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“She’s lucky I haven’t done worse,” Asher growled.

Fidel’s severed hands, his decapitated head, all that blood that pumped out of his neck...I could see it like it was happening all over again.

Asher glared at me, as if the fact that I was still breathing personally upset him. Knowing what a psycho he was, it probably did.

Brad turned back to him. “This is wrong, imprisoning her down here.”

“She should be used to it. The fucker’s love those shithole caves.”

A growl began low in my throat.

Asher’s friend stepped in front of my line of sight. “Ignore him.”

I forced my attention to drift to Brad. “You humans think we don’t understand your ways, but in our world, we also question prisoners this way—one man good, the other bad. So save your lies for someone who can’t see through them.”

He placed his hand over his heart. “I’m on your side, sweetheart. Swear to God.” Leaning closer, he jerked his thumb over his shoulder and whispered, “I don’t evenlikethis asshole.”

“Then why aren’t you trying to get me out of this cage?”

“Because he doesn’t want to get shanked,” Asher called over. “He may be soft as baby shit, but he’s not an idiot.”

I hissed at him in response.

“Whoa, everybody chill,” Brad said, motioning his hands, palms down, toward the floor. “And fuck you, Asher.”

I exhaled, glaring at Asher, then resumed pacing.

Brad tapped his chest. “I’m Brad, let’s start with that, alright?”

“I already know your name.”

Brad watched me, his eyes twinkling. This one, he didn’t seem so hateful or irreverent. “And yet I still don’t know yours.”

My eyes flicked to Asher, who had been very adamant about not learning my name.

“Don’t look at him,” Brad said. “Look at me.”

I breathed in and out through my nose, and forced my gaze back to Brad. He had kind eyes for a human. And unlike the other natives I had met, he knew what I was.

“Lana,” I said. “My name is Lana Malesuis.”

Asher stood, and the way the couch sighed as he rose, the way his clothes creaked—everything about him soundedbig. Predatory. It made me want my daggers all over again just to feel a little less intimidated.

He came over, his footfalls sounding heavy against the cement floor. The closer he got, the angrier I became. Because on one level he scared the shit out of me, but on another, I enjoyed looking at him. He was all coiled muscle. And the harsh set of his features, they were worn on a handsome face. His nose was a little crooked—no doubt a result of violence—and tiny white scars speckled his face and neck. All of it attractive in a very rugged way.

He stopped right at the bars, leaning his forearms against them as he stared inside.

The movement was supposed to seem casual, but those eyes of his had a vendetta in them. And this close... We believe the soul sits in the eyes. And his dark ones were burning.

“Why’d you come topside?” Brad asked.

“She had blood bags on her when I found her,” Asher said. “She was trafficking them back to Abyssos.”

I fixated on Asher’s forearms as he spoke. They were thick, corded things, and he pressed them right against the bars. Close enough to cull from.

I lunged.

He moved away before I even came close.