Chapter 53

“Leon… ” Livia coughed and craned her neck around to see the warehouse. Louder, she yelled, “Joseph!”

She tried to kick and struggle. Anything to keep her attacker from reaching the vehicle with her in tow. Or, at least, slow him down until the others could reach her. But his grip tightened, grinding the bones in her ankles together. “Rhye!”

“Leon,” she breathed airily as a fresh wave of pain washed over her.

“They won’t be coming to help,” he announced calmly, ignoring her struggles. “Someone’s paying me a lot of money for you, pet. Don’t know that their theory about you is right, but I understand why they want you.” He inhaled deeply and a serpentine tongue flicked into the air to taste as well as smell. “Your flavor, the taste of your power, is addicting. No, no. Couldn’t have your little boy toys in the way.”

Livia ’s head spun as she tried to follow his rambling conversation through the fog still clinging to the recesses of her mind, and though she should have