Crimson Dahlia Read Online Free PDF Page A

Marcus’s shoulder and stealthily wiped the drool off her
cheek.
    “I
caught that,” Marcus’s deep voice rumbled beside her.
    Lila
froze. “Girls can drool, you know,” she said.
    “Mmmhmmm.
And apparently they can also snore.”
    “Did
not!”
    “Like
a freight train,” Ben, one of the younger members of Marcus’s clan, said from
across the room.
    “It’s
amazing that such a loud noise can come out of such a little nose,” Simon,
another of Marcus’s clan, added.
    “Nice,
guys. Thanks,” Lila grumbled.
    “Leave
the poor girl alone,” a female voice interrupted.
    “Thanks,
Carrie,” Lila said.
    “Even
if she does keep us all awake with incredible amounts of sound,” Carrie added.
The small group erupted in laughter.
    “I’ll
have you know that I hate the lot of you,” Lila declared.
    The
laughter just got louder but abruptly silenced at the sound of the door being
unlocked. The people remaining in the cell with Lila shifted to block her from
view. Despite Lila’s protests, Marcus insisted that they hide her as long as
they could. Her role in stopping Maddox when he’d invaded the Vyusher castle
the year before made her a marked woman.
    A
familiar debilitating pain wracked through Lila’s body, and she heard a male
call her name in a sing-songy voice. “Lila Jenner, where are you?”
    Lila
swallowed a gasp and cowered down a little lower behind Marcus’s broad back.
    “I
know you’re here, Lila,” the over-sweet voice continued. He was getting closer.
Not that their cell was all that large to begin with. A big hand clamped around
her arm. “Gotcha!”
    Lila
couldn’t even open her eyes because the pain was still so intense. She felt
someone lift her and drag her out of the room. As soon as the door was closed
and locked behind them, the agony stopped. Lila sucked a ragged breath of relief
into her lungs and then stiffened. She opened her eyes to find Maddox staring
directly at her. Standing right behind him was Ariel, her shoulders slumped in
despair. So Maddox was using Ariel’s nerve control on them. The poor girl
wouldn’t even look at Lila.
    “I’ve
been looking for you, Lila,” he said with a sinister smile. “You managed to
stay hidden for quite a while. I only found out about you by accident.”
    Lila
said nothing. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of asking how they’d
figured out they had her.
    Maddox
nodded at the large man holding her, and they started moving down the long,
dark hallway. It reminded her a bit of the dungeons in the Vyusher castle. But
she knew that Selene now had guards patrolling there, so that couldn’t be where
they were.
    “I
wonder… how did you manage to hide from us when we brought you in?” Maddox asked
conversationally. “We had no idea that you were here instead of with the
Vyusher all this time. And I pride myself on knowing these little things.”
    Lila
continued to maintain a neutral expression. She kept count of the doors they
passed in the hopes of coming back for Marcus and her friends at some point.
    “Our
telepath managed to unearth the fact that Selene’s tracker, Sheila, has been
looking for you for some time. It took a little longer before we discovered
that you went missing with a contingent of Louisianan Svatura. That’s when we realized
that we had you.”
    Lila
gave him a bored look.
    Maddox
simply shrugged. “Not interested? I’m sure Selene will be. Or, perhaps, your
family?”
    They
came to the end of the long corridor and got into a rickety old elevator. Lila counted
five floors before they stopped. The elevator doors opened to reveal a hallway
that reminded her of a hospital, sterile and white. She was escorted down a
series of halls until they ushered her into a room. Inside the room was a
raised table, padded, with straps for her wrists and ankles.
    As
soon as she saw the restraints, Lila backed up. The large, silent man with them
grabbed her waist. Lila went crazy, kicking and scratching and biting