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Chapter Two

Samara

“Have you reconsidered your answer yet?” My ex-husband smiled down at me through the bars of my cell, where I was leaning against the back wall.

There’d been a time when I would have found that smile appealing.

It had a charming, sly quality to it, like he was thinking of something amusing and couldn’t wait to share it with you.

With his perfectly tousled chestnut hair and stunning hazel eyes, Demetri was quite the looker, and he knew it, but I wasn’t a sixteen-year-old girl anymore who could be dazzled by easy grins and pretty eyes.

Actually, even at sixteen, I hadn’t been that gullible. Just a little more willing to put aside my happiness for the sake of my House.

That was no longer who I was. At twenty-four, I knew exactly what and who I wanted, and I did want Demetri.

I wanted him bleeding out on the floor at my feet.

“Have you considered shutting the fuck up?” I gave Demetri a smile that showed way too much fang to be considered anything friendly. “Or better yet, slitting your own throat?”

The grin slipped as the muscles along Demetri’s jaw tightened. He’d come down here every day to ask if I’d reconsidered his offer of marriage. Because being married to that worthless piece of shit hadn’t been bad enough the first time—he actually thought I’d willingly sign up for round two.

I had a feeling he’d love nothing more than to open the door to my cell, step inside, and throttle me for all the insults I’d hurled his way over the past week.

That would be a nice change of pace. I wasn’t particularly good at hand-to-hand combat—knives and bows were my thing—but with how wrathful I was feeling, I had no doubt I could rip out Demetri’s throat faster than he could blink.

Alas, the hulking brute standing directly opposite me on the other side of the dungeon kept Demetri from trying anything devious. Well . . . more devious than going along with having your ex-wife thrown into a prison cell while you tried to strong-arm her into marrying you again.

So far, my aunt—the real reason I was in this fucked-up situation—had kept her word about not forcing me to marry Demetri. Although she’d also made it clear that she thought the marriage would be in the best interest of everyone.

Everyone clearly did not include me.

There had to be a reason. Neither of them were the sentimental type. There was some political gain to me being married to Demetri that I wasn’t seeing, and they must have discovered it recently because they’d both allowed my divorce to go through, and that had only been a couple of months ago.

But since I was locked in this fucking cell, I had no way of finding out the reason behind all of this.

I needed to get out of here. I had to make sure Kieran, Roth, and Alaric were alright.

Plus check in with Cali and Rynn, who were no doubt losing their minds over my lack of communication.

Draven was alive—for now—but I refused to leave him behind, so I had to devise a plan that got him out too.

There was another complication to all of this. A ticking clock, so to speak. Cramps tore through my lower abdomen, taking my breath away and sending a fresh bolt of pain every minute. I felt like I was dying.

The hulking brute, Vail—also known as the lying sack of shit—glanced at me with a frown. His grey eyes scrutinized me as if he could sense the pain I was in.

I ignored him and tried to will the cramps away. And the Marshal while I was at it. Tragically, they both remained.

When the humans had cast the spell to turn themselves into Moroi, it’d led to a fucked-up reproductive cycle.

Every four months, anyone with a uterus would experience the joy of excruciating pain and bleeding.

It only lasted for two or three days, but those days were absolute agony.

Once that funness was over, my sex drive would go wild.

That part was usually fun—almost made up for the three days of suffering—but given my current situation, it was a problem.

I wouldn’t be completely out of my mind with lust, but thinking coherently would be difficult. So I was basically looking at almost a week of limited cognitive function. Wonderful. As if my situation weren’t fucked enough already.

It wasn’t as if the woman that I’d respected, looked up to, and absolutely idolized had betrayed me. And not a little betrayal. A lied to me and manipulated me for years, tortured and imprisoned the man I loved, and had me thrown in a moonsdamned dungeon type of betrayal.

I rubbed the empty space on my finger where the ring Cali had gifted me should’ve been.

Demetri had been the one to take it off—gleefully.

When we’d been married, I’d regularly used it to communicate with Cali and Rynn.

He probably knew how much my two best friends didn’t like him and took great joy in making sure I couldn’t reach out to them.

Rynn was with the Alpha Pack now. No doubt she wasn’t happy about that, but at least she was safe. Those assholes would protect her—whether she wanted that protection or not.

It was Cali I was worried about. All Furies had a bit of a short fuse. Cali was pretty good about controlling her temper—unless Rynn or I were threatened, then all bets were off.

The fact that she wasn’t already here raining down blood and fury had me worried.

My fingers curled inwards until my claws pressed into my skin just shy of drawing blood.

I hated Carmilla for imprisoning me and keeping me from helping my friends put out the fires that seemed to be popping up everywhere.

The only person I hated more than her right now was Vail, because he was the reason I was in this mess.

When I wasn’t trading barbs with Demetri, I was screaming at him.

At least, I had been for the first five days.

Lately, I’d switched to ignoring his presence because that seemed to hurt him more, based on how his eyes would bleed silver after a few minutes.

I didn’t give the slightest fuck about Vail’s feelings right now though. He’d betrayed me—after he’d fucked me.

He could rot in a shallow grave right next to Demetri for all I cared.

Demetri’s hazel eyes hardened the longer he looked at me, light green flecks starting to expand into the brown as his temper and bloodlust rose.

For a second, another pair of hazel eyes surfaced in my mind.

But Roth’s eyes were far prettier. Their secondary eye color was more of a burnt orange, like little sparks that would flare in their eyes.

Compared to my sharp-tongued love, Demetri was nothing.

Less than nothing.

I’d find a way out of here. Back to all of them. Ideally before my lovers tried something insane like breaking into the Sovereign House.

Yeah, because breaking out is a much saner idea.

Shut up, brain. Nobody asked you.

Fuck. I might be losing it.

My stomach churned as the pain of my cramps reached a new level.

I was going to hurl up my meager breakfast all over this floor if I didn’t lie down soon.

A bead of sweat formed at my hairline. It was bad enough that I was sitting while he was here, but standing wasn’t an option.

I settled for keeping my spine ramrod straight while I sat and didn’t let my feral smile falter.

“Fine,” Demetri finally said, brushing a hand through his hair as if he weren’t monumentally frustrated with me.

“I’ll take my leave for now.” His eyes glinted with a slyness I didn’t like one bit.

“Perhaps I’ll pay the fallen prince a visit and test out my new iron-tipped spear.

Maybe I’ll get him to scream loud enough that you’ll be able to hear him all the way up here. ”

My mask cracked and then shattered into a thousand pieces. In a second, I was on my feet at the front of the cell, wrapping my fingers around the bars that separated us.

“Touch him, and I’ll rip out your spine and beat you to death with it!” I snarled and shook the bars even as they burned my skin. All of the bars in the dungeon had a high level of iron because they’d been built by the Fae. Why the Fae had felt the need to imprison their own kind, I had no idea.

Just like I had no idea why I had a reaction to the iron. It felt revolting against my skin.

“Pretty sure he’d already be dead at that point,” Vail said from where he still casually leaned against the wall, sharpening one of his knives. “But I’ve never really tested Moroi healing abilities in that way. Could be a fun little experiment.”

“Nobody fucking asked you,” I snapped at Vail before mentally slapping myself. Well, he’d finally gotten me to speak to him.

Demetri gave Vail a cool look. “You were told to stay away. I’ll be informing Carmilla of this.”

Vail shrugged, eying his dagger for a moment before continuing to sharpen it. “Seems like a poor choice.”

“And why is that?”

The Marshal of House Harker finally looked up to meet Demetri’s gaze, thick silver cracks weaving through his dark grey eyes. “Because then I’d be forced to rip out your tongue for being a sniveling little tattletale.”

Demetri’s eyes flashed green for a moment before his cool and collected facade snapped back into place.

There was a conniving wickedness to Demetri that I’d never seen in all the years we’d been married.

Either it was new or he’d done an excellent job of hiding it.

I suspected the latter, which irked me because I hadn’t seen through his lazy but mostly harmless act for all that time.

“Fine. Stay here as long as you want.” A knowing smile spread across his lips.

“She’ll never forgive you. Samara never loved me, but the way she stares at you when you’re not looking”—he sucked in a harsh breath—“that’s definitely love.

The fallout of it anyway. Did you know, Vail?

When you agreed to betray her, did you know she loved you?

What about when you parted those deliciously thick thighs and fu?—”