"Ah," said Reiver with a thin smile. "About time you arrived. We're just about to view the evening's game selection." His bloodthirsty friends exchanged eager looks, but Reiver's gaze stayed rooted on Malcolm with cool scrutiny. "Shall we get started?"
Reiver touched the frame on the fox hunt painting. In response, from behind the group of elegantly attired vampires, a doorway on the back wall of the salon opened into a dimly lit corridor. With a look that bade Malcolm and Thane follow him, Reiver strode through the center of the throng to lead the way.
Inside the long corridor was still more violent art. Here the depictions of hunter and hunted became more gruesome, scene after scene showing all manner of human degradation and bloodshed. It was horrific art, a profane collection no doubt intended to inflame the basest Breed appetites. Malcolm paid it little mind. All of his focus was centered on Reiver, senses taut and at the ready, waiting for the prime opportunity to lodge his offensive strike on the vampire and his cronies.
As they neared the end of the corridor, Reiver touched another hidden panel on the wall. Cold air gusted in as a thick wooden gate lifted, revealing a covered walkway leading to the outside grounds of the estate. Flanking both sides of the walkway were iron-barred kennel cages, but the cells did not contain animals.
"My God," one of Reiver's cronies breathed from behind Malcolm. "Just look at them all. One more tempting than the next."
Reiver chuckled, so full of himself. "As promised, something for every taste."
The humans were bound and gagged inside their cages, upwards of twenty men and women, all shapes and sizes and ages. They shivered in the wintry night air, eyes wide and fearful. Bile rose in Malcolm's throat as he glanced at the terror-stricken faces. He could not let this sick game proceed any further. Reiver and his blood club associates would die tonight-here and now.
He started to reach for his weapons, prepared to unleash hell on the whole lot of them.
"Oh, but there's more," Reiver announced, snapping his fingers at one of the other guards, dispatching him in unspoken command. "Tonight I have something very unexpected to offer you, and most certainly ... exotic. Brandogge, I think you'll have particular interest in this."
Malcolm went stock-still at the remark, a cold dread locking down his senses even before he glimpsed what the guard had gone to fetch.
Danika.
width="1em" align="justify">Unlike the others, she wasn't shackled or muzzled. No, the pistol pressed to the back of her head was enough to ensure she didn't fight or flee her captors.
Her long blond hair hung limp over her face as she shuffled ahead of Reiver's thug, little Connor held tight in her arms. Malcolm's heart lurched as her stricken gaze lit on him through the crowd. There was apology in her moist blue eyes, a regretful twist to her pale lips.
Before Malcolm could react-before he could calculate the terrible risks of wheeling on Reiver and his associates and hoping to take them out before the guard with the gun on Danika pulled the trigger-Thane and two other guards pounced on him. Dani screamed, and it nearly undid him to hear the terror and worry in her voice. Worry for him, when it was his personal need for retribution that brought them both to this awful moment.
The cold metal nose of Thane's loaded nine-millimeter jabbed hard and ready to fire into Mal's temple. "Don't do anything stupid, ass**le."
Malcolm roared, but it was impotent rage. He couldn't attempt to throw off his captors. He couldn't do anything-not so long as Danika and her baby were at equal risk as he. "Thane, you goddamn bastard. I'll kill you too, before this is over."
The guard seemed unfazed, keeping a steady hand on the weapon poised to blow Malcolm's brain out of his skull. One of the other guards stripped Mal of his Glocks and pocketed them.
While Reiver's associates inched away, he strode forward, slowly shaking his head. "You lied to me. You betrayed my trust." He paused in front of Malcolm, seething with thinly held malice. "You could have risen far in my service. I thought that's what you were aiming for, Brandogge. So, the only question I have is, why would you be so f**king stupid to cross me now?"
Malcolm growled his reply. "I'm not your dog. I've never been your anything, you arrogant son of a bitch." He could see the flicker of confusion in Reiver's dark eyes, and he kept going, glad to finally voice his intentions. "I've been waiting for the chance to kill you and your blood club cronies ever since your pimp in Edinburgh told me your name."
Reiver's confusion deepened, turned to uncertainty and a sick look of surprise. "My pimp?"
"Aye," Mal ground out. "The human rubbish who'd been supplying game for your sick gatherings. The same human offal who grabbed a young woman off the street in Edinburgh seven months ago for the purpose of selling her to you."
Reiver scoffed. "Am I to fret over every ant that gets crushed under a boot heel? Or mourn every beast sent to the abattoir? This is no different, except it's us on the top of the food chain, not mankind."
"She was a Breedmate," Malcolm hissed. "And she was newly pregnant. She put up a fight with your supplier. He killed her. My mate, my unborn child."
Reiver's bark of laughter erup [laumy unbted out of him. "All this for a female, Brandogge? And a dead one besides?" His cruel gaze slid to Danika. "And now this other one too? What does she mean to you?"
"Leave her out of this," Mal snarled. "She has nothing to do with it."
"Oh, but she does." Reiver's eyes turned brutal, sparking with amber. "She matters to you, and that means she and her brat will suffer worse than you now. Pity you won't live to see that." He glanced to Thane. "Kill him."