AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She huffed, and I could tell her patience was as thin as ours. She was hungry, and not used to being denied her freedom.
“Fine. What do I care? Merden and Girard did a lot of experimenting, but the method that stuck the best was stepping down the blood. They re-fed with higher order shifters first, like lions or jaguars. Then a lower order, like a fox or something. And the third time was non-shifter animal blood. She turned them into animals,” Jillian added, shrugging.
I narrowed my eyes, knowing this couldn’t be the whole process. That wasn’t quite how blood worked. But magic...bloodmagic might be able to work like that.
“Now where’s my fucking blood?” Jillian growled, and Kas nodded before speeding away to fetch it from the kitchens.
“Do you know where my father’s laboratory is?” I asked, hating everything that question implied about Girard.
Jillian glared. “No. Merden never shared that. Janus and I searched when we could, but the only thing we found was a guarded, walled-off section in the east wing, top floor.”
I startled, surprised at how easily she’d given me the information, plus the realization that I knew the area she was describing. I’d grown up in the palace - specifically, in the east wing. On the top floor.
I hadn’t even thought about visiting my childhood suite since I’d arrived in Saori Sang, assuming Merden had long ago redecorated it.
I hadn’t counted on the decorator being my fucking father.
“You’ll never figure it all out, princess. Merden had years to perfect that process. You’ll just fuck it all up, over and over again,” Jillian cooed. I growled at her, about to snap something back when Kas returned with a full pitcher and an empty goblet. He poured a few inches of blood into the goblet and handed it through the bars.
“Fucking tease,” Jillian said, licking her lips at him. She drank greedily, though, handing the cup back. “More, commoner.”
“Why would bounty hunters be looking for higher order blood like fae or ice wolf, if Merden only needed shifters?” he asked, pouring blood into the cup but not offering it to her.
Jillian gave a frustrated noise and stomped her foot. “I don’t know fucking everything! She liked her exotic blood - you know that.”
“You’re lying,” I accused, raising my eyebrows. I wasn’t completely sure how I knew, but I’d spent enough time with her in the labyrinth to feel the difference in her tone.
Kas raised the goblet to his own lips and took a sip.
“I hope the gobbelins fuck you in the ass, Kassian Kingston,” Jillian yelled, and he snorted a laugh.
“Good to know what you’ve been dreaming of. Answer the question and I’ll give you the rest. No more games,” he offered.
She looked for a second like she was going to refuse, but her hunger finally won out. “Ugh. You’re both dying first when I get out of here. Merden needed different blood for the mixed blood vampires. I guess since their blood was already part shifter or whatever, her other process didn’t work. But I never watched any of those conversions. Happy now?”
Kas laughed. “With you? Not possible.”
He handed her the goblet through the bars, then tipped the contents of the pitcher onto the floor of her cell. She screamed as the dark red liquid splashed down onto the stone, falling to her knees and scrabbling to scoop up the puddle before it soaked into the cracks of the floor.
“That was just mean,” I said to Kas as we left the dungeons, but I was grinning.
“She always has to make things so Goddess-damned hard. I was just returning the favor. So, now what?” he asked, and I sighed.
“I think I have an idea where Girard played mad scientist.”
Taking my thief’s hand, I zipped through the palace corridors and stairs until we were standing before a stone wall that looked newer than the others.
“My old suite used to be here.Behindhere,” I explained, already starting to search the wall for a hidden passage.
Kas joined me, tapping at every joint in the wall. Finally, I wiggled a sconce and found it loose. Turning the decorative metal in a circle pulled on something inside the wall, and a grinding noise echoed through the empty hall.
“There,” Kas said, excitement in his voice as he pointed to the opposite corner. A tiny rift had opened, small enough that if we hadn’t been watching so closely, we might have missed it.Merden and Girard had certainly gone to a lot of trouble to hide this portion of the palace.
Together, we pushed at the crack in the wall until it widened, a short, narrow door opening under the pressure. We ducked inside, and I sucked in a breath.
It was the hallway leading to my private rooms, where I’d been born and raised, educated and sequestered.
Where I’d been a true, fairytale princess. Before the whole nightmare wicked queen bit.
