Embrace of the Damned by Bast Anya

Author:Bast, Anya [Bast, Anya]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781101585139
Publisher: Penguin Group
Published: 2012-04-30T22:00:00+00:00

FOURTEEN

She hit bottom.

“Gurgh.” Jessa forced herself to roll to the side and open her eyes. Two people were talking somewhere near her, but she couldn’t quite make out what they were saying. Her thought process seemed oddly sluggish, even more than it had in the lucid dream.

Flopping onto her stomach, she dug her fingers into the earth, trying to gain traction on … well, she wasn’t sure what to do. All she knew was that she was supposed to be in her bed asleep right now, dreaming of her mother in a grim reaper cloak and not out here on the green hills of the Scottish Highlands feeling like she’d been … drugged.

Oh, God, had she been drugged?

She groaned, hazy memories filtering through her brain. Frowning, she caught a flash of a dark shape leaning over her bed, the glint of a needle, the upward swoop of her arm to knock it away, a struggle. She’d scratched the tender skin of someone’s arms. She’d grabbed hair and pulled….

Jessa flopped onto her back and held up her hands to the moonlight. The long strands she’d yanked out were still curled around her fingers. She squinted, trying to focus, but it was like she’d had one too many beers. In the dim light it was impossible to tell for certain, but she’d bet anything those hairs were dark red.

She let her arm drop to the ground. Oh, Halla … just when I’d started to like you.

The voices stopped and Jessa knew her window for escape was closing rapidly. Forcing herself to her knees, she tried to move forward, but collapsed after moving only a few feet. Behind her she could hear the footsteps of the thing she knew was hunting her. The only question was whether it was a shaman or an agent of the Blight.

Huge hands lifted her. She swiped him, reminding herself of a puppy being picked up by the scruff of its neck.

“Now, now,” clucked the man. “None of that, you silly thing.”

“Put … me … down,” she slurred.

“Oh, you’ll be put out of your misery soon enough. No worries, lass. I’d drain you now, but I don’t want that nasty drug in my body.”

Drain? Ah. Question answered. This was an agent of the Blight. Demon.

Awesome.

“Well,” the man continued cheerfully, “shall we be off?” He carried her toward his car like she was a long dress draped over his arms, like she weighed nothing. She was too drugged to fight him and she wondered, even if she hadn’t been drugged, what kind of chance would she have?

He’d parked a white cargo van not far down the drive from the gates of Broder’s property. For an irrational moment, thanks to the drugs in her veins, she wondered why all criminals and murderers seemed to favor white cargo vans.

He opened the back door, tossed her in like she was a rolled-up carpet. She yelped in pain as she collided with the hard, ridged surface of the van’s floor. The agent closed and locked the door, then climbed into the front to start the engine.

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