Adele

"What do you want with me?" I'd woken in a private jet with white leather seats and gold accents. Someone had draped a flannel blanket over me. Black paint covered the windows to keep out the sun, but Zion was up, which meant it was either night or he was one of the rare ones who could stay awake during the day. I tried to remember if I'd ever seen him up during the day, but they'd kept me underground for most of my time in the blood slave ring. I hadn't had much sense of day and night.

"Here are some clothes." Zion threw a shirt and pants at me.

Unwilling to have Zion's eyes on my skin, I pulled the clothes under the blanket. The jeans he'd given me fit pretty well, along with the plain blue T-shirt. How he knew my size or why he flew around with extra clothes were probably questions better left unasked.

Before I faced Zion, I checked in with my wolf. She was quiet in my mind, but if I poked at her, she would lift her head and look at me. The black cloud was there, too, clinging to her in a soft mist. I urged her to shake it off, but she just yawned, unconcerned. The darkness inside me didn't appear to bother her, but it filled me with worry. I couldn't control it, didn't know what it was other than more bad news for my life. Great. Well, at least my wolf was happy.

Leaving my wolf to her own devices, I cast aside the blanket and glared at Zion. "Why come back for me? I wasn't yours, remember? You sold me to Davian. So, what do you want with me?"

Davian's name sent a pang through me. We'd bonded in a way I didn't think was possible. Why couldn't he have been the one to come back for me? I would have welcomed that.

Zion gave a sly smile and his dark eyes glittered like light shining off a sharpened blade. "Many reasons. Not the least of which is Davian never finished paying your price. And, curiously, you were the only one to survive at the club. Why was that?"

"I-I don't know," I hedged, not wanting to reveal how Davian had protected me.

"I think we should find out. Don't you?"

"It's done and over, Zion. You can't go back," I said, avoiding his gaze. We'd exchanged blood, which meant he could force me to tell him every detail of that night if he wanted to.

"But it's not done, Adele. There are some pretty serious accusations being made against me."

"Well, yeah. You were running a blood slave ring. What did you think would happen? No one was going to throw you a parade."

He stiffened. "I provided a valuable service to the packs of the world. I kept riff-raff like you off the streets and under control. And remember, you signed up for it."

"I signed up for rehab, you jackass. Not slavery."

He waved a dismissive hand. "Spoken like a true addict."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Addicts don't see the world correctly. Why is it, Adele, that you're always the wronged one? That I have to be the bad guy? Hmm?" He shook his head. "It's self-serving addict thinking. I gave you a way to get clean. One that would work for the rest of your life." He reached out and captured my chin in his hand, forcing my head to turn until our gazes met. "Why don't you tell me everything you remember?"

Oh, shit. I squeezed my eyes closed, trying to dodge him, but I'd already been caught. The crush of his power took my breath away and every fiber of my being strained not to obey his command. How much would I be forced to say? Could I hold anything back? I had to protect Davian. He'd been undercover and exposing him would put him in danger.

Zion gave me a little shake, his fingers tightening on my chin. "Tell me, Adele. You can't hide from me."

"You accused Davian of betraying you and then threw me against the wall." I closed my eyes trying to organize the little I remembered into a pattern that made sense. Giving up, I said, "I woke up in the air duct later. I have no idea what happened." My sister had found me not long after I regained consciousness, and if she hadn't, I might've blown up with the strip club. The whole building went up right after we drove out of the parking lot. Someone had wanted to hide the evidence. I looked at Zion. "Did you blow up the club?"

He let me go, leaning back into his seat. He drummed his fingers on his armrest. "I know you like to blame me for everything, but Davian ran that ring."

"No, he didn't." I frowned at him.

He caught my chin again and held me in place, his gaze pinning me down. I squirmed and tried to look away, but he dug his fingers deeper into me. The look he shot at me held so much power, it felt like someone had taken an anvil to my face. "Yes. He did. He was the one running the whole thing. You saw him sell shifters. You were his slave."

"I-I..." My thoughts scrambled, suddenly unable to spot the truth.

He squeezed my chin tighter, fingernails threatening to break my skin, and the anvils became boulders that pummeled my brain like an avalanche of hail. His power obliterated thought, wiped me clean as a baby who hadn't opened its eyes to see the world yet.

"Say it," he growled at me.

"It was Davian. He was behind the whole thing."

Zion let me go and smiled, the gesture thin and sharp. "Good. There will be a hearing in a few days. You tell them that and nothing else, do you understand?"

I nodded. "What else would I say? It's the truth." Something beat in my head trying to tell me something important, but I ignored it because it wasn't real.

"Exactly."

"So, now what? I told you everything I know. What else do you want from me?"

"I don't know, but I'll think of something." He flashed a smile that sent a shiver up my spine. "Your blood is good now that you're clean. I can sell you for a good profit."

"I'm not yours to sell."

He reached out and covered my hand with his cold, clammy one. "I still have your contract. You're mine, Adele."

I moved my hand out from under his. Confusion muddled my mind. "I was Davian's, not yours."

"True, but I have the contract now."

"That can't be legal." I rubbed my head. It felt like I'd pulled something in my brain. Ugh. This was not the time for a tension headache.

"I think you'll find that it is under vampire law."

"You're not making sense. Why would the Vampire Council condemn what Davian did if it was legal?"

"Because they got caught." He laughed. "You have a lot to learn about vampire politics. It's not what's right, it's not what the law says, it's who you know and what you decide to tell them."

I blinked at that and rearranged my understanding of the world. Vampires were cool with blood slaves. Anything else was lip service. Well, crap. Did shifters even know any of this? "How did you find me?"

"It was easy enough. I saw you leaving the club right before it blew up."

"You were there? Wasn't it daylight?"

"No. I wasn't there. Not then."

"How did you see me then?" I gestured to the blacked out windows on the plane.

"Cameras. They disabled the system in the basement. I'm missing time." He pulled out his phone and showed it to me. "All security footage uploads to the cloud, and that's how I found you. The system came back online just before you left."

My stomach dropped at the sight of myself stepping into the body bag in black-and-white. Of course, he'd been watching. I should have known. Slumping back against my seat, I said, "I didn't even need the damn body bag."

"Nope," Zion said. "And once I started poking around, it wasn't too hard to find out where you were."

They'd been so careful, too, putting me in the body bag to hide the fact I'd survived, just in case whoever had done the killing was still around. The whole time, there'd been cameras all over the club. I'd forgotten about them until now and had been too panicked at the time to warn my rescuers. A picture of the club flashed in my mind and I saw them—black orbs at regular intervals that glared down on everyone.

I frowned at him. "My pack will come looking for me. You're not going to be able to just snatch me away."

"You mean Huntsville?" A sneer marred his lips. "You've over-estimated how well you're liked in that pack. I've been watching and they are suspicious of you. Did you know that?"

I remained silent. I hadn't known that. I'd believed I was making progress, maybe even making a new home for myself. Guess not. No one wants an addict. Even when they're clean.

"I made enough of a mess that they aren't going to want trouble like you back anyway."

I cringed, thinking of all the people he'd killed, and then I went still. "But I didn't..." I trailed off, not wanting him to hear.

"Didn't what?"

I looked away.

"Tell me, Adele. You didn't what?" His voice held power this time.

His power pulled my inner thoughts past my gritted teeth. "I didn't feel them die. We should have known. We could have stopped you."

Why hadn't we felt it? Marie had told me that death came through like a blankness you couldn't shake. We must've been too busy to notice. Or maybe it was grief we picked up on, not actual murder. I had no idea and doubted I would be able to ask Marie any time soon.

Zion cocked his head at me. "You're worried about that? I thought you'd care more about your soiled reputation."

"You think you know me because I'm an addict? A selfish asshole just grabbing what she can for herself, right?"

"Pretty much."

Anger made my face hot. "You might know my addiction, but you don't know me. Not even close. And you don't know Huntsville. You can bet your fangs, they're coming after us." The only question was would they want us both dead or would they see through Zion's set up and let me live?

"They can try, but they'll never find us. Don't worry, you're safe with me." He snickered. "I ran circles around your pack. No one saw me coming. You think that was an accident? You think Marie was the first healer I ever dealt with? I've been sucking shifter blood since before any of you were born. So, relax. I'm in charge and you can't do anything about it."

I rolled my eyes and considered punching him even though he was stronger than me. The urge to kill him heated my blood and made my wolf pace, but I forced myself to be still. He could mesmerize all the free will out of me if he wanted to. I needed to be careful not to try anything unless I was sure I would win. He was making a mistake now, giving me this much freedom, and I didn't want to waste it.

Tipping my head toward one of the black windows, I asked, "Where are we going?"

"To the City Oscura."

"The City Oscura? What's that?"

"It's largest dark city in the world."

I blinked. I'd heard of the dark cities in school and memorized what I'd needed to pass the test, but had never thought about them past that. They were bad places, bolt holes for bloodsuckers and anyone unfortunate enough to be mixed up with them.

Whenever I thought of vampires, I thought of businesses like the strip club where I'd been held and small nomadic groups—vampires tended to roam. Those were the only times I'd ever seen vampires, but Zion would change all that.

Swallowing hard, I fought to keep my expression impassive and not show him the fear knotting my stomach. My life was going backward so fast I could probably fly without a plane.