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Then I heard it. A tiny creak. My eyes moved to the space outside my cell. There was an alcove to the right and a door leading up to the kitchens that was used only by servants. Now it had opened about the width of a hand. A face appeared in the crack—a girl. I recognized Lunaya at once, despite the black veins that spilled over her skin. She lifted a finger to her lips for silence.

I couldn’t even nod back to say I understood. I hoped my eyes would speak for me.

She edged the door wider and slipped out. A boy followed her. He was young—perhaps eleven or twelve. He looked at me from wide, violet eyes filled with curiosity rather than fear. He was carrying something against his chest. Something small and reddish-orange. The object moved, and two large golden eyes blinked at me—a fluffin! At first, I thought it was Neville, then I realized this little creature was smaller. It had different markings than Neville’s, too, with more white around its face and neck.

Lunaya had her hand on the boy’s shoulder. She steered him toward my cell while she looked the other way, her eyes on Viktor and the man.

“You creep into my house and think yourself clever,” Viktor was saying. “You will pay a price for your insolence.”

“You are afraid, and yet you do not know why.”

“I am never afraid,” Viktor shouted.

I tensed, waiting for the pain, waiting for the glimpse into his corrupted mind. But it didn’t come. He didn’t turn to look back at me either. The man in the cloak was right—Viktor was afraid. So afraid he wouldn’t take the chance of turning his back on this man for even a single moment.

“You might have lived much longer, Molokhar,” the hooded man said quietly. “But you hurt one who is mine. You took something you cannot keep.”

Viktor took a step forward. “I am not a man who may be told no. No, not even by you, Nyxaris. You have come for the girl—finally, as I knew you would. But you are too late. She is mine in every way.” He paused, savoring the words. “All but one. I have saved that last way for your arrival. You will stand watch as I lay her bare and she trembles, naked, praying you will save her. You will watch as I lay—”

Nyxaris—for it was, of course, my dragon—moved quickly, hitting Viktor with so much force the stones cracked. He drove him up against the dungeon wall. Dust rained down from the ceiling. Viktor clawed at my dragon, a snarl on his lips. Then he turned to look to my cell.

Everything changed in his face. I watched his red eyes light up—first with fear, then fury—as he saw Lunaya and Persis standing just outside the bars of my enclosure with the fluffin. “Do not move!” he screamed at me. “Do not touch that creature. Do not let it touch you.”

But it was already too late. Persis had crouched down. He placed the fluffin gently on the floor. “Go, Nell,” I heard him whisper.

The fluffin looked up at him, eyes filled with adoration. Then she looked at me, and I saw determination. She darted in between the bars of my cell.

Nyxaris’s hands were still wrapped around Viktor’s throat, yet the highblood managed to somehow roar. “No!”

Then Viktor’s voice was in my head. Commanding me as pain drove into my skull.

Pick up something. Anything. Kill the animal. Crush it. Do it now.

My body moved. I screamed as I reached for the heavy tray on the table. I grabbed it, and the bowl and cup and plate on the tray all fell to the floor with a clatter.

The fluffin stood inside my cell, looking up at me, her eyes wide.

No, no, no. But my hand had closed around the edge of the tray, and I was lifting it.

The boy was shouting, trying to call the fluffin back out. But the little creature just stood there.

Suddenly another voice entered my mind. Not slithering in like poison but slicing in, like a blaze of morning light.

Fledgling. You will not obey him. Nyxaris’s thrallweave was cutting in between Viktor’s bond, strong as steel. You will stay still. Hold still, Fireheart. That is all you must do.

The tray rattled in my hand as my wrist shook. The pain was excruciating. My body trembled, spasming. My knees buckled, and I crashed to the floor, the tray slipping from my fingers as I cried out in agony.

I could hear shouting. In the hall, Nyxaris and Viktor were fighting. Through a haze of pain, I saw Nyxaris’s cloak had fallen back from his face. He looked inhumanly beautiful—and utterly terrifying. His amber eyes burned molten in the dark. His lips had pulled back from his fangs in a predatory snarl.

“You dared to touch her.” Nyxaris’s voice shook with violence. “To drink from her. To bind her. When she was already mine.” The word echoed down the hall like a roaring wave. He slammed Viktor against the wall again, wrapping his hands around the other man’s throat. I heard stones crack at the collision.

Viktor gasped, then bared his own fangs in a hiss, raking his nails across Nyxaris’s forearm. Nyxaris didn’t flinch. He squeezed, and Viktor’s face began to turn purple, the black veins popping out beneath his ravaged skin. One hand was fumbling at his belt, as if for a blade. But Nyxaris caught that wrist, smashing Viktor’s hand up against the wall over his head. I saw it twist, then heard a snap. Viktor shrieked, and I heard a wet, splattering sound.

“Look at me,” Nyxaris snarled. “Not her. You may never look at her again.”

I sat watching from the floor of my cell, still shaking so hard my teeth chattered. Viktor’s boots scraped uselessly against the stone. I could see blood running from the back of his head where Nyxaris had smashed him against the wall.

The pain hadn’t stopped—if anything now I was feeling Viktor’s, too.