That didn’t keep a cry from escaping her though, or the agony from radiating through her. Even that was diluted, though, by the sheer terror of the creature growling at her ear, his saliva dribbling to the bare skin where her shirt slipped to the edge of her shoulder.
He was supposed to be dead.
Mica tried to dig her nails into the steel-lined wall the side of her face was pressed against, her breathing shallow, knees weak as from the corner of her eye she watched Navarro and Josiah struggle to their feet.
“I know you.” The creature snarled at her ear, his fingers biting into the side of her neck, ragged nails trying to tear at her flesh. “You’re not supposed to be here, whore.” The fingers of his other hand tangled in her hair, jerking her head back until she could see nothing but the twisted, enraged features of a man that was supposed to be dead.
She stared into the flickering red of his brown eyes, gasping for air as spittle dripped to her cheek. As though he couldn’t swallow, couldn’t contain the poisonous venom in his soul any longer.
“Sorry ’bout that,” she gasped. “Just give me a sec here, and I promise I’ll leave.” She couldn’t help it.
The words had just slipped out as the blaring alarms echoing through the halls suddenly stopped.
The silence her words were injected into seemed to shatter with the same discordance as the sirens.
“Whore!”
She couldn’t hold back the agonizing expulsion of breath, the whimper, the pain too intense to allow enough breath to scream.
She heard a low, dangerous growl, the sound of footsteps, a curse echoing around her as the pain threatened to steal her consciousness.
“Stand down, Navarro!” Jonas’s snarl was thick, dangerous, as the feel of the heavy pressure in her ribs had tears spurting from her eyes.
Brandenmore had his arm pressing tight into the tender area, putting a horrible pressure in an area where no pressure could be tolerated.
“Jonas Wyatt.” The demented voice made the greeting sound more a curse. “You did this, didn’t you, freak? You got her here. You found out I had plans for her.”
Plans for her?
“Oh yeah,” she gasped, all but writhing in agony. “Fuckup Coyote was your baby?” The bastard Coyote that had all but broken her ribs had to have been taking someone’s orders.
“He’ll die now,” he hissed at her ear. “You got him killed.”
Oh yeah, she was going to feel guilty about that one. Next year maybe.
“She’s not going to help you, Phillip,” Jonas warned him, and Mica wanted to just laugh.
It was the pain, it was making her crazy, and Cassie wasn’t here to bitch at because of it.
“Cassie Sinclair’s self-proclaimed best friend?” Phillip’s snarl sounded like a Breed’s. “Your little princess’s favorite person, Wyatt? You’d trade your own sire for her.”
“No doubt,” Jonas drawled with a facade of amusement. “She likes me more.”
And wasn’t that the damned truth.
“Does she now?” Sardonic, manipulating, Phillip Brandenmore sounded like a monster ready to bite her head off. A chill raced up her spine as the ragged nails caressed her jugular. “Would she like you so well if she knew you’d deliberately allowed her to go home? That you’d been warned she would be targeted?”
“Too late,” Mica wheezed. “Already knew.”
God, she had to get his arm off her ribs before she blacked out for good. She could barely breathe. This was even worse than having Navarro lying over her in the back of the SUV.
Brandenmore laughed at the pain in her voice. “Did you know I was here, little girl?”
“Nightmares,” she gasped.
Brandenmore paused. “What did you say?”
Was there a lessening of the dementia in his tone? In the pressure against her ribs. Oh God, what had she said to make him think? She would surely say it again.
“You’re hurting her, Phillip, is that what you want?” Jonas asked then, his voice dropping, softening.
Those ragged nails caressed over her neck again, scraping, feeling as though they were peeling the protective layer of skin from her flesh.
“Do you have nightmares?” He was tense behind her, and so strong. His fingers were clenching in her hair, unclenching, pulling at the tender strands as her knees threatened to buckle.
His nails scraped her flesh again as she blinked against the tears.
She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t inhale deeply. Her ribs felt as though a dagger were wedged between them.
“Answer me!” he roared.
Mica whimpered at the pain. She couldn’t cry, she couldn’t scream. There was no breath for it, the pain screaming through her body.
“Do you have nightmares?”
“Yes,” she wheezed, her hands jerking from the wall to the powerful wrists of the creature holding her so effortlessly.
He was Phillip Brandenmore, yet he wasn’t.
God, Kita Engalls, his niece, must live in hell knowing what her uncle had become.
“What nightmares do you have?” He seemed to pause, his nails now digging into the flesh of her neck as another little whimper slipped free.
Behind Brandenmore, she could hear Navarro growling. That low, almost unconscious growl Wolf Breeds used when pushed to their last, enraged nerve.
If Bradenmore gave him so much as a single opening, then he would be dead.
“Monsters,” she answered, fighting back more tears, fighting back the fear and the panic, the knowledge that she would die if one of the Breeds didn’t figure out how to get their hands, or their weapons, on the monster holding her. “Monsters find me.”