked up at Jonathon and Drake. “But could I be made mortal? Could our children? If we are born of the undead, do we even have souls?” She looked from Drake’s silvery green eyes to Jonathon’s, as dark and reflective as jet in the low light of the fire. “Would you both choose to be mortal again?”
“I would choose to be whatever you wish to be and can be, Serena,” Drake vowed.
“As would I,” Jonathon added.
But Drake had been made by Lukos—he had never had a choice. And Jonathon had chosen to be made a vampire by Drake to save his life.
What right did she have to keep them from making the choice that was really in their hearts?
Drake waited until Serena was asleep. She lay on their large bed, turned on her side. A pillow was caught between her legs, and one partly supported her rounded belly, for this made her more comfortable when she slept.
Drake lit a cheroot and walked out to the balcony. Clouds raced past the half moon, and the peaks of the Carpathians were lost in a haziness that meant a snowstorm approached.
Jonathon was leaning on the carved balustrade, also smoking.
Drake joined him. Jonathon acknowledged him with a brief nod, while not turning his gaze from the turbulent sky.
“I felt an awareness of Lukos today. Since he was my sire, I am connected to him.”
Jonathon nodded. Drake had sired Jonathon.
“For a few moments, my heartbeat changed. It slowed,”
Drake sighed. “And I think it did so to match the rhythm of Lukos’s heart.”
Jonathon rubbed his jaw, withdrew his cheroot. “That would mean he’s freed.”
6