I glower up at him. “Move your fucking hand.”

“No,” he says matter-of-factly, and the bastard’s mouth twitches as if he finds my aggression cute. Which pisses me off.

I keep hold of his wrist and level my fury at him.

I’ve faced beasts in martial arts competitions, stared them down, but I find Flanagan’s diamond gaze a hard one to meet. He appears at ease, and yet his eyes glow with an intensity that could burn through bone. The hint of something dark and menacing flickers in their depths. I’m pretty good at reading people—you have to be when you grow up in foster care; it’s how you survive. This man may appear calm and patient, but his eyes tell me he’s dangerous. Unyielding and resolute. In other words, hard as fuck.

I drop my hands. “I want answers.”

“And you’ll get them.”

My legs burn with the need to bolt, to leave this madness behind, but given the fluid way Flanagan moves, even if I could get past him, I don’t think I’d make it far.

I shoot him one last sour glare and step back to perch on the lip of the van floor, feet braced on the ground. He nods his approval. Arrogant bastard. My knuckles crack as I grip the van’s metal edge.

Laasya still chants cross-legged on the asphalt, her voice a steady murmur.

I eye the knives strapped to Flanagan’s belt. “So I’m your prisoner, then?”

He perches beside me, mirroring my posture. The silver symbol on the shoulder of his vest shimmers in the low light. “You’re at risk of capture and slavery, Michael. Your Flame is out of control. Guardian protection is not imprisonment, but we will restrain Channelers who pose a risk to others.”

Restrain. That word clangs through my mind like the toll of a bell.

I don’t like enclosed spaces of any kind. Cars, lifts, cubicles, even small rooms used to cause a panic attack. A serious inconvenience for my foster parents when I was a kid. It certainly made the school run interesting. I’m better now. I can breathe deep and fix my mind on other things. I didn’t even notice it in the van, though I had plenty to keep me occupied. But restrained. Locked up. Those phrases chill me to the bone.

So does slavery.

“What is a Blood Servant anyway? Who’s this prince you mentioned? What do they all want? That woman, Alyona, didn’t look human.”

Flanagan gives me a wry smile. “That’s because she isn’t human. She’s an Anlu’kyr witch.”

“Anloo what?”

“Anlu’kyr. The people of the blood. You will know them better as vampires.”

I check his face, expecting a grin. His expression remains sober.

“Vampires? As in creatures who drink blood, sleep in coffins, avoid holy water. The undead. Those sorts of vampires?”

He laughs a deep rumble. “They’re not undead. Well, most of them aren’t. They’re a supernatural species. They sleep in beds, have no aversion to holy water, and though they live on blood, they can eat normal food as well if they choose to. But they are almost immortal, and as fast and strong and lethal as the legends suggest.”