When she came to, she was upright. And bound.

Looking around, she was struck by a number of details. An almost overpowering smell of roasting, thick and rich and dark. An immense room with concrete floors and a metal roof high above. She also smelled fuel, oil, and there were dark, greasy spots on the floor, like a garage.

And her weapons, on a wooden table to one side. They must have searched her room because her telescoping cattle prod was here in addition to what she’d had on her.

Her back leaned against a metal pole, her arms tied behind her back around the pole. Her ankles were loosely tied with Lucien’s rope, just tight enough that she wouldn’t be able to kick her captors with enough force to injure.

“Ah, you are awake,” Steven said, stepping into the pool of light where she stood.

There was a light on the wall behind her, but the cavernous room was otherwise dark. There were no windows, only slits, presumably for air flow, at the top of the walls. No light shone through the slits, no dust motes visible on a ray of light, so it must have still been night.

Steven held her lipstick stun gun and he examined it in the light. “Curious little thing. It was in your pocket but I have never seen you wear lipstick.” He pushed on the bottom and the lipstick end sparked. “Oh ho. It delivers an electric shock. How strong is it?”

He looked into her eyes and she didn’t look away. She wouldn’t answer him, wouldn’t show fear.

“Let us see, then, hmm?” He touched her shoulder with the lipstick and a zap shocked through her. It forced a quick inhalation of breath, but nothing more. He laughed. “Ha, I like this little weapon of yours, but I cannot carry it. A man of my stature and influence cannot carry a woman’s lipstick.”

“Guess you’d better find a girlfriend, then,” she rasped out.

“I’m not supposed to kill you, but I do not appreciate your smart mouth. You might push me over the edge.” He pressed the stunner to her bare skin again, further down her arm, above her elbow.

Ryenne focused on the interesting piece of information he had given her and filed it somewhere in her brain, past the pain.

“Is this for fun or do you have questions for me?” she asked.

One side of his mouth curled up. “No, no questions. I bet you have some, however.”

Boy did she. But she didn’t want to give away what she did or didn’t know. Knowledge was power after all. But she could also use some time to unscramble her brain and figure out a way out of here.

“If you’re the rogue I’m supposed to protect you from, why did you hire me?” It was the one question she hadn’t been able to figure out.

“Because the lord wanted me to.”

The electricity must have continued to draw a fog across her thoughts. He hadn’t struck her as particularly religious before now. Maybe she had misheard him, or he had hidden his fanaticism along with the fact he was the rogue shifter. If he thought he heard voices, she might be in worse trouble than she knew.

He stepped out of the circle of light and she squinted to follow his progress.

“Sometimes he asks me to do things against my own instincts,” Steven said, turning toward her from the darkness.

His steps scraped against the concrete and she tensed for whatever he would do or say next.

“Of course, my instincts are to kill you.” A few steps closer. “It’s what the vicious leopard in me wants.”

In one fluid motion, he was in front of her, light glinting off the blade of her dagger.

She gasped at the suddenness.

He laughed and trailed the dagger’s blade along her jawline, his gaze following the knife’s path. The dagger sliced into her neck and warm blood trickled along her skin.

“It would be so easy to push it all the way in.”

She couldn’t move her legs enough to kick him and her arms were useless behind her, so she concentrated on not showing him any fear.

His mouth opened as he watched the path of the blade. She felt the tip pushing against the bones protecting her heart. She tightened her mouth.

A cough came from out of the darkness, followed by footsteps.

John appeared in the circle of light and placed a hand on Steven’s arm.

Steven pulled the dagger away and his head snapped up as if he’d suddenly been pulled back to reality.

He stepped away, let the arm holding the knife fall to his side. “I can’t. He will kill me in return.” Turning away, Steven smoothed a hand over his head. “Thank you, old friend. You are the perfect bodyguard, saving me even from myself.”

A phone rang and both men moved away from the light.

She caught a few words from Steven’s side of the conversation, but mostly “mmm” noises that sounded like he was listening to someone else.

When he returned, he stood directly in front of her with a rictus of a smile that twisted her insides. “If I can’t kill you, the next best thing is to turn you. And I have permission for it.”