Now I was twenty-two and stuffed into yet another trunk. My jaw hurt where my kidnapper had hit me. I guess my screaming had irritated him. I’d blacked out long enough to be trussed up with duct tape and for whoever to shut the lid and start driving.
The car moved sedately, occasionally slowing down for speed bumps. I could only assume we were still on the college grounds, which made no sense. Neither did my kidnapping. I couldn’t begin to fathom why anyone would bother to kidnap me. I had no fortune. No fame.
But I did have a friend who had both of those. Moira.
The tape on my wrists was haphazard and my persistence and flexibility allowed me to get free. They hadn’t bothered to bind my feet because my shoes were trap enough.
The car was an older model, and had no seat or trunk pulls. I couldn’t get the taillights to wiggle even a little. After I’d exhausted all my efforts to get free of my wretched moving coffin, I stared up at the lid.
It was the damned shoes that literally tripped me up. I’d been running late to Moira’s shindig. Getting into a corset wasn’t easy, especially when I had to rely on Marvin, my pothead next-door neighbor, to tighten and tie the cords for me. Then I’d laced myself up into the red knee-high ballet boots and tottered out of my two-story apartment building to find Dumb and Dumber waiting for me.
Oh, and they were undead.
Which was slightly unnerving.
Trying to run resulted in my subsequent falling, wherein I was caught by Huge Dumb-Ass Number One and whisked away to the waiting car. I used my lungs to their full capacity as he threw me into the trunk.
He hit me.
My purse was lost, and so was my cell phone. I had no way to get hold of Moira or call for any sort of help.
What a crappy way to spend a Friday night.
Chapter 10
Drake
Leaving a werewolf for dead without checking to make sure you had killed him was a sign of arrogance—or stupidity. It didn’t hurt that my parents were immortals, which meant I was not just a werewolf. I was a demigod. It was nearly impossible to kill me. But most of parakind didn’t know the royal triplets had immortal blood.
Waking up in the sewer did not improve my mood.
If the vampire I’d tracked hadn’t been joined by three other friends, I would not have been taken. The number of vampires attacking and one lucky fucking punch had been enough to drop me.
I suppose I should have been grateful that the bastards didn’t try to eat me. Vampires who lived outside of Queen Patsy’s rule or who refused friendship with the Consortium had no compunction about feasting on other paranormals.
Apparently they just didn’t have the time to enjoy werewolf blood.
The stench was awful. I suppose I also should have been grateful I had landed on the wide concrete slab next to the brackish river of human waste instead of actually in the sewer water.
I sat up, cursing my throbbing head and my still healing body.
I knew Moira was in trouble. Or would be. I didn’t know how much time had been lost. I felt my pockets and realized the vampires had relieved me of my wallet and my cell phone. Damn it. I was still playing Bejeweled and had just gotten my playlists organized.
As I got to my feet, I felt a sharp pain rip through my side. I looked down at my ragged T-shirt and saw that a slash of bloody skin was still knitting together.
Oh, great. I’d been stabbed.
And I really liked this shirt.
A few feet above me, I saw the manhole cover. I eyed the ladder leading up to it, took a deep breath, and went for it. Moving up the rungs hurt like a bitch, but I knew from experience that I would heal and the pain would recede.
But I couldn’t run around the human world looking like I’d just been killed and tossed into the sewer. I was near the academic parking lot, and I noted that Moira’s red Mercedes was gone. So, she had gotten away while I got my ass handed to me. Good.
I needed to change clothes and get to a phone.
It was time to call in the paranormal cavalry.
Chapter 11
Moira
I woke up to a throbbing headache, an aching jaw, and a numb ass.
It took me a minute to realize I was tied to a very uncomfortable chair. My arms were pinned behind the plastic contraption, my wrists chafed by thick rope.
How long had I been out?
And where the hell was I?
My jaw hurt. A lot. Pain zigzagged across my cheek and down my neck. Jeez. Even my eyelashes hurt. An electric lantern emitted a creepy green glow from a nearby table. The light didn’t do much to dispel the darkness around me, but the room felt large. I could practically taste the dust that indicated years of disuse, and smell the staleness of the air. The atmosphere reminded me of how it felt to enter a newly discovered tomb that had lain unopened for millennia.
Not a good analogy.