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“Whattaya say we wake him up?” joked the guard with the gun in his hand. He swaggered toward Niko, temptingly within arm’s reach, if Niko’s arms hadn’t been heavily secured behind him. The nose of the 9mm lowered slowly, down past his chest, then past his abdomen too. “I say we castrate this murdering piece of shit. Blow his balls off and let the Enforcement Agency take him away in pieces.”

“Kiril, stop being a jackass,” one of the others warned. “Lex said we couldn’t touch him.”

“Lex is a pussy.” Polished black steel grated with a cold snick as Kiril chambered a round. “In two seconds, this warrior’s going to be nothing but a pussy too.”

Nikolai held himself very still as the gun pressed snugly against his groin. Part of his patience was born of genuine fear, as he was rather fond of his manly bits and had no wish to lose them. But overriding even that was the understanding that his opportunities to turn this situation in his favor were few and fleeting. He had shaken off most of the internal effects of Renata’s talent, but he couldn’t be sure of his physical strength unless he tried it.

And if he tried it now and failed… well, he didn’t want to contemplate the odds of walking away with his manhood intact if he tried to break out of his bonds and succeeded only in upsetting trigger-happy Kiril.

A hard palm cuffed the side of his skull. “You in there, warrior? I got something for you. Time to wake up.”

Eyes closed to conceal their change from blue to amber, Nikolai let his head loll bonelessly with the blow. But inside of him, fury was beginning to kindle in his belly. He had to hold it at bay. Couldn’t let Kiril or the others see the change in his dermaglyphs and risk telegraphing the fact that he was very much awake and aware and totally pissed off.

“Wake up,” Kiril growled.

He started to lift Niko’s chin, but then a noise outside the lodge drew his attention away. Gravel spraying and crunching underneath the tires of approaching vehicles. A fleet of them, by the sound of it.

“The Agency is here,” one of the other guards announced.

Kiril backed away from Nikolai, but he took his time disarming the pistol. Outside, the vehicles were slowing down, coming to a halt. Doors opened. Boots hit the gravel drive as the Darkhavens’ policing agents poured out. Nikolai counted more than half a dozen pairs of feet moving toward the lodge.

Shit.

If he didn’t get himself out of this disaster pretty damn quick, he was going to wake up in the hands of the Enforcement Agency. And for a member of the Order, a group the Agency had long wished extinct, arrest by them would make Lex and his guards’ treatment seem like a trip to a spa. If he fell into the Agency’s hands now— particularly as an accused killer of a Gen One—Niko knew without question he was as good as dead.

Lex greeted the new arrivals like he was holding court for visiting dignitaries. “This way,” he called from somewhere outside the lodge. “I have the bastard contained and waiting for you in the hall.”

“He has the bastard contained,” Kiril muttered sourly. “I doubt Lex could contain his own ass if he was using both hands.”

The other guards chuckled cautiously.

“Come on,” Kiril said. “Let’s get the warrior on his feet so the Agency can take him out of here.”

Hope surged in Niko’s chest. If they freed him of the restraints, he might have a slim chance of escaping. Very slim, considering the approaching pound of boots and firepower headed in his direction from outside the lodge, but slim was a hell of a lot better than none.

He kept up his lifeless slump in the chair, even as Kiril squatted in front of him and unlocked the chains around his ankles. Impatience gnawed at him. Nikolai’s every impulse was to bring his knee up and crack the guard under the jaw.

He had to clamp his molars down onto his tongue to keep himself unmoving, breathing as shallowly as he could, waiting for the better opportunity when the guard then went around the back of him and picked up the lock binding the chains on his torso and wrists.