Page 24 of Alien Devil’s Wrath (Vinduthi Stolen Brides #2)

T he lights flickered and died, plunging my cell into absolute darkness. Emergency power kicked in a heartbeat later, painting everything in red light that made the white walls look bloody.

Perfect timing. He’d found the generators, just like I knew he would.

Slade’s voice crackled over the intercom, all his polished control cracking at the edges. “Security to detention level. Full response. The Vinduthi is in the compound. Repeat, full response authorized.”

My killer had arrived.

The sirens started their wailing, and I had to resist the urge to laugh. All this panic for one male. Though to be fair, Zarek wasn’t just any male. He was mine, and he was angry, and that combination meant people were about to die in creative ways.

Through the ventilation grate, I heard it—high-pitched shrieks from outside, getting closer. My Gravewing invitation had been accepted. They’d been circling for the last hour, drawn by the clicking pattern, and now the darkness and chaos would drive them into a proper frenzy.

Guards ran past my cell, boots pounding on metal floors. So much panic. So little coordination. They’d drilled for riots, for escape attempts, but not for a single Vinduthi systematically taking their compound apart.

And definitely not for what was about to come from above.

The first Gravewing hit the roof, the impact reverberating through the structure.

Then another. Then dozens, their shrieks echoing through the ventilation system as they attacked anything that moved in the darkness.

Their talons would be tearing through the softer sections of roofing, looking for ways inside.

“What the hell is that?” a guard shouted outside my door, his voice cracking.

“Flying things! They’re everywhere!”

Glass shattered somewhere above. The Gravewings had found windows.

I pressed myself against the door, making my voice high and frightened. “Please! What’s happening? Let me out!”

“Shut up!” The guard’s words came out strangled.

More screaming from above. The Gravewings were inside the upper levels now, and from the sounds, the guards were learning what happened when you cornered a creature with a twelve-foot wingspan and talons designed to punch through armor.

The door to my cell yanked open. Slade stood there, fury replacing his usual control, with two guards flanking him. His uniform was disheveled, a smear of someone else’s blood on his collar.

“You.” He grabbed my arm, fingers digging in hard enough to bruise. “You’re coming with me.”

“I don’t understand?—”

“Don’t play stupid.” He dragged me from the cell, and I let myself stumble, playing the frightened prisoner. “Your partner is here. These flying things are yours too, aren’t they?”

I whimpered, the sound pathetic and false, but he was too angry to notice the performance.

We moved through the chaos of the detention level. Guards ran in every direction, some heading up to fight the Gravewings, others rushing toward the sounds of combat from the main corridor. Nobody knew which threat to prioritize.

“Interrogation room,” Slade barked at his guards. “It’s reinforced. We hold there until?—”

A Gravewing burst through a ventilation grate ahead of us, all wings and talons and screaming fury. It took one look at the bright emergency lights and attacked the nearest moving thing—one of Slade’s guards.

The man screamed as talons raked across his face. His rifle discharged into the ceiling, the sound deafening in the enclosed space. The other guard tried to help, but the Gravewing’s wing caught him across the chest, sending him into the wall.

Slade shot the Gravewing twice, the creature dropping in a spray of dark blood. He turned back to me, face twisted in rage.

“You did this.”

“I’m just a guide,” I whispered, cowering back. “Please, I don’t know what’s happening.”

He grabbed my throat, slamming me against the wall. For a moment, his mask slipped, and I saw what Zarek had seen—a man who enjoyed causing pain.

“When I’m done with him,” Slade said softly, “I’m going to take my time with you.”

Heavy footsteps echoed from the main corridor. Not running. Walking. Deliberate. Measured. Patient.

Slade’s hand tightened on my throat, then released. He dragged me toward a side corridor, away from those measured footsteps.

“Move,” he snarled at his remaining guard.

But I’d heard those footsteps. I knew that gait.

My Vinduthi was coming, and he was done being subtle.

We rounded a corner into a wider corridor. Dead end except for a reinforced door marked “Authorized Personnel Only.” Slade swiped his keycard, dragging me through into what looked like a command center—monitors, control panels, rack of weapons on the wall.

“Seal it,” he ordered the guard.

The door locked, heavy mechanical sounds indicating multiple fail-safes engaging. Reinforced steel, probably blast-resistant. A good panic room if you were the type to panic.

Slade moved to the monitors, pulling up security feeds. Half showed static—the Gravewings had destroyed those cameras. Others showed guards fighting desperately against the aerial assault. And one showed the main detention corridor.

Zarek stood in the center of the frame, surrounded by bodies. His grey skin was splattered with blood, none of it his. He held a guard by the throat, feet dangling, then tossed him aside like discarded trash.

He looked directly at the camera, and even through the monitor, that predator gaze burned with purpose.

Then he started walking toward this room.

“He knows I’m here,” I said softly, dropping the frightened act. No point anymore. “He can probably smell me through the ventilation.”

Slade spun to stare at me.

The corners of my mouth twitched up.

“Did you really think leaving him alive was clever?” I kept my tone light, almost curious. “You basically lit a fuse and walked away. Now you get to see what happens when it reaches the explosive.”

The lights went out again. This time, emergency power didn’t come back immediately.

In the darkness, I heard Slade’s breathing quicken. The guard cursed, fumbling for a flashlight.

And somewhere in that darkness, getting closer, I heard the sound of metal tearing.

I laughed in the darkness.

“Come for me, darling.”

I knew he would. Even if it meant he had to rip the wall apart.