Page 11

“You are my property because I have paid good coin for you at auction,” Lukain Pierken told our group, seven prisoners sitting before him.

His dark eyes glanced behind us and I stiffened when I felt a presence. I craned my neck to see our hooded carriage driver shuffling behind our chairs. With quick snaps , the human severed our ropes with a knife, unbinding us one after the other.

I looked sidelong to give confused glances to the other prisoners who were also unceremoniously freed by the human. Our chairs were aligned in a row, everyone hesitating to stand now we were unbound.

Our grayskin captor made no request to keep us seated, only studying us with an intense gaze as we stood in unison on wobbly legs.

“Good, your legs still work,” Lukain muttered.

Four boys and two girls made up the other six younglings in the dark, circular room. I recognized none of them. Once I stood to my full height, I massaged my red-raw wrists and stretched my arms, cracking my knuckles.

The half-blood put his hands behind his back and stood tall in front of our row, towering over us.

In the murky flicker of the two torches keeping the room lit, Lukain looked around thirty, though I knew age with half-vampires was a deceptive thing.

He was tall and broad like a man accustomed to physical exertion, young in the face and clean-shaven.

“You are my property,” he repeated, “yet thanks to me, you can earn your freedom here. There are two ways.” He lifted a hand from behind his back, two fingers extended in the air as he counted off. Slowly, he marched across to my left, furthest from me, to where the four boys stood in line.

“For the men, you can test your mettle in the Firehold, win your glory, and win your freedom with enough victories.”

Lukain paced across the line of captive boys, eyeing each in turn solemnly. One of them pissed himself he was shaking so badly—the smallest of the bunch. Another boy locked his jaw and met Lukain’s gaze, eyes narrowing. He was a beefy lad who looked a year or two older than me.

When he came to the three girls, including me at the end of the line, his chin dipped. “For the women, if you can make yourselves useful, you may get snatched up by a needy pureblood and become his broodstock.”

The girl closest to me, a slight rail of a waif, gasped and made a mewling sound in her throat. My eyes widened for a flash. I stayed quiet when Lukain’s dark stare pierced into my soul. His lips curled in a small smirk before he turned to the front of the room.

Broodstock? Needy purebloods? By the True, is he talking about becoming breeding mares for vampires? That is his idea of “freedom” for us girls?

I shot a scowling glance at the four boys out the corner of my eye. At least the boys can try to fight their way to freedom, however impossible that might be.

I had found myself in a new jail with new rules. Since I had lived my entire young life constrained to untenable laws and dire situations, I was panicking the least out of anyone here.

Given my recent captivity with Dimmon Plank, anything was better than that. I did not care if I lived or died, and I felt Lukain Pierken could sense that when he smirked at me. His eyes had lingered on my face the longest of any prisoner, though it may have been because I was the last in line.

He wheeled around to face us, his expression grim. “There is no third option.”

When his gaze met mine again—as if he expected me to be the most rebellious of the lot—the threat was clear: Trying to escape the Firehold would only lead to pain and death.

“You are young, malleable, and have the fortune of crafting your own fate,” Lukain continued, sweeping his gaze across the group. “Can you say you had such choice aboveground on the Floorboards?”

He waited. When no one spoke, he yelled, “Well?”

“N-No, sir,” squeaked the girl two people over from me. The boys joined her in their gloomy acceptance, while the thin gasping girl started bawling.

Lukain didn’t seem to catch my non-response. He had his hands behind his back again, like a field general. Perhaps he had been a Bronze, a Nuhavian guard, before he was turned.

“Your first few years of existence in the Firehold will be to learn your places. To train. Once you are of age, you will embark on your journeys toward freedom.”

First few years ? My stomach sank at the notion of being stuffed in this water-dripping, maddening basement for any longer than I had to.

He looked at the boys. “In order to defeat the bloodies you will face, men”—his head turned to us girls—“or bond with them, women, you must learn to live like them. In darkness.”

The girl to my left whined louder. I wanted to reach out and throttle her to shut her up. Had she never faced struggles before? Was this her first hint of despair—being snatched off the street before being sold at auction to this half-blood dhampir?

One of the boys, who I couldn’t see from my angle, spoke up. “Defeat the bloodies? You’re a bloodsucker yourself.”

Lukain’s jaw firmed. He marched toward the boy and studied him, standing three feet away, until the boy began to shrink before Lukain’s imposing stature.

One hand came out from behind the grayskin’s back, and a glint of silver from the nearby torchlight showed me he was now holding a sword—

Which he plunged into the boy’s chest before the poor lad could say anything more.

Lukain’s stab was so forceful it lifted the boy clear off the ground and pinned him to the wall three feet behind him. Blood sprayed haphazardly in a great hissing gout from his caved chest. His legs spasmed, and then he was dead, hanging limp on Lukain’s sword, impaled against the wall.

Everyone screamed except me. My mouth dropped open in shock at the sudden violence, yet I remained silent.

With a grotesque cracking of bone and ribs, Lukain pulled his blade out of the boy’s chest. The corpse slid to the ground in a heap, leaving a crimson rash smeared on the wall.

The cloaked human, who had retreated into the shadows after cutting our wrist-ropes, shuffled in and began to drag the boy away.

Lukain sighed as he cleaned off his blade with a rag, before sheathing it behind him and standing at the front of the room under the archway.

“A poor investment on my part,” he muttered.

His fangs appeared as he snarled, nostrils flaring.

“Let it be known, little grimmers, I am nothing like the purebred filth that sits in their fineries in Olhav. Understood?”

As the hectic shouting and crying died down, everyone nodded incessantly. I picked up an unspoken rule: Do not speak to this grayskin murderer unless spoken to.

“You will see scant daylight in the Firehold. That is your burden.” Lukain smiled a rictus grin that startled me after his sheer barbarity—the nonchalant, casual slaughter.

I couldn’t deny it was a handsome smile, despite it being attached to a madman.

“Because I am a benevolent master, once a month you will be brought into the daylight on the surface. As humans, you will waste away without proper sun on your skin.” He wagged a finger at us.

“You may not remain humans forever in this life you’ve been tasked with living. ”

What sort of life is this?

Father Cullard, Mother Eola, Baylen Sallow, Jeffrith, Dimmon Plank . . . every human I’d ever known had either betrayed, hurt, or abandoned me.

Did I even wish to remain human?

I gulped when I thought more about it. My eyes swiveled to the red stain on the wall where the boy had been impaled. Such a weak race we are, compared to the cruel vampires and their half-bred ilk like this man.

“Follow me,” he ordered.

We quickly shuffled behind him as he ventured down the dark hallway. As we walked through the rough-hewn stone tunnel, dust fell from the ceiling. I glanced up and noticed pinpricks of light shining in from grates above us—the only glimpse of the surface I expected to see for quite some time.

I blinked away grit that landed in my eyes and continued following Lukain Pierken down the twisting passage.

There were closed doors and low voices on the other side of those doors on both sides of the walls.

We passed at least ten of them before Lukain brought us into a huge cavernous room adorned with stalagmites and stalactites.

The tapered columns split the vast room, turning it into two wide, underground chambers.

On the left side of the fork, I could hear the sounds of swords clanging and grunting men. I couldn’t see anyone through the gloom.

On the right side, a shock of blue—a pretty gown—flashed by as a girl walked past the entrance and disappeared. Her voice carried a moment later, giggling with another girl.

My brow furrowed in consternation.

Lukain swept his arms out to both entrances.

“Men and women, join your respective groups, acclimate yourself to the Firehold, and connect with your peers. They will become your lifeblood here. You’ve had a long day, so you will be permitted to rest until you’re called upon. Don’t dally when you are called.”

The two girls quickly skittered off to the right, while the three remaining boys took off to the left, all five of them eager to leave Lukain’s presence.

I didn’t move. I was rooted to the ground, glancing right to the laughing girls then left to the grunting boys and the sounds of clashing steel.

The thought of the humans who had betrayed me played in my mind on a loop.

The disgust I felt for all of them was palpable, making my teeth grind together.

Where I had been a despondent shell ever since Dimmon’s captivity and grotesque actions, now I felt alive.

It was a thrilling experience, standing there behind the tall form of Lukain Pierken, Lord of the Firehold.

As he seemed to count off the five who flooded past him, noticing one was missing, he faced me. His thin brow lifted. “Are you deaf, little grimmer?”

“Why do you call us that?” I answered. I didn’t feel I was breaking the first rule since he had asked me a question. Still, my hands knotted into fists at my sides, expecting a flashing blade to skewer me at any second.

Lukain only smiled at the corner of his mouth. “Because you are part of the Grimsons now. That is what we are called.”

“I am no one’s son.”

He chuckled. It was a dark purr of a sound. “Consider it a moniker. What is your name, girl?”

“Sephania.”

He hummed, crossing his arms over his chest. His eyes roamed over my body, though not in a lurid way. He examined the way I stood, muscles clenched before him. “You are tense, Sephania.”

“I wonder fucking why.”

His chuckle was louder this time, lips parting to show those long, glinting teeth. “Why are you still standing in front of me? I told you to go to your group.”

I made a decision then. One that would change my life forever.

Nudging my chin to the right, to the echoes of the loud girls bouncing across the walls, I said, “I don’t want to be like them. I’m not cut out to be breeding stock.” My eyes swiveled to the left room. “I want to be like them.”

His smile disappeared. His upper lip twitched as he took me in fully. I was young, yes, but also tall for my age. Taller and bigger than the other six prisoners I’d arrived with, with the exception of that beefy boy.

Lukain said, “I enjoy your tenacity. But you think you have options? Women do not fight in the Firehold.”

“You said we have choice.” My eyes narrowed on his handsome face, my features full of defiance. I stood tall as I could, reaching his neck with the top of my head.

“Curious.” His eyes glanced up and down my body. He moved, circling me, and I didn’t wilt. Though he didn’t touch me, I could feel his gaze lingering on every inch of my young body.

“You are weak,” he said once he had circled me completely and reached my front. “Frail. You’ll never amount to anything. At least with the women, you may survive. You have no chance in the Firehold.”

I spoke through gritted teeth. “So teach me, Master Lukain.”