Chapter 26
Merrit
Rope burned against my wrists.
That was the first thing I noticed as I woke—rough hemp rending skin, my bound wrists. Then the cold. Then the pain radiating through my skull. I tried to move and couldn't.
My hands were bound behind me, rope cutting deeper as I tested it. My legs were tied at the ankles. I was sitting—no, slumped against something hard. A wall, maybe?
I forced my eyes open.
Darkness. Then shapes emerging from shadow. Stone walls, rough-hewn and damp. A single candle flickered on a table across the room, flame guttering in some unfelt draft. No windows. One door—heavy wood reinforced with iron bands.
A basement. A cell. Somewhere underground where no one would hear.
The bond.
I reached for it desperately, searching for Kieran's presence.
“Kieran!”
Nothing.
Not the comfortable silence of him sleeping. Not the distant hum of him in another room. Just that terrible emptiness, like the bond had been severed completely.
No—wait. Not severed. There, so faint I almost missed it: a flicker. Like a candle flame about to go out, struggling to stay lit.
The blood magic was wearing off. Slowly. But the bond was still there, buried under whatever spell Tobias had used.
Which meant Kieran was alive. And probably losing his mind trying to reach me.
“I'm here,” I projected into the void, knowing he couldn't hear. “I'm alive.”
My throat ached. I tried to swallow, and pain lanced through my neck. The paralysis had worn off completely, leaving me with just rope burns and whatever damage the blood magic had done.
I cataloged my body: head pounding, throat sore, wrists bleeding from the rope, but nothing broken. No new injuries beyond what the fall and the magic had caused.
Where was I?
I surveyed my surroundings more carefully, and something tugged at the edges of my awareness. Not quite memory—more like familiarity my body recognized before my mind did.
The table held more than just the candle. Shapes in the dim light—metal blades—that made my stomach turn.
The room was small. Ten feet across. Old stone walls with that particular texture—
Wait.
My breath caught.
I knew this texture. These walls. Not from seeing them, but from touching them as a child. Running my hands along rough stone while learning to navigate by feel when Samona turned out the lights for "stealth training."
The orphanage.
Not these rooms—I'd never been in the basement. But above me, up those stairs I couldn't see but knew were there, was the building where Samona had taught me everything. How to sign. How to fight. How to read people's faces for the emotions they tried to hide.
Where she'd told me about Whisperbound on cold nights when I couldn't sleep. Stories I'd thought were fairy tales until Kieran appeared in my bar with that pull I couldn't explain.
Tobias had brought me back to the only home I remembered. And he was turning it into my grave.
The violation of it—using this place, this place—made rage flare hot beneath the fear.
The walls were stained dark in places. Old blood, probably. The floor beneath me was stone worn smooth by time and gods knew what else.
How long had Tobias been using this basement? How many others had died down here while I lived upstairs, safe and ignorant?
The cruelty of it settled cold and sharp in my bones.
I tested the ropes. Tight, professionally done. My lockpicking skills were useless here. I needed my hands free to work a lock, and there was no lock to pick anyway. The door was barred from outside; I could see the shadow of the beam across the crack.
My knife was gone. Of course it was gone.
Think. Think.
I'd found the files. Seen my parents' portraits, their names, the clinical description of their murders. The portrait of me as a child, wild red hair, and a book bigger than I was.
Vaerin. My name was Vaerin.
Had I dropped the files? Had Kieran found them?
Gods, I hoped so. I hoped he knew everything. Hoped he'd put the pieces together and was coming for me.
If the bond would just work—
Footsteps echoed outside, and I froze, every muscle tensing despite the pain. The bar scraped across the door. The lock clicked. The hinges groaned as the door swung open.
Tobias stepped through, carrying a second candle. The light threw his shadow long and monstrous across the stone. He closed the door behind him, setting the candle on the table next to the first.
Then he turned to look at me.
His expression was calm. Pleasant, even. Like he was visiting an old friend rather than the woman he'd kidnapped and planned to torture.
"You're awake," he said, voice mild. "Good. I was starting to worry I'd used too much of the paralytic. It's a delicate balance—too little and you fight back, too much and you die before we can even begin. I'd hate for this to be over too quickly."
I stared at him, rage building in my chest.
He crossed to me, crouched down so we were eye level, studying my face with calculating interest.
"You look so much like her. Your mother. Same eyes, same stubborn set to the jaw." He reached out, and I jerked my head away. He smiled. "Same defiance. She fought, too. Begged for your life. Offered me anything—knowledge, service, her own death in your place."
I tried to spit at him, but my mouth was too dry.
"I told her no." His voice stayed conversational. "Because it was never about what she could offer. It was about what you were. A telepath. A hybrid. Immune to compulsion. Capable of powers we couldn't predict or control."
He stood and walked back to the table.
"Your father tried to fight. Fae strength is considerable—I had to use sustained force to subdue him. He kept trying to get to you. Even when he was dying, he was trying to protect you."
My vision blurred with tears. I blinked them away furiously. I wouldn't cry. Wouldn't give him the satisfaction.
"And you." He picked up something from the table—a blade, iron, glinting in the candlelight. "Small. Weak. Just ten years old and already showing signs of telepathic ability. Your mother died with you in her arms. I gave her that mercy at least—she didn't have to watch you die first."
I tried to sign something—anything—and felt the rope carve deeper into my wrists. Right. My hands were bound.
I was mute. And he'd tied my hands.
I couldn't communicate at all.
The realization must have shown on my face because Tobias smiled.
"I know you can't speak," he said pleasantly. "And I know you need your hands to sign. That's intentional. You see, I'm not here for conversation, Merrit. Or should I say—" He tilted his head. "Merrit Vaerin. That is your real family name, isn't it? The one someone changed to Locke to hide you."
My family name. Spoken for the first time in twenty years by the man who'd murdered them.
In the basement of the building where I'd been hidden. Where I'd been safe.
Where I'd learned my name was Merrit Locke and that my past was gone.
"I'm here to tell you a story," Tobias continued, setting the blade back on the table and selecting another, testing the edge. "About why you're going to die. About why your prince is going to die. About why everything your parents tried to protect died the moment I set your house on fire."
He pulled a stool from the shadows, sat facing me. Comfortable. Like we had all the time in the world.
"Do you know what telepaths represent?" he asked. "Not to you, obviously. To people like me. To the kingdom. To the structures of power that have kept this realm stable for millennia."
I just stared at him.
"Chaos," he answered his own question. "The end of order.
For thousands of years, vampire nobility ruled through compulsion.
We kept the peace. Maintained structure.
Your kind can't be compelled. Can't be controlled.
One telepath in the right place could topple kingdoms. Read the thoughts of kings, expose secrets, manipulate from the shadows. "
He leaned forward.
"I've spent six hundred years preventing that. Quietly. Efficiently. Eliminating threats before they could grow into problems. The king knew some of it—enough to turn a blind eye. But the details?" He shrugged. "He didn't need to know everything. Just that the threats were handled."
My parents weren't threats, I wanted to scream at him. They were scholars. Healers. They hurt no one.
"Your parents?" He read my face. "Threat number three hundred and twelve and three hundred and thirteen. Living too close to the border, too close to power. Their hybrid child? Unacceptable risk. Better to eliminate the problem early than wait for it to grow."
He stood, pacing slowly around the room.
"But I had a different reason for being so... thorough. So dedicated to this particular duty."
He stopped, back to me, staring at the candle flame, like he could see something in it I couldn't.
"I had a Whisperbound once." His voice softened, almost reverent.
"A seer. The most beautiful mind I'd ever touched.
When she looked at the world, she didn't see what was—she saw what could be.
Threads of Fate, possibilities, futures branching like tree roots in every direction.
Infinite and luminous and utterly breathtaking. "
He was quiet for a moment, lost in memory.
"The king used her. Oh, he was polite about it at first. Respectful.
But then he started demanding more. One more vision.
Just one more glimpse of the future. 'For the kingdom,' he'd say.
'For the realm's safety.' She tried to refuse—told him her sight was failing, that pushing further would break something inside her that couldn't be repaired. "
He turned slowly, meeting my gaze.
"He ordered her to try anyway. Not requested. Ordered. 'One more vision. For the kingdom.' And she..." His jaw tightened. "She was loyal. Obedient. So she tried."
The silence stretched between us, heavy and suffocating.