Free The Gilded Cage by Blaze Ward Page B

suggest she was more or less than she seemed. They had arrived at a moment of life or death.
    Djamila .
    The dragoon was tied naked to a modified hospital gurney. Trussed, really. Immobilized by someone who was extremely serious about his business and not just exploring his kinbaku kinks on a long woman.
    And wires everywhere. Every good nerve cluster appeared to be getting a jolt of electricity, except the one between her legs.
    So, pain, but at no point pleasure. About what she expected from these men. Brutality, with no understanding of what made a woman tick. Especially not one like Djamila.
    Morons .
    Not that she would help correct their misunderstandings, but it was certainly ammunition for what she had planned for them.
    Lit cigarettes and bolt cutters came to mind.
    Hadiiye stepped back. She had seen what she needed. Her job was to bodyguard Navarre and keep him safe, especially here in the pits of hell.
    Navarre stepped close to Djamila, leaned over, got very, very still. He could probably smell her sweat from there.
    “You see, Captain Navarre,” Tamaz gloated. “I have succeeded where all others have failed. The woman is mine.”
    She watched Navarre’s head turn to look at Tamaz, his face unreadable but closed.
    “Would you like to say hello to her?” Tamaz asked innocently.
    Hadiiye felt the room around her grow cold. She suddenly understood why Tamaz had been so easy about inviting them into his lair to see his prize.
    It was a trap.
    Masterful, really. Bring them here where they couldn’t escape. Bring Djamila out of her tortured state, present the strangers, see her response before she could collect herself.
    Navarre, they would kill out of hand. There was a very good chance Wilhelmina would end up on a table just like this one, if something went wrong.
    Her death might linger over years.
    There was nothing of Javier in the man before her. Captain Navarre was supreme, regal. He was vengeance, personified. He had a voice that could etch metal.
    “That would be lovely,” Navarre drawled, acid dripping on every word.
    The other men had grown suddenly tense, respecting the possibility of violence on close quarters. Very few people would make it out of a room like this alive, most likely, if something bad happened.
    Navarre stood perfectly still. Calm, poised, almost happy. She watched him look down at Djamila again, smile with the warmth of an owl sneaking up on a field mouse.
    “Please?” he continued, putting true emotion into his voice as he looked at Tamaz.
    Captain Tamaz nodded to the weird, little dumpy man in the corner, who leapt forward and began jiggering with a machine by Djamila’s head. Hadiiye has taken it for a bio–monitor at first glance.
    It was apparently the source of Djamila’s pain.
    She watched Djamila’s body grow limp and relaxed as the electricity subsided.
    Tamaz worked his way around to the other side of the table with the doctor, leaving him a clear view of Navarre’s reaction.
    And, coincidentally, moving him out of the way if Erckens and the giant needed to get physical in a small volume. Hadiiye let herself fade back just a bit more, and turned slightly to the side, in case she needed to get at a hidden knife quickly. Not that it would probably matter, but anything in a maelstrom.
    Even from here, the smell of whatever they put under Djamila’s nose was putrid. Almost raw ammonia. Certainly, it got through.
    Djamila opened her eyes slowly. She came to herself and looked up at Javier/Navarre, leaning over her, leering.
    “Hello, princess,” Captain Navarre said cheerfully.
    The big guy tensed. Erckens tensed. Hell, all of them puckered up a little.
    Djamila, bless her soul, actually growled up at Javier, around the gag in her mouth.
    Navarre was looking away from her, at Tamaz, when he straightened up, so Hadiiye couldn’t see his face. But the emotion in his stance, his body language, was pure triumph.
    “Whatever you have planned for her and Sokolov,” Navarre