5. Stellan
STELLAN
Edith’s granddaughter pointed a torch at my face.
I shut my eyes against the beam. Harrowmere had dragged every chain tight when her blood hit the seal, leaving me on one knee behind the inner gate. Not the entrance I would’ve chosen.
The light moved down to my chest, my wrists and the iron fixed to the wall behind me.
“You’re not a dog,” she said.
Her voice was steady. Her pulse wasn’t.
“I’ve been called worse.”
Her blood scented the cold air, fresh and warm, and my fangs were already down. I turned my face away before the torch found them.
“Cover your hand.”
She didn’t move farther into the room. “Start with your name.”
“Cover the cut first. Unless you want to find out how strong these chains are.”
The threat sounded worse than I meant it to. Hunger stripped the manners from most things.
Cloth rustled. When I looked back, she had wrapped a white handkerchief around her palm and tightened it with her teeth. The torch stayed aimed at me throughout.
Long red hair had escaped whatever had once held it back. It fell over the shoulders of a dark coat, bright against the black stone around her. Her green eyes moved over the chamber without settling anywhere for long. Gate. Chains. Throne. Door. She was checking exits before she checked me.
Good.
“Stellan Varen,” I said. “I’m the reason you need to stay on that side of the gate.”
She studied the bars between us. “Are you the reason my grandmother hid an underground court under her house?”
“No. I’m the man someone chained inside it.”
The torch rose to my face again. I let her see the fangs this time.
She went very still.
Fear reached me through the court’s new connection, followed by disbelief, anger and a flicker of interest. The bond was weak, but it was already sharing too much.
“Vampire?” she asked.
“Yes.”
Her gaze travelled over my bare shoulders and the tattoos covering my arms. Captivity had taken weight from me, but not enough muscle to make me harmless. The look warmed before she dragged it back to my face.
That part wasn’t fear.
My body noticed. A century without sex apparently hadn’t improved its judgement.
She adjusted her grip on the torch. “Are you surprised I’m not screaming? The house turned on its own kettle and opened a cupboard for me. I’m running out of surprise.”
A laugh caught in my dry throat. It hurt, but I didn’t mind the sound. “Did it offer tea?”
“Yes. Then it trapped me under the floor.”
“It likes you. Harrowmere has always had a possessive streak.”
Her mouth almost curved. Almost. Then the chain at my right wrist pulled, and the moment disappeared.
I braced before it could drag me closer to the gate. Iron cut into skin that had barely healed from the last time. Fresh blood ran over my palm.
Bryony’s torch followed it. “How long have you been here?”
“One hundred and twelve years.”
She stopped breathing for a beat.
I’d learned to measure shock by silence. Hers lasted less time than most.
“How are you still alive? Don’t say vampire. You know what I mean.”
I did. The court had kept my body from dying while Adrian made sure I never had enough strength to challenge the chains. Explaining every year of it wouldn’t help either of us.
“Harrowmere needs a living Blood King,” I said. “It repairs what the restraints damage. Adrian controls how much blood I receive, so I heal slowly and stay weak. He can’t kill me until he has what he needs from the next heir.”
Her eyes went to the old blood around the cuffs. “He needs me. Can I open the chains?”
The question sent hunger through me so fast that the nearest link jumped against the floor.
Bryony took one step back.
“Your freely offered blood might loosen them,” I said. “Don’t test it. I don’t have enough control to take a little from you and politely stop.”
“Then you’re going to be disappointed.”
“I expected to be.”
The corner of her mouth moved, but the expression disappeared when she glanced at the sealed wall behind her.
“The noise in the passage was you,” she said. “You let me think an animal was trapped.”
She was right. “The chain was mine. The rest was what happens when it tears through skin. I needed you to open the outer door before Adrian reached you. Once it opened and I smelled the blood, I told you to stay away.”
“You could’ve called out before I came down.”
“Sound travels through this court. I didn’t know who had entered or who might be listening. A chain could be dismissed as a prisoner making trouble. Your name in my mouth couldn’t.”
She weighed the answer rather than accepting it because I’d spoken calmly. “So you did lure me. At least you admit it.”
“Yes.”
“Who chained you?”
“Adrian Rook.”
The name changed her expression. Her shoulders tightened, and her wrapped hand closed around Edith’s key.
“You know him,” I said.
“I know my grandmother told me never to sign anything he gives me and never to let him put a crown on my head.”
Relief made me light-headed. Edith had managed one last defence after all.
“Listen to her.”
“I generally did when she was alive. She was clearer then.” Bryony glanced towards the throne. “Is that the crown she meant?”
The dark metal rested on the high back of the throne, its narrow points dull in the torchlight. It had waited there since the night Adrian took the court.
“Yes. Don’t touch it, don’t sit in the throne, don’t give this room any more blood and stay beyond my reach.”
Her attention returned to the chains. “That last one sounded personal.”
“You’re bleeding, and I’m starving. It is.”
I expected another question. Instead, she accepted the answer and moved sideways along the outer wall, careful not to cross the dark red lines cut into the floor.
Her coat fell open as she walked. A cream jumper fitted close to her body above black trousers and sensible boots. Practical clothes did nothing to hide the curve of her waist and hips. Hunger wasn’t the only appetite making the restraints feel too tight.
Bryony caught me looking.
I made myself meet her eyes. “The chains limit my hands.”
She kept watching me.
I kept my attention on her face after that.
She lifted her phone and slowly recorded the chamber. The screen showed no signal, but the camera continued working. Edith’s granddaughter documented the iron gates, the throne and every restraint holding me. She wasn’t going to rely on memory if she got out.
When she reached the far side of the entrance, the court stirred.
Lamps fixed to the pillars flared red. Stone ground against stone behind the throne. A low black plinth pushed out from the wall with a small metal case resting on top.
Bryony froze. “That’s what Edith sent me to collect. Is it the thing she said could stop Adrian?”
“Probably. She didn’t tell me where she’d hidden it. She visited once or twice a year, and more often after she realised he was searching for you.”
Grief came through the bond, heavy and familiar.
Bryony lowered the phone. “She never told me any of this.”
“She thought ignorance would keep you outside the court.”
“It worked brilliantly.”
The words were dry, but the hurt under them wasn’t. I could’ve defended Edith. She’d risked herself to keep Bryony human and free. She’d also left her granddaughter to walk into Harrowmere alone with a key that wanted blood.
“She ran out of time,” I said. “That doesn’t make this fair.”
Bryony looked at me properly then. She still didn’t trust me, but she was listening now.
“Did she put you here? And what does Adrian want from me?”
“No. Adrian did. Edith kept Harrowmere asleep so he couldn’t finish what he started. The same sleep kept the locks closed around me. Now the court is awake, he’ll want you frightened enough to take the Crown and use its authority on me.”
I pulled the chain at my waist away from the scar under my ribs. The movement exposed enough of it for her torch to find the pale line.
“He’ll tell you to order me to give him my heartblood. He can’t take my place while I hold it, but a crowned heir can force me to surrender it. If I give him enough, I die. He may leave out that part.”
Her face hardened.
She raised her phone and made certain the red recording mark faced me. “Say it again.”
I did, slowly and without the court titles Adrian liked to hide behind. “He wants you to put on the Crown and command me to give him the blood that carries my power. If I give him enough, I die. He becomes the Blood King, and you become useful only as long as he needs your authority.”
Bryony held the phone steady until I finished. “That’s clearer than anything Edith left me.”
“She hoped you’d have the case before you needed the explanation.”
“She also hoped I’d follow instructions. We were both overly optimistic.”
The bond pulsed. Her heartbeat thudded inside me, followed by a rush of heat. The distance between us suddenly felt much smaller than the gate claimed.
She pressed one hand to the middle of her chest. “What was that? You said the court linked us. Tell me exactly what that means.”
“I can feel your pulse and some of your stronger emotions. You’re getting pieces of me in return. I can’t hear your thoughts, control your body or make you feel something that isn’t already there.”
Her shoulders eased by a fraction. “Can anyone else use it, and how much stronger will it get?”
“It stays between us unless one of us gives control of it away. Adrian will try. As for how strong it becomes, I don’t know. The court has never formed this bond with an uncrowned human heir before.”
That answer bothered me more than it bothered her. Harrowmere had recognised Bryony quickly and pulled me into the bond just as fast. The speed worried me.
Her eyes narrowed. “The hunger is yours. What about the other thing?”
Heat pushed through the connection before I could stop it. She felt how badly I wanted my mouth on hers and my hands on her body.
I tightened both hands around the chains. “The attraction is mine. The part answering it belongs to you.”
Colour rose over her throat. She looked away first, and I forced my attention back to the gate.
Her mouth finally curved. That small smile made me want her closer.
Then Edith’s key moved in her hand.
It pulled towards the inner gate. A red mark appeared over the lock, matching the raven and crown worked into the key’s bow.
“Don’t,” I said.
Bryony held the key away from the metal. “I’m not doing anything.”
The lock turned by itself.
The gate opened several inches.
At the same moment, the metal door behind her began to close.
Bryony spun and shoved the torch against its edge. The door kept moving. Metal scraped over the torch casing and forced her hand back before it could crush her fingers.
She pulled the torch free. “Open the bloody door.”
Harrowmere ignored her.
“The key,” I said. “Try it against the outer seal.”
She pressed it into the mark that had cut her. Nothing happened. The passage beyond was already dark, and the hidden wall at the stairs had sealed her escape from the other end.
The door kept closing.
“If it shuts with you out there, you’ll be trapped in the passage,” I said. “Come through the gate. Stay near the wall and keep the throne between us.”
“You said to stay beyond your reach.”
“I’d still prefer that. The house has changed the available options.”
She looked from the closing door to me. I felt her fear through the bond, but it didn’t control her. She checked the open gate, measured the length of my chains and chose the side of the room with space, light and a prisoner who couldn’t reach it.
Smart woman.
Bryony slipped through the inner gate and moved straight to the wall. The metal door sealed behind her with a heavy final thud.
For one breath, nothing moved.
Then the gate slammed shut.
Every chain attached to me snapped tight at once. They tore me forwards and drove me onto both knees behind the throne.
Harrowmere had put its heir exactly where it wanted her.
Inside the cage with me.