Dragonfury 01 - Fury of Fire

see your bet and raise you.” His fingers slid along her spine. The gentle caress soothed, yet somehow stimulated at the same time. “What do you think about that?”
    Every one of her muscles went tense as she fought to hide her reaction. He didn’t need to know she was attracted to him. Good God, she didn’t even want to know that, so she put on her big girl panties and said, “This isn’t a game, Bastian. This is my life, so screw you and your stupid challenges. You can’t keep me here if I don’t want to stay.”
    “Hmm…I guess that leaves me only one option, doesn’t it?” He shifted his hold on her, slid the tips of his fingers up the back of her arm, killing her with the purr in his voice and the heat in his hands. “I’m going to make you want to stay.”
    “It won’t happen.” Okay, time to open her eyes and escape. But, man, her focus was shot. She couldn’t see a thing but indistinct blobs.
    “We’ll see. Now, how are the eyes. Better?” Releasing her, he stepped back, taking his warmth with him, leaving her standing unprotected in the cold.
    Myst rubbed her eyes with her fingertips, mangling her eyelashes.
    “Well?”
    “Well, what?” she snapped, sick to death of him and his niceness.
    “Vision clearing?”
    Done with the rubbing routine, Myst opened her eyes again and realized two things at once. Bastian was still standing way too close. She took two steps back, correcting the oversight. And the second? She stood at the end of a long corridor. A wide one—maybe eight feet across—with polished concrete floors and whitewashed stone walls…the old kind with chisel marks on them, ones medieval builders might have used to construct cathedrals and archways.
    Embedded in the floor, round lights ran like twin runways, lining the hallway’s outer edges, providing the only source of illumination. She glanced at the ceiling. At least twelve feet high, the smooth plaster glowed in the low light, an expanse of white that went on forever.
    “Where are we?”
    “The underground lair of Black Diamond…my home.”
    Brushing the hair out of her face, her focus shifted to the baby. Myst held out her arms. “Give him back.”
    Without hesitation, Bastian handed him over, making the transfer both gentle and seamless. As the baby settled—small and soft in her arms—she breathed easier and checked him again, searching for problems. Everything looked good: the newborn’s chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm, the color of his skin was a healthy pink, and his heartbeat was still strong.
    She nodded at Bastian.
    He tipped his chin—acknowledging the thank you she refused to say out loud—and watched her tuck the baby against her shoulder before starting up the slight incline of corridor. After a few strides, he pivoted to walk backwards, his gaze glued to her, his heavy-soled boots landing softly on the hard floor.
    “One way in. One way out of Black Diamond, Myst.” He pointed at the now solid wall behind her. “Through that doorway.”
    Resisting the urge to look over her shoulder, she suppressed a shiver. No way she wanted to pass through that God-awful thing again. She wasn’t certain she would survive it. Not without Bastian’s hand to hold.
    His mouth curving up at the corners, he gave her a knowing look. “If you think you’re going to get past me here…think again.”
    The words echoed, the inherent threat bouncing off concrete as Myst followed Bastian’s retreat, keeping pace in the deserted corridor. He was right. The portal wasn’t her way out, but that didn’t mean his home was inescapable. Bastian might want her to believe it, but that didn’t make it true. A problem, after all, could be solved many different ways.
    Sight-stealing portal be damned.
    Bastian and Black Diamond had a weakness. All she needed to do was find it.

Chapter Eleven
     
    Rikar hated the in-house clinic at Black Diamond. The overhead lights were too bright, the smell too clean, the walls too white. Like a human doctor’s office, everything belonged somewhere: in a drawer, a cabinet, a fucking rollaway cart. The place was a clean freak’s wet dream. Clutter-frickin’-free, Peter Walsh approved.
    All right, so the neatness served a purpose. Was no doubt a welcome quality in the whole treat-the-patient thing, but man, that didn’t mean he liked the clinical vibe.
    Or the fact his friend had ass-planted him in the room.
    On an examination table with crinkly, white paper.
    Oh,