Chapter 33
Chapter Thirty-Three
FIONA
R oman positions me in front of him, and we descend a steep staircase too narrow for us to walk side by side. I wonder how this place can have a basement at all, considering it’s built next to the ocean, but I learn pretty quickly that this is no ordinary lower level. After the last step, the carpet ends, revealing a metal grate for a floor and bolted steel walls. I’m descending into a submarine, a tankard, some sort of vault.
“Vivian is down here?” I ask, but I know the answer. She hasn’t been his guest. This entire time, she’s been his prisoner. If she had been his guest, she would have returned my messages and calls. Only now do I worry that prisoner isn’t the term for what’s happened to her, that it might be something more, something darker. “Is she still alive, Roman?” It’s a brazen question, but we’ve passed tiptoeing around the reality that’s right in front of me.
He snorts and places a hand in the center of my back, guiding me deeper into the dark depths of the room. A smell hits me, and I can’t place it immediately; then I do. It’s like a stairwell in a parking garage in the city. Dried urine, dirty human, and something medicinal like someone tried to cover it all with a spritz of Lysol.
A switch clicks. Long, rectangular fluorescent lights blink on along the ceiling, one after another, to reveal cages—no, prison cells. A filthy skeleton of a woman appears at the bars of one, blinking like it’s the first time in a long time she’s seen light.
“Vivian!” I run to my friend, grabbing her hands through the bars.
“Oh God. Oh God, Fiona. Oh no. Oh God.” Her eyes are so wide and her voice is raw. But the way her skin hangs on her disturbs me the most. She looks like she’s starving to death. This is torture. This is…
Alex pops into my head, those shrewd green eyes narrowing. Do you want to wallow in the horror or figure a way out of this for both of you?
I wipe my tears. “I’ve got you,” I whisper, even though truthfully, I don’t have anyone. Not even myself. I search her face and find bruises along her jaw, her wrists. There’s a cut healing, like someone dragged the edge of a blade across her throat, just deep enough to break the skin.
Roman steps forward, sending Vivian scurrying away from the bars. “Vivian doesn’t follow directions very well. I enjoy playing with her, but like a puppy, I can’t trust her outside her cage.”
Only then do I glance into her cell, where she huddles in the corner next to a filthy cot with a blanket that isn’t close to warm enough for down here and a toilet that allows for no privacy. Worse, she’s still wearing the same dress she wore at the wedding. He hasn’t even given her a change of clothes. And she is so thin. Gaunt. Skeletal. Her eyes, her once-vibrant eyes, how hollow they’ve become. I can’t stand it.
I whirl on Roman, fire rising in my blood, but it’s doused immediately by the cold, merciless look in his soulless eyes. Unless I want to play Roman’s painful game and end up Vivian’s roommate, I need to become his sweet, obedient fiancée. “You’re right. Vivian has never been good at following directions. But now that I’m here, I can help keep her in line. Will you let her out please?” I lay my hands softly on his chest. “I really would like her at our wedding, and I can’t have her standing with me, looking and... smelling like that.” I cascade my fingers toward the bars.
Roman seems to contemplate my request, then brushes under my eye, rubbing a stray tear between his fingers. “Not if she’s going to upset you.”
I plaster on the biggest, brightest smile. “I’m not upset. Those are happy tears, Roman. I’m happy to see her, just like I’m happy to see you.”
He skims a hand along the outside of my arm, causing my stomach to pitch. “I’m glad you said that. Truly, Fiona, it’s refreshing to be with someone who finally understands me.” He strokes the back of my head like I’m his new favorite pet. “I have another surprise for you, and I think you are going to really enjoy this one.” His smile is broad and beaming as he gestures proudly across the room at the neighboring cell.
It's all I can do to stifle a scream when I see Donovan strapped to a chair behind the bars, eyes closed and head hanging. An IV in his arm drains blood through a tube leading to a bag near his hip. He’s unconscious and pale. So fucking pale. The last time I met the man, he looked about fifty—tall, fit, with brown hair and graying sideburns. Only a few lines marred the area around his smiling eyes to betray his age. But now he’s barely recognizable. He looks old, like he’s aged thirty years in a day, with sunken cheeks and sallow skin. All I can think is I’m looking at a death mask.
My gaze flicks up to Roman, and it takes all my willpower to keep my own mask in place. He’s watching me intently. Watching me with a tiny smile of pleasure, as if he’d like to sop up any panic and disgust I’m feeling with a dinner roll like it’s gravy.
“Why is your father’s best friend in a cell?”
That tiny smile blooms into something fuller, wider. He backs me against the bars of Vivian’s cell and braces his forearm above my head, leaning in way too close, close enough that the stiff erection in his pants brushes the front of my dress. In all the time I dated Roman, he never appeared aroused. Now I get it. This dungeon, with its blood and stink and suffering, is his kind of porn. Seeing Vivian afraid, seeing Donovan caged and bleeding, it’s some kind of kink to him.
My skin crawls with the need to fight or flee, but then he says, “All those times you wrote about dungeons and torture in your books, I bet you’ve never seen the real thing. I bet you’ve never experienced it, smelled it.” He takes a deep breath like it’s a warm day in spring, his enthusiasm for his dungeon radiating from him. “Are you taking it all in? This is gold.”
Terror makes my stomach clench, and for a moment I think I might vomit, but I swallow it down and force my face to remain impassive. It’s his comment about writing that gives me an idea. I disassociate and become an observer of this scene, as if this truly is research for a book and not real life, not the most horrific experience I’ve ever had.
Alex’s voice pops into my head , He’s a psychopath. He gets off on pain and suffering. Don’t show him any. A toddler won’t play with a toy that doesn’t work. Be as boring and sweet as possible . Go along with everything he says. Make him believe you’re enamored with him.
I force an appreciative smile, perfectly suitable for the Mrs. Psychopath he wants me to be. “It’s all very intriguing.” I gesture around the dungeon. “Exactly the inspiration I need, actually. But why are you draining Donovan’s blood? He looks sick.”
He taps the tip of my nose with his finger. “Have you figured out yet that Donovan is a dragon?”
I slowly shake my head. “No. You said he was Stefan’s friend.”
He laughs, and the sound is awful. The laugh of a maniac. I take shallow breaths. I count to ten inside my head.
“A necessary ruse. Donovan is a dragon, just like the beast who took you. He’s been my father’s pet for ages, but since my father is dead now, I’ve decided not to keep him.”
“Stefan is dead?” I’d wondered how Roman had risen to grandmaster so quickly.
He gives a low chuckle. “Sadly so. And Donovan, keeping him around has become problematic. Only, dragon blood is what fuels the magic of our rings. I can’t let it go to waste.” He holds up his right hand and thumbs the wide band of his Order ring. He told me once it was a class ring, and it could easily pass for one, with its wide platinum band and the Saint George’s cross engraved on the face. I’d thought the etching around the edge was decorative. The font is tiny and hard to read. But now that I’m studying it up close, I realize it’s the inscription—the same quote as was written in blood above Lucy Vale’s head— Astra inclinant, sed non obligant.
“ I saw your ring transform into a weapon before,” I say, lashes fluttering.
“Would you like to see?” A dimple appears in his cheek, and the ring glows blue. With a twist of his wrist, it transforms into the crossbow he used to shoot Connor.
“That’s… incredible,” I say breathlessly. I try to make it sound like I’m amazed instead of terrified. “Do you ever run out of bolts?”
“That’s the best part. Once I fire, they regenerate. It takes a few seconds, longer if my energy is low.”
“It draws from your personal energy?”
He waves his hand, and the crossbow becomes a ring again. “It feels like a hard workout afterward. It’s… rewarding.” Of course it is. He probably loves killing .
“Did you use it to kill Lucy Vale?”
He leans in closer, sniffing the side of my neck, and it’s all I can do not to sprint for the exit. “No. It can be whatever I want it to be. I prefer the crossbow because it’s useful when your prey has wings, but Lucy—for her I used a blade. She didn’t know what she was. She couldn’t fly.”
“Then why did you kill her?”
He draws back and raises an eyebrow. “I would have thought a mind like yours would have figured it out.”
I study his face. He’s a clinical psychopath with soulless eyes and a heartlessly flirty grin, as if this is a test, a test to see if I’m clever enough to figure out what he did. A test to see if I’m truly wife material, perhaps. Or maybe he likes my books and wants to feel like he’s just as clever as one of my villains. “I bet you killed Lucy to attract the dragons to Europe. To Paris.”
He smacks the bars above my head. “Yes. You truly are bright for a woman. I knew you would be when I chose you.” He stares down at me, teeth gleaming. “Go on.”
“I don’t think your goal was for a dragon to kidnap me. That seemed to surprise you as much as it did me. But you did want them there for some reason. It couldn’t have been about humans though because they don’t know dragons exist. Plus, when I was taken, you told no one, which means you didn’t want the humans to know.”
“So close. You’re almost there.” His voice drops to a seductive whisper and he runs the back of his nails along the outside of my arm.
I flash him a dazzled look as if to say he’s so very intelligent, but then duck under his arm and start pacing the space between the cells like I need to walk to think. My ridiculous heels clack on the concrete as I rub my chin. What I’m really doing is scanning everything, every corner of this dungeon. “Since you clearly didn’t care what the humans thought about the dragons’ response to Lucy being murdered, you must have wanted someone else to notice.” Quickly I put it all together like a plot I’m writing that is only now working itself out. “You wanted to convince the rest of the Saint’s Order.”
I turn away from Roman to look at Donovan, the only clue the dragon is still alive the rise and fall of his chest. “You needed a dragon to come to France so that you could blame the dragons for killing your father,” I say softly as a chill comes over me at the supreme evil of it all. “Because if they knew you did it, they wouldn’t elect you grandmaster. You went to great lengths to make sure you were standing on the altar in front of all of them at the time your father was murdered and Donovan went missing.”
His hands land on my shoulders, and I can’t keep myself from flinching. “Very good.”
“And that means the Order thinks the dragons broke the accord.”
He barks a laugh of surprise. “He told you about the accord? Your captor was certainly forthcoming.”
Fuck . “Only to explain what he wanted from you. He said he’d taken me to force you to explain why you’d broken the accord by killing Lucy.”
“Hmmm. I suppose I should thank him. So much easier for me to bring you up to speed.” He clasps his hands behind his hips and rocks back on his heels. “You were right when you suspected my father and Donovan were together. Obviously he was more than a family friend. That was a ruse I came up with to explain why they were always... touching. But after you mentioned you believed they were partners, I discovered you were right. The two were mated.”
I try to keep my expression steady. I’d suspected they were together, but mates? The implications madly rush through my head.
“Do you know that mating a dragon bestows a human with health and an unnaturally long life?”
I shake my head.
“No, of course you don’t. But it’s true. My father intended to rule the Order and remain CEO of Cifarelli Enterprises for as long as possible. I’d never have my chance to rule. He planned to steal my birthright from me. When I killed him, it started the clock ticking on Donovan. Now that his mate is dead, he’ll start to age again. Eventually, he’ll go up in flames during his alignment. He’s almost seventy. I might have a few decades left to use his energy, but it’s too risky to keep him around, considering he’s the only one who knows I murdered my father. That’s why I’m collecting his blood. We’ll have enough to last the Order until I can capture another dragon.”
He rests his hands on my shoulders, stroking the bare skin with his thumbs. For a few minutes, I can’t move. It’s like my blood has frozen in my veins from his touch. I stare at Donovan, watching his blood drip, drip, drip into the bag .
“So you murdered your father and blamed it on the dragons, who were there because of Lucy. Who did you blame for killing Lucy?”
“Also the dragons,” he says with a dark chuckle. “They needed an excuse to legitimize their actions.”
“And the Order bought it all?”
“Never suspected a thing.”
“Wow, Roman.” I shake my head as if I’m impressed when really I’m deeply disturbed.
“We should go to bed, it’s getting late.” His tone is eerily seductive, as if all this was meant to impress me. As if all of it were foreplay.
I lick my lips, then glance toward Vivian, whose eyes are enormous in her gaunt face. I’m walking a tightrope here and I have to be careful. I have one chance to prove to him that I’m as crazy as he is, to become Harley Quinn to his Joker. It’s the only way I’ll earn his trust.
I rest my hands on his chest and stare up at him through my lashes. “This is so impressive, Roman. Really. Your entire plan was nothing short of brilliant. I couldn’t have written it any better in one of my books.”
He seems to swell under the compliment and leans in as if to kiss me. I rest two fingers on his lips.
“But can I ask you for a wedding gift?”
He steps in closer, those dead eyes narrowing in on me. “You know I can give you anything you want.”
“I want the dragon,” I say through my teeth. I fist his shirt and pull him closer to me. “The one that took me. I want you to capture it so that I can keep it in that fucking cage after Donovan is dead, just like it kept me caged. And I want to watch you burn the bastard with your ring whenever I feel like it.”
Even saying that aloud, knowing I’m lying, makes me want to die, especially with Donovan within hearing distance, but I throw every bit of control I have left into the act. You’ve got this , Alex says inside my head. Indeed, Roman’s pupils are wide and he’s looking at me like I’m his favorite slice of birthday cake.
“I swear it on my father’s grave,” he says.
I nod. “It counts for more since you put him in it.” I cackle like I’m entirely off my rocker.
“Come, it’s late,” he says, glancing at his watch.
I’m not wearing one, so I look at his. It’s not just late, it’s early morning. “No wonder I’m so exhausted. I can barely keep my eyes open.”
He threads his fingers into mine and starts for the stairs.
I plant my feet. “Aren’t you forgetting something?” I point at Vivian.
She tentatively takes a step toward her cell door, her eyes darting in Roman’s direction. He blinks at me and shakes his head. “She knows too much.”
“She won’t tell anyone. She’s my friend.” I make eye contact with her and widen my eyes slightly.
“Of course I won’t,” she promises through a dry, raspy throat. I can see what saying it costs her.
“She realizes how powerful you are, Roman. We both do. Besides, if I’m going to be a proper grandmaster’s wife, I’m going to need a friend I can confide in, one who knows how to keep a secret.”
He scowls. “Your friend has not been cooperative up to this point.”
I swallow down the bile rising in my throat and cup his face in my hands. “At least move her to a guest room. Feed her dinner and let her shower. Guard the room if you must but give me a chance to convince her to do it your way.”
“Our way,” he says softly, brushing a hand along my back.
Swallow, swallow, swallow. Don’t you dare puke right now, Fiona. Not until she’s out of that cell, Alex yells in my head . I meet his soulless black eyes and hold them. “Our way.”
His cold lips meet mine in a kiss that makes me think of kissing a snake, and somewhere deep down, in that place where I can feel my bond with Connor, a place that’s been silent for hours, I finally hear a roar.