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He shouldn’t know all this. The primus dominus had made sure to exterminate the humans that knew too much.

It would be a shame to end one war only to begin another,he’d said.

“My parents were on military tour at the time.”

“And you’re named for the land you were born in,” he finished, a smile blooming along his face as he put it together.

“I have many names. Malesuis is just one.”

I was also Lana Skinwalker and Lana Lifebreather.

Brad’s grin still hadn’t disappeared, and it reminded me of slippery things.

I needed to stop talking. I also needed to release this hope I was clinging desperately to. I wouldn’t be making it out of here alive; it was foolish to believe otherwise.

“Where’s your family now?” he asked.

“Some are in the ground, and some still breathe,” I said, shifting my weight. “But all of them are on the other side of the portal your friend destroyed.”

I could tell that wasn’t the answer he wanted.

I was getting better at reading the natives.

“How many blood bags did you take?”

“Ask Asher,” I said.

“Dozens?” he guessed.

I didn’t bother answering. Wisps of smoke curled off my hair as I paced.

“That’s a lot of blood magic,” he said. “That, and the fact that you’re fairly well adapted to human culture... You’re not just saving a few people, are you?”

I didn’t respond.

“Could you save a human?”

I huffed out a laugh. “As if I would save a human.”

“But if you wanted to?”

My gaze pulled to Brad. “No.”

“Can you heal multiple Infernari at the same time?”

Despair was beginning to set in. It didn’t matter whether I could or couldn’t, so long as I was stuck in this cage. I turned my back to the human and lowered myself to the floor.

Wrapping my arms around my legs, I leaned my head against the wall. “It doesn’t matter anymore.”

I wouldn’t escape this place.

Asher

While Brad interrogatedher, I sank onto the squeaky mattress in the bedroom up the corridor, furnished not much better than Lana’s cell—moldy concrete walls, dim light bulb in a wire cage, horrible stench of gasoline.

The house had plenty of bedrooms, but none of the rooms upstairs were safe.

If demons came—and theywouldcome—they would burn it to the ground.