Everyone in this room was starving—and that appeared to be the least of their problems.
A pair of vampires watched silently as I approached one of the adjacent cages. Curled up on the floor inside, two pale humans clung to each other.
They were already dead.
Bile rose in my throat. The horrors all of these creatures must’ve endured at the hands of that fucking psycho…
And now he’s with Gray in who knows where…
I shut down that line of thinking before it could go any farther. Gray attackedhim. She ripped outhissoul. Wherever the hell they’d ended up after that, I had to believe Gray was on top.
Had to believe she had a plan.
Had to believe she’d come back to us.
In the meantime, I had a promise to keep.
According to the map on Shears’s comm device, the cave system itself was vast, but it seemed Jonathan’s crew had only used part of it. It looked like I’d already covered about two-thirds of the prison on foot, but I hadn’t seen any signs of the witches. Also MIA? Fiona Brentwood, the Grinaldi vampire Gray wanted me to save.
I still had a fair bit of ground to cover, but I couldn’t just leave these creatures locked up in here.
I took another look around the connected chambers and blew out a breath, trying to figure this shit out. All of them would need to be freed from this eternal hell. But how? There was no guard in sight to force into opening the cages, no sign of keys or any other tools I could use to pick the locks.
“How long have you been here?” I asked the pair of vampires—the only beings that seemed to be conscious in the back chamber. They stared vacantly ahead, unable or unwilling to respond.
“Do you know how they unlock the cages?” I tried again.
Nothing.
Moving into the main chamber, I asked if any of the shifters could shift back into human form. If I could speak to some of them, I might be able to get some information that could actually help.
But no one answered. I’d have to figure it out on my own.
I approached each cage cautiously, doing my best to scope out any potential traps or triggers. The cages appeared to be made of metal, but didn’t look all that strong up close. Several of the bars were bent and rusted, others missing altogether. Most of the locks were rusty.
But now that I was scrutinizing them, I sensed something else—something that Jonathan’s people probably thought was undetectable. If not for the surge of power Gray had given me, I probablywouldn’thave noticed it.
The cages were giving off a strange, electric hum. The invisible current smelled like burning leaves. It stirred the hairs on my arms as I got close.
Slowly, I lifted my hand to the birdcage in the middle to see how close I could get. But just before I touched the metal, a harsh whisper stopped me cold.
“Asher, stop!”
I spun around at the sound of my name and caught sight of a pale, thin woman with straight brownish hair and a dingy black dress.
Vampire.
It was Fiona, the Grinaldi traitor Darius had brought back from the east coast who’d turned out to be an old friend of Gray’s from high school—a girl who’d teamed up with Jonathan to murder Sophie and hunt down Gray.
“Fiona Brentwood?” she said, as if I’d even asked for her name. “I was the one Darius—”
“I know who you are, bloodsucker. You got something to say to me? Say it fast.”
She glanced over her shoulder, then scurried closer, keeping her voice at a whisper. “I know you don’t have any reason to trust me, but—”
“Wait—don’t tell me. I can trust you now? I should come with you if I want to live? Follow you right into a trap so your boy Jon can give you a cookie for a job well done?” I took a step closer, my muscles tensing for an attack. “Hard pass, sweetheart.”
She blinked rapidly, then lowered her eyes, tears spilling down her cheeks. “He kidnapped me that night, too.”
