CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN
Ailsa
I’D GET THROUGH this. I locked down my emotions to the point where I was unreachable. I was a shell of my former self now. I’d endured worse. I expected this from them. They wouldn’t break me. I refused to let them.
Let them fucking try.
I may have been new to this whole world of supernaturals and being a vampire, but I wasn’t new to enduring pain, and my vampire body was a heck of a lot stronger than my human one had been.
The punch to my gut came so quickly I hardly registered the movement. But instead of crying—like they wanted—I smiled through gritted teeth. “Is that all you have?”
“Answer the question or we’ll hurt your traitor boyfriend.”
“Is that what you think,” I laughed, hysterically now. My breaths between each laugh came hard. “He’s not my boyfriend.”
He looked puzzled for a moment before delivering a punch to my ribs. “His stench is all over you.”
“Yeah, because he kidnapped me, you imbecile,” I said. Another hit, this time against my stomach. “I was his prisoner. I guess now I’m yours.”
He gripped me by the hair, so hard my head was forced back. “Guss that means you won’t mind if I use you like he did.”
The knot in my gut tightened at the vulgar thought and my heart rate rose.
But I refused to show fear.
Next thing I knew, the door swung open so violently it rattled against its hinges, and darkness seemed to spill into the room with it, thick and suffocating.
“Enough,” a dark voice warned.
Besian’s, I realised.
Fucking great.
I let out a humourless scoff, tasting blood as it slipped past my lips.
“Get out,” he ordered the idiot, not even raising his voice, yet somehow carrying more threat than any shout.
The idiot who had been looming over me hesitated for a half a second before scrambling to obey, practically tripping over himself in his haste to leave.
The door shut again, this time with a quiet click.
Silence followed.
Besian stepped further into the room, his presence swallowing the space whole. “Sorry about that,” he said casually, as though we were discussing a minor inconvenience. “I’ll make sure he’s killed for his behaviour.”
I blinked at him.
I couldn’t get a read on this guy. “Hope you’re not expecting my thanks.”
His smile spread slowly, stretching wide enough to reveal his fangs. It transformed his face completely—what might have been considered handsome to some, turned dangerous and unsettling.
“Would you be that easily pleased?” he mused, tilting his head slightly. “I should certainly hope not.”
His gaze dragged over me. Slow and assessing,
I was suddenly painfully aware of how I must look.
My clothes were torn and filthy, smeared with dirt and blood that had long since dried into stiff patches against the fabric.
My hair hung in tangled, damp strands around my face, sticking where it has matted with sweat and grime.
Bruises bloomed dark and ugly beneath my skin—whatever cuffs they’d put on me stopped all forms of magic working, including the healing properties of vampiric blood.
There was a split at my lip, the metallic taste of it still lingering, and I knew I must have stank.
And yet, the way he was looking at me, didn’t match. If I didn’t know any better I would have guessed he wasn’t happy to see me beaten, which was odd given that he was the reason for my capture in the first place.
I frowned faintly, unease creeping up my spine.
“Where’s Davien?” I asked, breaking the silence before it could stretch any further, before that look of his could burrow any deeper under my skin.
His eyes flicked back to mine, but he didn’t answer.
He raised a hand and I flinched, my muscles tensing in preparation for the next blow. A blow that never came. Instead, I looked up to see his smile had dropped, replaced with something else completely. Pity? Disgust? No… anger?
“A woman of your blood shouldn’t be treated like this.”
What? A woman of my blood? What the fuck was that supposed to mean? Why did everyone constantly talk in half-truths and riddles?
“You really are ignorant to everything you are, aren’t you?”
I just looked at him puzzled. What was I supposed to say to that? I was no one.
He just stood there, huge wings at his back, unflinching. Watching me. I couldn’t take the weight of his glare anymore. “Just get this over with.”
“I don’t need to tarnish you to get the answers I want.”
What the fuck does that mean? I wish these simpletons would understand that I have no answers. In fact, I’d love some myself.
A smile appeared back on his face then, “I’m sure you’ll find them in time. About that I have no doubt. You will be great.”
I tried not to let the shock show on my face, but it was quite clear he was reading my mind. Are you?
“Yes.”
I swallowed hard. “And did you find what you wanted?”
“Sadly not,” he said, lifting his hand once more, this time allowing it to make contact with my cheek. His touch was surprisingly gentle and almost comforting. “I can take the pain away, if you allow.”
Now you ask my permission? I almost laughed.
“I think, if you remember correctly, you’ll find I never laid a hand on you.”
No, you just brought me here, listened as they did as they wanted and then invaded my mind.
“I like you,” he said, ignoring my thoughts. “I look forward to watching you rise.”
Then he bit into his own wrist like a psycho and before I could protest, he pushed it against my lips. “Drink, darling,” he commanded, and all freewill was taken from me as I did as I was told and drank his blood.
It was without a doubt the best I’d ever had. It was rich, and alive with magic.
I drank and drank, I’d happily drain him entirely given the opportunity.
“That’s enough now,” he said, pulling my head back, forcing my mouth to open and my fangs to leave his flesh.
“Beautiful,” he murmured, brushing the corner of my mouth with his thumb to wipe away his spilled blood. “A shame. In this instance I would have been happy to oblige, though I expected no less from a queen.”
My eyes snapped to his. It was a test. To see how I’d react to his blood.
And sure, it healed me, tasted fucking heavenly, but I wasn’t in a puddle at his feet the way Davien had been with mine.
It was an indication of power.
He chuckled darkly, “Clever girl, but let’s keep this between us, shall we. No need for these storm troopers to know.”
Then he left the room.
I grunted aloud, fury taking root below my skin.
***
I wasn’t sure how much time had passed, a day?
Maybe two? Time had a way of dissolving in this hell hole, bleeding into itself until it became unreadable.
After Besian, I’d had no other visitors.
I wondered if that was at his direction, and I couldn’t decide if that was a mercy, or something far more calculated.
I suspected the latter. He didn’t seem to be fully with the Ninth, not in the way the others had. He was playing his own games.
What those were, I had no idea.
But with everything else going on, I really didn’t care.
Besian’s blood had nourished me and then some, meaning no matter how hard I tried to sleep or shut off my thoughts, I couldn’t.
The most deluded part of all of this was that the past day—or however long I’d been in this place—had been almost peaceful in a way.
No expectations, no conversation, nothing but comfortable silence.
Of course though, I had been trapped with my own spiralling mind.
My thoughts took it in turn to delve on Davien, worry about Claire and to argue with myself about who I really was.
That familiar old feeling of inadequacy and self-loathing took root.
The demons that I had never quite shook crawled out of the corners of my mind to do the real torturing.
The cell didn’t help.
If that’s even what it was.
It was too clean to be a dungeon, too sterile to feel real. Smooth walls, no visible seams, no windows—just a low, artificial light that never dimmed, never shifted. There was a narrow bed bolted to the floor, a metal basin, nothing more.
Nothing to break, no weaknesses to exploit.
A perfect cage.
Until suddenly, everything changed.
They came again, but this time hands gripped my arms, firm but not rough, guiding me out of the cell for the first time since my arrival here.
The corridor beyond was blindingly bright, polished floors and glass walls, the kind of sterile perfection that made my skin crawl.
The deeper they led me, the more it felt like I was being pulled into a different kind of control, a threat different from the brutality I’d been shown, but no less harmful.
They took me into a room that looked more like a fancy hotel room than a prison.
They took a vial of my blood like it was nothing more than routine.
I didn’t fight, not because I couldn’t, but because there was no point.
I was finally out of that cell, maybe this would be my chance to get to Claire and somehow make it out of here. I had to be patient.
Without explanation, they stripped me of the ruined clothes I’d been left in, replacing them with something soft, expensive, and entirely not me.
That was after they’d cleaned me. Thoroughly. Every trace of blood, dirt, and struggle erased like it had never existed.
My hair had been scrubbed clean, dried and styled with an unsettling level of care. When I stepped in front of the mirror, I didn’t recognise the woman in front of me. She looked elegant, composed, in a dress that fitted perfectly as though it had been made for only her.
The dress clung to me like it had been conjured rather than tailored, a deep crimson that caught the light with every slight movement, scattering it in a thousand fine, glittering reflections.
The material itself was soft, impossibly smooth against my skin, skimming my figure before cinching neatly at the waist and falling in a long, elegant line to the floor.
A high slit cut up on one side, revealing just enough to make it feel tempting rather than delicate, while the neckline dipped low.
The back was the most striking of it—bare, almost entirely, save for the delicate straps that crossed just enough to keep it in place.
I couldn’t help but wonder who had chosen this dress.
When they were satisfied with what they’d done, they swapped my current anti-magic cuffs with ones that looked like expensive bracelets instead of the shackles they truly were. Then they led me again, through more corridors, up a lift that climbed higher into the building, into another room.
Until finally, they left me.
Alone.
This room was different again.
Large and open. Floor-to-ceiling windows stretched across one wall, revealing the city far below, lights glittered like a sea of stars.
I stood there for a long moment, staring out at the world I could no longer reach, my reflection faint in the glass.
Waiting.
For whatever came next.