Chapter 1
Chapter
One
Afrigid dampness seeps into my bones.
They’ve warped, bending into the shape of this cell, like I’m a plant with no room to grow and no oxygen or sunlight.
The vampires made sure of it.
In the darkness, in this prison with only the moisture-laden stones as witness, time trickles into nothingness.
Seconds, minutes, days, they all blur. There are no windows to let in the light, sun or moon, as though it’s some kind of punishment for me to keep me from shifting.
They have no idea how used to the restless prowling of the wolf beneath my skin I’ve actually gotten. They have no idea how I’ve learned to withstand the pull of a moon I can’t see, a change I can’t complete, a release I’ve never been given.
My wolf’s whispers have grown into an ache with no outlet. Being here makes no difference.
I drag my knees up to my chest and wrap my arms around them. My cheek rests on my knees on the spots in my jeans I’d ripped the first night I came to this godforsaken place.
How long ago was it?
When did I come to the vampire castle with Lacey and the witches on a ridiculous rescue mission to save Colt? A dhampir prince shouldn’t need saving, not from four human women.
A shiver races through me. The hollow pit in my stomach opens wider and my wolf claws for release I can’t give.
I am shaking, starving, barely able to keep it together.
I’m not sure what’s worse. Is it better if their mission was a success and they all got out alive? Or is it better if they’re all dead, and that’s why no one has come for me?
I drop onto my side and curl into a smaller ball. My humming vibrates up through the starving depths of my gut. The chill roots in my veins but even the lullaby of my childhood means nothing.
Mom used to sing this song to my sister and I when we had trouble sleeping, or eating. Or existing. I only remember half the words because she used to make them up when we weren’t listening to her.
Another cramp constricts my muscles.
The vamps only send in food once a…day? It is the only way I have to tell the passage of time. It’s enough to keep me alive. Suffering. Aching. Never enough to fill me completely.
Did Lacey ever get to Colt? Did Aimee and RJ find a way out of this place or are they somewhere else? Somewhere colder and darker, with no door or light or air?
Shivering, I shrink in on myself. I’m not sure if it’s better to keep hoping someone will come rescue me or to give up and accept the truth.
I’m stuck here until the vampires figure out what to do with me.
Or maybe they don’t give a shit and they’ll let me rot, leaving the decision of death in my hands.
I hope Grayson is okay.
As usual, my thoughts circle back to him, the boy I found in the woods after he’d been attacked. He survived that night, then the next, until Dad discarded him on the streets with an order to never come back to the Ironwood community again.
We’d saved him only to let him die on his own.
Like the vampires and their once-a-day pity meal.
His face flashes through my mind the way it does when I’m out of luck, out of hope. The glint in his eyes, the rogue smile and the way my heart beats faster in my chest—
Then the world explodes.
Magic brushes against my frigid skin in a ripple before a shower of sparks scald my eyes. I squeeze them shut and scoot to the far end of the cell before the scent of chamomile and woodsmoke curl through my nostrils.
The foundation of the prison rumbles, an ominous rattling vibration. The next blast burns a hole through my retinas and I squint. Light burns through my eyelids and the acrid burn of magic clogs every pore.
I cough to clear my airways, flinch, duck when stones fall.
The strange rattling echoes in my ears.
Finally the world falls into a silence more gut wrenching than the earthquake.
“I didn’t mean for it to do that!” A fractured female voice sounds, muffled, at a distance.
“Then what did you mean it to do, Aimee? Seriously. You wanted a magical bomb. I delivered. End of story,” another raspier voice snaps. “We’re inside.”
“I hope we got the right cell.”
A pause, then, “You seriously had me aim a magic bomb at a dungeon without knowing if we were aiming it directly at our friend?”
RJ. And Aimee. The witches had arrived.
Hope is brighter than an emergency flare.
“At least we’re in. And we made a good show of it. Are you okay?” RJ asks.
I’m not okay.
I can’t find the strength to get the words out but the question wasn’t for me. A second female coughs, wet and garbled, before clearing her throat.
“I didn’t think we were going to bring half of the castle down. Seriously!”
Risking blindness, I pry my eyes open. At first the dark world casts strange shadows on everything, absorbing the light outside my prison. Then the shapes congeal into something tangible.
“We got the cell open,” RJ insists. “Now do you want to waste time arguing while the vampires rain down on us like angry hornets? Or find Mandi?”
Loose stones and mortar crunch beneath their feet and when the shadows finally clear, the witches stand in stark relief against the gloom of the ruined dungeon. The cavalry has arrived.
RJ pauses where the cell door used to be with a beatific smile splitting her face. Aimee is a step beyond her, light hair done in a tight braided coronet around her face.
She waves the smoke away with one hand and holds out a lantern with a smokeless flame trapped inside.
“There you are,” RJ says to me.
Shock keeps me grounded in place for a long, tense moment. Finally I pull myself to my feet, keeping a palm flat against the wall. “You came.”
My voice holds even if it sounds like I’ve swallowed sheets of sandpaper.
“We weren’t going to leave you to rot, Mandi. Come on.” Aimee holds out her arm to help me over the debris. “We just had some vamps to handle on the way. No big deal.”
RJ glances over her shoulder. “Actually, big deal. They’re pretty pissed off.”
A pissed off vampire isn’t too high on my list of things I want to deal with. I grab Aimee’s hand, letting her tug me forward, the toe of my sneaker catching on the rough edge of stone.
“We expected this.” RJ’s glare cuts through the smoke from their rescue. “We went over the variables before we came. It’s not like we made the decision spur of the moment.”
I’m a fumbling mess and caked with filth and grime. Neither one of them notice.
A long hallway stretches in front of us lined by cages. Steel warps and flakes into ruin in places, but the locks are shiny and new. They hold fast. I hadn’t heard any other cries since I’ve been here but that doesn’t mean there aren’t bodies decaying behind those doors.
I’m lucky enough to live despite it all.
“How long?” I ask Aimee.
She practically drags me toward the curving stairway out of the darkness. “Four days. It took us a bit of time to get out the first go around.”
Only four days and I’d started to lose my mind?
Blood drains from my face. “Lacey? Colt?”
Their names break off in another cough, my throat burning from the reek of smoke. My wolf whines and shrinks down into the pit of my stomach where she’s the most comfortable. I could really use her right now.
My human form is weak, shaky, useless.
“They’re fine,” RJ answers, distracted. “They made it out.”
She lifts her hands the moment we crest the last riser and blasts open the door. Three vampire guards beyond hit the wall, thrown back by the power of her magic.
She grins and wipes her hands on the front of her jeans then steps over them.
The nearest one moans and Aimee kicks him in the face. His head rebounds against the wall before he falls still. “Whatever you see, keep going.”
Shame mingles with relief, with fear, with every emotion too horrifying to name in the dark.
“Don’t worry, Mandi, we’re going to get you out.” RJ echoes her sister’s sentiment and my shame only deepens. “We aren’t leaving you again.”
I should help them.
My heart jumps up to my throat when another wave of vampire guards turn the corner, blocking our exit. RJ reacts without thought. Several of the guards duck beneath the onslaught of her magic.
It hits another square in the chest and blasts a hole clean through him. His eyes go wide, hands automatically reaching for the hole, and he slides to the floor to join the rest of the dead.
However they got in, they want to make a statement on the way out. A point to not underestimate them.
I’m surprised the vampires haven’t sent everyone after us.
The others charge, two with short swords drawn.
Dried blood dots the steel like freckles. Vampires always bring a wave of cold with them, as though their undead forms can no longer retain any sort of heat. They’re moved by spite and bloodlust and Aimee pushes me out of the way before the tip of a sword slices across my abdomen.
She deflects the blow with her lantern and slams it against the side of the vamp’s face, her power siphoned away for her sister to use.
My thoughts slow, heartbeat racing, head spinning.
This kind of fight is always loud in the movies, isn’t it?
Weapons clanking or guns firing, people screaming or shouting out a challenge. Bad mouthing. Cursing.
Wolf fights are loud.
Vampires move silently. They surround the witches, striking with what would be deadly accuracy if they were up against any other pair of young women.
My muscles go limp. I cower into myself, desperation urging me to act. To be a help rather than a hindrance.
Do something!
Getting the change to happen is the same as screaming into a void, only nothing screams back and it doesn’t help me feel better.
A vampire in leather armor stamped with his house brand charges us.
RJ grabs an ampoule from the front of her jacket and sends it flying toward him. The spell explodes, scalding wherever it touches.
Now there’s sound; he is screeching in pain. He clutches his face and we rush past him, cutting through a useless kitchen. Stainless steel countertops remain pristine and two giant fridges dominate the space.
I blanch. Whatever the vamps have in those fridges, I don’t want to know.
“It’s this way,” RJ insists from the doorway ahead.
Aimee shakes her head. “You better be right.”
“I think I know what way we got in, especially since we did our research.” Her magic twines in front of her, flashing in and out of existence like a string of red.
A way out. A breadcrumb trial.
My chest constricts. Our sneakers squeak over the tile floor and darkness shelters us once again once we’re out from under the glow of fake sunlight.
Rather than heading forward, RJ pulls on the string, the glow disappearing through a wall.
Aimee lifts the lantern high and magic pulses. A panel in the wall swings open, leading us down. A low moan rumbles my throat.
“After you,” RJ adds.
Chaos, dead vampires, and dangers at every turn. Now they want me to go into the black first? If I can’t trust the witches then I’m screwed anyway. What else do I have to lose at this point?
Aimee glances behind her. “Better get a move on, Mandi. More of them are coming.”
“See you on the other side.” I duck my head, stepping into the panel and over the threshold.
Hoping it leads us out the other side and not somewhere worse.