God of Destruction (16 page)

Claire felt tears pricking at her eyes,
recognizing that her friend would never take her seriously while
she was still the innocent one…the baby…the liability. Her speech
impediment only made it worse when she wanted to voice her
concerns. After all, everyone always felt the need to protect the
poor, stuttering Claire Not-So-Strong. And she was
through
with being protected now that James had admitted to his true place
in their lives.

To protect the defenseless Claire Strong.

Just like everyone else.

“I…If we wanna find him, we’re gonna have to
s…split up,” she deadpanned. “I’m going this way. You go that
way…”

“No, Claire,” Alex replied. “We have to stay
together. What if we run into—?”

“I don’t need you to baby sit me, Alex!” she
growled, jerking away from Alex’s grip on her shoulders.

Alex’s eyes widened. She’d never seen her
friend like that. “I’m not here to baby sit you, Claire. But if we
find that guy, he’s gonna go after you—”

“Then I can take care of myself. Y…you’re not
my mom and you’re not my protector. I…I’m sick of people treating
me like the
baby
!” she shrieked. “Now take that side of the
sidewalk. I…I s…saw him over here and we’re not helping a…anything
by standing around.”

Alex’s jaw gaped. She backed away slowly.
“Are you
okay
? Is something the matter?”

“I’m fine,” she snapped. “James’s l…little
confession today was j…just the last straw. I don’t n…need to be
protected.”

“You
do
, Claire. He’s a god! If he
finds you, he’ll take you!” Alex protested.

“A…And what difference is it gonna make i…if
you’re with me? ‘Cuz you found out that you’re a witch ten minutes
ago? I…I don’t wanna be your sidekick anymore, Alex!”

Alex’s eyes narrowed. “Fine. Meet us back at
the hotel in an hour. I mean, if that’s alright with you, your
highness
.”

Claire watched her stomp away before she
turned in the other direction, storming off in a huff with the gun
clutched in her hands. The civilians continued to dive out of her
way while she searched uselessly for Kierlan.

He watched from the shadows.

He couldn’t help but be amused by what she
said, having told her friend that she could protect herself when
she most certainly couldn’t. And he would prove it.

Even more entertaining was that she was
looking for him. Ever since he’d woken on the floor with a massive
headache and a pain in his chest, he’d had one objective: to do the
job. Now, she was not only close enough to touch, she was away from
any potential witnesses. Easy pickings.

Claire had a very bad feeling in the pit of
her stomach as she walked further and further away from the crowded
street. She passed it off as ire, especially since the thought of
her friends in that moment made her sick to her stomach. She wanted
to turn back toward the hotel, but she didn’t dare return
empty-handed. After the breakdown she’d had in front of Alex, she
needed to be right. She needed to prove she could be a valuable
asset like everyone else.

A noise up ahead caught her attention.

Keeping her forefinger poised over the
trigger, Claire ran headlong toward the disturbance. She passed an
alleyway in her haste.

Then, she realized there was something in
there, doubled over in pain.

She let her weapon hang against her leg, her
arm going limp. With her head cocked to the side, she watched the
shadow fall to its knees. He groaned loudly, releasing her from her
trance as she waited for any hint of its identity. She jumped. She
didn’t dare take a step.

“K…Kierlan?” she called, trying to sound
confident. She failed…miserably.

He groaned again, clawing at the place in his
chest where she knew Kierlan had been electrocuted. She held the
gun out again when she started walking toward him, knowing it could
all be a trick. “P…put your hands on the ground! I’m t…taking you
with m…me!” she faltered, biting the inside of her mouth.

He didn’t answer, or do as she’d asked. He
groaned again.

“I…I
said
, put your hands on the
ground!” she repeated, barely two steps away now.

He gave a pained moan, like a wounded
animal.

“O…Oh God, are y…you okay?” she inquired,
ducking closer as she reached for him, hoping to help. “L…let me
see—”

She missed the quick movement of the foot
that connected with her hand.

She gave a piercing shriek when the gun flew
away from her. She fell back on her behind, feverishly pushing
herself away from him with her heels while she probed the ground
for the gun. She wasn’t helpless, she told herself. She could
protect herself. She could take care of this and get him back to
the hotel with her.

Something grasped her ankle, viciously
yanking her in the direction of the shadow. Kicking and clawing to
get away, she repeated her newest mantra in her head. She was
not
helpless. She was
not
helpless. But when a bag
closed over her head, obstructing her view of the alley,
and
the shadow, she knew that she’d made a huge mistake when she’d
yelled at Alex.

She
was
helpless.

Her body was swept up and off the floor,
still thrashing against her captor, in vain. It wasn’t a moment
later, however, that she felt a new floor rush up to meet her. She
grunted, prepared to jump back up and run, but when her fingers
stretched outward, they met cold metal in every direction.

The whir of an engine under her sent her
falling back to the floor.

Without a plan and without help, she could
only cling to the hope that when she didn’t meet them at the hotel
in an hour, they would go looking for her. James would find her, it
was his job. And she could only hope that Alex would disregard her
earlier complaints and come looking for her as well.

But Paris was a big city, and they wouldn’t
have any idea where to start.

She comforted herself with the knowledge that
the man from the catacombs would want her alive, but when the car
stopped again and she was removed from the trunk, the first thing
she heard through the bag’s thin barrier was a hoarse, female
voice, screaming for help. She couldn’t see the room, but she knew
that the other captive was far away, through walls. Nevertheless,
her words shook Claire’s outward composure and made her think: they
wouldn’t kill her, but there were so many other things they could
do.

“
Don’t put me back in the tub!
” the
invisible girl screamed.

The force of the sack being torn from
Claire’s head made her chair rock back on its legs; her arms, bound
behind her, were useless in steadying herself. When she feared the
precarious swing would finally land her on her back, it stopped and
she was set to rights. She feverishly blinked her eyes against the
brightness overhead from a swinging, bulb until a shadow fell over
her, the owner’s face hidden by the glow framing it from behind.
She squinted up, the demands she’d been prepared to spit dying on
her lips when her eyes met the steel-gray orbs above her. As usual,
caught like a mouse in the eyes of a snake, she froze, incapable of
thought.

“K…Kierlan?” she breathed, her stammer due
more to his presence than her speech impediment.

He smirked at her, easily catching on to her
attraction to him. A twinge of guilt nagged at the back of his
mind, though, and he desperately wanted it to go away. He didn’t
want to hear the proclamation she’d made to her friend running
through his head, begging to be recognized as someone they could
take seriously. He didn’t want to feel the full scathing regret
burning through his chest when her wide, innocent eyes fell on him.
He didn’t want to recall her unnatural beauty and feel the
unmistakable need to free her from her bindings. And, more than any
of that, he didn’t want to want her.

He shook away his traitor remorse, recalling
the fat check that had been left on his doorstep months earlier,
with the promise of another after he finished the job. In
comparison to the other tasks his employer had demanded of him,
keeping this weak girl in his sight and in ropes was nothing.
Despite his reservations, he let a menacing smirk materialize on
his face. “Claire,” he purred, rounding the chair with his hand
planted firmly on the back, holding it in place.

So close
, she couldn’t help but muse,
luxuriating in the touch of his breath fanning across her face.
Seeing the corner of his lip twitch ever higher, she snapped out of
her girlish fantasies and managed to plaster a scowl on her face,
searching the bare, crumbling, cement walls around her for any hint
of her location.

As she’d dreaded since her abduction, there
was nothing.

The rage she’d painted on her face fell
momentarily only when she caught the stain of blood on the floor
out of her peripheral vision.

“God,” she gasped, her head whipping forward
to face him again. “W…what’s going on?”

He knelt before her legs so that her eyes
were in line with his. “Don’t worry,” he murmured, stroking her
face with the back of his hand. “You’re just here to answer some
questions.”

She winced when sparks tingled through her
cheek. Determined to realize that the object of her recent
attraction had kidnapped her, she jerked away from his touch,
openly glaring daggers at him. “You’re not r…really a PI, a…are
you?” she growled, snapping her gaze from him with disgust.

He, wisely, refused to answer. “You don’t
need to worry, Claire—”

“Oh n…no? Why not, Kierlan? You kidnapped me
and brought m…me to this place! Is that blood on the f…floor?! It’s
blood on the floor, isn’t it?!”

Kierlan didn’t look to the floor, cursing the
men who’d used this room last for their carelessness. The water in
the concrete hole behind him was left as well, filled with
unmentionable bodily fluids. He, calmly, let his rejected hand
fall, bracing himself on his knees instead. “You can still believe
me when I say that my intention isn’t to hurt
you
,” he vowed
with, what appeared to be, a genuine smile.

Claire relaxed back into the chair, but she
didn’t believe him. The hidden meaning behind his words wasn’t lost
by her, either. Her mind unwillingly went back to her arrival,
wondering where the other girl was being kept. What had they done
to her? Was she even still alive?

He chuckled. “Does that mean you’ll be
cooperating now?”

She narrowed her eyes, visibly pursing her
lips.

He hummed in distaste. “Right. Either way,
you’re stuck here, Claire. You may as well answer my
questions.”

She remained unresponsive.

“I want you to answer me honestly,” he
ordered, returning to a standing position so he could tower
ominously over her. “What happened in the catacombs today? Why’d
you make up such a ridiculous story?”

Meeting his eyes indignantly, she crowed, “I
didn’t m…make it up! Everything I said about M…Mainyu in the
catacombs was the truth!”

“Mainyu?” he demanded.

She hissed in a breath through her clenched
teeth, testing the bindings around her wrists.

She’d played straight into his hands.

Her ropes were too tight to slip out of, but
she realized then that she wasn’t held to the chair at all. When he
turned away, she resolved, she would stand and run for the wooden
door across the room. How she would get it open when she got there,
however, was a work in progress.

Kierlan was patient when he spoke again.
After all, he had all the time in the world to spare while he
waited for his team to come for her. “Who’s Mainyu, Claire?”

She tasted blood as she bit harshly down on
her tongue. “Why s…should I tell you?” she grumbled, pulling vainly
against the ropes cutting into her wrists, imagining the doorknob
between her palms.

“What?” he snapped, leaning closer.

“You didn’t b…believe me the first time I
told you!” she reminded him. “Why should I t…tell you now?”

He quirked an eyebrow at her. “Claire, what
you said today was completely
impossible
. Tell me who Mainyu
is. Truthfully.”

She bit the inside of her mouth. “He’s a
God.”

He laughed darkly, balancing her on the back
legs of her chair again while he held her face in suspense before
his own, her cheeks pressed together between his fingers. “Are you
doing this to spite me, or are you just…insane?”

She kicked him weakly, unsurprised when he
didn’t wince. Rather than repeat his question, he stared
expectantly down at her.

He sighed heavily. “Let’s try another one,
then.”

Claire thought she could predict what that
question would be.

“What happened at the hotel?” he demanded.
“James did something, I know he did. What happened?”

She chuckled, though it sounded strange while
he forcibly pursed her lips. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told
you.”

He scowled down at her, eyes trailing from
her crystal eyes to her puckered lips, then to her more
desirable
attributes. The look on her face hinted she wasn’t
fooled, but he took his time in wrenching his gaze upward. “
Try
me
,” he grunted.

She said nothing. She didn’t move for a
while.

Fiercely shaking his hand away from her
mouth, she said “So, if you’re not a r…real private instigator,
w…what are you?”

He was taken aback, but, outwardly, showed no
sign of shock. “It doesn’t matter what I am, Ms. Strong. Answer the
question.”

“I….I have a few questions of m…my own,” she
countered. “Like why I’m h…here. What do y…you care if I’m
insane?”

He groaned, stepping around her chair to lean
over her. “I
don’t
, you see. If it were up to me,
personally, I’d let you go home right now, but it’s not. I’m just
here to ask the questions and keep you from running away.”