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Forlorn and alone, I tried to make sense of it as I floated in and out of consciousness. Something felt… off. As though I was trapped in a confusing nightmare.
They wanted me to unlock the grimoire, and yet they knew if I could, I already would have.
No. It couldn’t truly be them. My mates would never leave me. They were protective and possessive. They’d do whatever it took to save me and get me out of this cell. Which meant I was probably dreaming or delusional. Maybe both.
At least I wasn’t dead. I was in too much pain for that.
My spirit wolf nudged me, urging me to get up. With a groan, I pushed off the damp ground. Slumping into a sitting position, I used the wall and propped myself against it. I felt like I’d been put through a meat grinder. Muscles ached and my skin tugged and pulled with every movement. Scabs covered the flayed wounds, and it all came rushing back to me. Tye. Elan. The magick that had torn at my skin and the electric current that had seized my muscles. No wonder everything hurt.
My vision swam in and out of focus. The room had no windows or natural light, and I blinked a few times while my eyes adjusted and my sight settled. Dank air filled the room, and the only furniture in my small cell was an old, rusted bucket I assumed was for excrement.
Promising myself I wouldn’t be here long enough to need it, I gathered my strength and tried to make a portal home. A small light appeared, then fizzled out just as quickly. Gritting my teeth, I tried again, then again. No matter what I did, however, the portal wouldn’t form, as though something was blocking it.
Blinking away the pressure that built behind my eyes, I cursed Elan. I needed to find a way out of this. Changing tactics, I pressed a hand to one of my many injuries. The scabs told me I’d been out for a few hours. My hands glowed with the essence of magick. Lip pulverized between my teeth, I hissed as I did a poor job of knitting myself back together.
In decent enough shape, I stood and shuffled to the front of my cage, peering into the rest of the prison. Wrapping my hands around the bars, I leaned onto my tiptoes to see further, only to hiss as my skin burned like acid. Raw and blistered, my fingers screamed at me. I yanked my hands off the rods, jumped backward, and looked at them with new wariness.
Fuck, what are these things made of?
Whatever they were, they seemed to be a weakness of mine, like shifters and silver or fae and iron, and it didn’t bode well for any future escape plan I hatched. Reaching for my magick again, I realized just how drained I felt.
What did Elan do to me?Panic built in my throat, making it hard to swallow.
Shuddering out a breath, I moved to the bars once more, gritted my teeth, sucked in a breath, and wrapped my hands around them. My palms smoked and burned, but I pulled with all the strength I could summon and tried to pry them apart. They didn’t budge, and I grudgingly gave up.
This is bad.
As I healed myself, I noticed the faint shimmer of a ward lining the walls. Another barrier meant to keep me in. One that would alert Elan if I somehow escaped my cell.
Shuffling followed a hissing sound, and I snapped toward the noise, glaring into the darkness until I spotted a shadowed, hunched figure. A man with stringy hair occupied the cell diagonal to mine. He dragged himself to the impenetrable bars and gripped them with gnarly, thin fingers, uncaring of the sizzling sound of his own burning flesh. His crazed eyes filled with hunger and his fangs descended with a veracity that appeared painful. Mustering strength, he lunged at me, smashing himself into the cage over and over again. The brutality had me jerking back, and I gagged from the smell of scorched skin.
“Stop,” I begged him, unable to witness how tortured he was. And how he tortured himself trying to get to me.
This vampire was blood starved. I had no idea who he was, but no one deserved to live like that. My stomach churned for a different reason. Was this my fate? To waste away in Elan’s archaic prison?
I needed a way out of this.
As if summoned from the Great Spirits themselves, the arching metal door that sat at the head of the room creaked with use, and Dason moved swiftly inside.
“Dase!” I cried. Rushing to the other end of my cell, I nearly forgot not to touch the metal. I stopped myself just in time, drinking in the sight of my growly mate. He was really here. “How did you find me?”
“I’ll always find you, Lorn,” he promised. But there was something different about his voice. It almost sounded like a threat.
“W-What’s wrong?” I stuttered, worried sick that Elan had done something to him.
Black tendrils swirled over his features, and then I was staring at Jolon.
I shook my head in disbelief and stepped away from the person who was definitelynotmy mate.
“What trick are you trying to pull?” Anger colored my accusation. I inhaled deeply, coughing past the stench of the stranger who had blessedly scurried away from the bars. Underneath the overwhelming stink of decay, bodily fluids, and shit, was the unmistakable scent of sulfur, smoke, and bad cologne.
More black tendrils, and suddenly my other mates’ forms appeared, one after the other. Whatever magick they had was incredibly strong. I’d never heard of a person being able to shapeshift into human forms.
The man behind the facades smirked and stood at the entrance of my cell. With a cloud of black smoky ether, the disguises fell away to reveal Elan in a pair of slacks and a white button-up shirt with the top button popped open and the sleeves rolled. It looked like he’d been working and wanted to be more comfortable. But I didn’t trust his casual appearance. He was up to something.
“I thought you might like to see your mates one last time,” he sneered, pleased his little party trick had fooled me.
His words chilled, and dread built in the pit of my stomach, sitting uncomfortably, like heavy lead.
