Page 7

Chapter five

Rae rubbed at the bruises on her wrists as she watched Aidan unlock their cell.

She’d lied about getting the marks from her boyfriend; she wasn’t the kind to tie herself down to anyone.

The truth was, she’d got caught up the night before.

Nothing she hadn’t been able to handle alone before she’d escaped.

Tonight would be no different; she already had what she wanted.

Earning Aidan’s trust had been all too easy, his desperation to find his missing magic clouding his judgement.

Ink swirled over the golden-brown skin of his sculpted chest, his arms, down his torso, and his abs…

fuck, he had abs for days, before dipping into the waistband of his trousers.

Some kind of ancient Vampire dialect, no doubt, but Rae admired the artistry of it, her fingers itching to sketch a design.

She peeled her gaze away before he could notice her staring again.

Wouldn’t want the bloodsucker getting the wrong idea.

Though she’d jump at the opportunity to torture the bastard, she wouldn’t deny she’d enjoyed the solid feel of him behind her as she’d lured the guard into their cell.

That much muscle should have been illegal.

Rae had made it a rule to steer clear of Vampires when it came to sex.

They loved to feed as they fucked, and she’d managed to avoid any of them sinking their teeth into her during her nightly pilfering.

Humans loved to gossip about how euphoric an experience it was to be fed on.

Given the way they hung around Rush like they were waiting for their next fix, Rae didn’t doubt it.

But there was power in blood, much like the knowledge Aidan had spoken of, only a different kind. And she wasn’t willing to give it up. Certainly not to the Vampire Lord. Great orgasms were reserved for her hand and her drawer of toys.

“Tragic,” she muttered under her breath as Aidan slid the bolt soundlessly aside, pocketing the keys.

“What is?” He arched a brow at her, silver eyes assessing, like he was always planning his next three steps.

Rae held his stare. Even though he was beaten and bloody, that he’d been in a fight with the Goddess knew how many Fae back at Rush, she could still smell the sandalwood and leather scent that drifted from him.

“All these morons believing they weren’t about five minutes away from their deaths when they agreed to this alliance. ”

It was well known that the humans were divided.

That living as they had for so long had incited many of them to push for change; not always the right kind.

Multiple factions wanted to make Demesia their own, to drive the Orders out of the city and make it a sanctuary for humans, a space for them to thrive.

Some might have even been justified in their wishes, but Rae agreed on one thing: they needed a safe space.

Too many fell victim to the Vampires, to the Fae and were used as blood bags, playthings, slaves.

Daily life for most in Demesia wasn’t living, it was survival, and she’d had firsthand experience at existing that way for longer than she cared to admit. It was precisely why she needed to earn Aidan’s trust, no matter how much she hated that it had to be him.

“You can lose the spells if you need to keep stock of your preserves.” Aidan ignored her statement, flicking his chin at her hair.

She wasn’t surprised he knew, but she wasn’t about to show him her true eyes or hair.

There were few left alive who knew what she truly looked like.

Not even Nim. And though Rae knew she should have changed more about her identity on a regular basis, part of her loved the thrill—and the surprise—that it was all it took to trick people into looking the other way.

Besides, the best lies weren’t the elaborate ones.

Although they were fun. The greatest lies were the little, everyday things that could be wrapped up so neatly in a conversation you wouldn’t even spot them.

Like a change of hairstyle or any of the other array of small spells humans could pick up at the markets.

“Wait here,” Aidan murmured.

She followed him out into the cold corridor. A single light illuminated the passageway, another door at the end, an authorised personnel only sign above it. Even without the blood on his lips, Aidan’s presence was brutal, powerful. Terrifying even.

But Rae knew a thing or two about fear, and about those who knew how to wield it like a blade.

He raised an eyebrow at her again, but when he saw her expression he followed her line of sight. More cells, and from the ones she could see, their occupants were silent. The air was heavy with their stench, even through the metal between them.

Rae was quiet as she moved past each one, leaning up onto her toes to look through the narrow grate on each door, harsh lights flickering over corpses.

Her breath caught as she took it all in.

“Vampires. Humans. Fae. This doesn’t make any sense,” she said quietly, hands turning into fists against the metal as she surveyed each of the dead prisoners.

Vampires and Fae had always been at each other’s throats, and though the Fae took humans as their pets too, they hadn’t fed on them in decades. They didn’t need them for any purpose other than entertainment. Rae’s stomach flipped. A great fucking mess, all of it.

“Elred’s handiwork?” she asked. The Fae king, a Royalist, though Rae knew he wouldn’t be working with Torrin.

Aidan’s attention was on the door at the end of the corridor, no doubt listening for whoever was beyond it. “No. My guess is Torrin is working alone in this.”

“Alone? This has all the ingredients of a big fucking operation written all over it, wouldn’t you say?”

Aidan merely flicked his chin in her direction, signalling her to get out of the way, Rae presumed. “The prisoner is awake, and he’s asking for Torrin,” he said in a tone Rae suspected was his attempt to mimic a guard.

She didn’t hide her smirk. The door slid open, and she mirrored the Vampire’s movement, pressing her back against the opposite wall.

The guard was down in seconds, but Aidan didn’t use his teeth this time, only his bare hands.

He hadn’t wiped the first guard’s blood away from his mouth, and something told her he’d left it there to startle any of the weaker soldiers they were about to encounter.

Based on what they’d just witnessed in the cells, Rae was confident whoever approached them on their way out deserved whatever Aidan did to them.

“Let’s get your secret sauce back, Vampire.”

“After you, human.”

Rae smiled as she stepped through the door, waving at the five Fae stationed outside it. Horns and Hooves, always used for grunt work, no guns holstered at their belts, because that would be madness in a prison—if that was what this was.

Many Fae possessed magic, though not all. Only the older families, those descended from the royal lines had any kind of power worth being concerned about. And there were no Royalists in the city.

Rae clicked her tongue as they moved closer, one of them trying to glance around the door behind her for their friend.

She took a step to the side and leaned against the grimy wall with her arms folded over her chest as the nearest guard stalked up to her.

Grunts were usually stationed in this line of work for a reason.

They didn’t need a weapon; they were one.

But Rae had a grunt of her own. “Sorry about this,” she said dryly, just as the door beside her slammed open and Aidan barrelled into the guard, taking him off his feet in one swift move.

Rae looked on as the other guards charged him—one, quite literally—horns coming dangerously close to Aidan’s ribs. The Vampire Lord merely reached out, long fingers curling around a horn, and slammed the Fae into the wall.

That was two. The other three circled him, one with hooves like a horse’s and stubby little horns protruding from his blond curls. “Taz, call for backup,” he spluttered as Aidan’s hand squeezed at the other’s throat, landing a punch against another.

Taz, Rae presumed, staggered back, glancing back at the closed doors at the far end of the corridor as if he were calculating the distance between them and Aidan. An encased button hung on the wall a few steps back from him, and Rae realised a heartbeat too late what it was.

A horn flew through the air, impaling Taz in the chest, just as his hand came down on the button and an alarm sounded.

“Fuck,” she breathed.

Doors opened and more guards poured through them, both humans and Fae.

Too many for Rae to count. She pushed off the wall, yanking the horn from the dead Fae’s chest to use as a weapon while Aidan made swift work of the nearest guards.

He fought with the ferocity of a savage beast, but his movements were considered, precise.

She didn’t waste time watching, swinging the horn into the head of the human charging her.

He staggered back and she snatched the switchblade from his hand, muttering a silent thanks to the Goddess that he had it as she slammed it into his stomach.

Rae twisted the blade as she brought the horn down again, kicking the human away as a body crashed into her.

“Watch it,” Rae snapped, catching Aidan’s eye as she realised he’d flung a dead guard in her direction. She raised the dagger as another guard ran for her, ducking at the last moment to shove it into his kidney.

“My sincerest apologies, human,” the Vampire muttered, pulling his bloodied mouth up from the neck of a guard as the human slumped from his hold.

Rae stepped over bodies, snatching a chain from around the neck of a dead Fae, his head hanging at an awkward angle, but his veins untouched.

Good to see Aidan didn’t play with his food. There was a reason the Fae hated Vampires; for many years, they’d been the main course. It was well known that humans were only introduced to this world to balance the scales, and it was no wonder they’d had enough.

She didn’t look over her shoulder to see if Aidan was finished.

Instead, she made her way to the door on her right—the one with the hole matching the unusual cut of the key she’d snatched from the Fae and a restricted sign beside it—before shoving the key into the lock.

She’d meant it when she’d told Aidan there was a limit to what she could do, and she’d learnt long ago to let others expend their resources before she did.

The lock clicked and the door swung open, a dim glow from a series of monitors illuminating the face of a young Fae with bright green headphones resting over his head.

He startled when he noticed her, tearing his headphones away, eyes dipping to the bloodied blade in her hand. “Please,” he stuttered, “I’m here because I have to be.”

Rae stalked closer, vaguely aware of the stacks of metal shelving lining the walls, the ventilation ducting hugging the ceiling that had most certainly not been doing its job, unwilling to take her eyes off the Fae just yet.

Moans and grunts rang out from his headphones, bodies writhing on the screen beside him.

The alarm still blared, and judging by the shrieks of terror, Aidan was still occupied in the corridor where she’d left him.

“Prove it,” Rae said, resting the tip of her finger on the hilt of her switchblade, balancing the sharp point on the Fae’s knee. “Can you turn that alarm off?”

He nodded and swung around to the monitors, fingers poised over the keyboard, one hand his own, the other a prosthetic. Human-made, no doubt.

Rae looped an arm over his shoulder, leaned in, and held the dagger to his ribs. “Just the alarm.”

Another nod.

“When you’re not holed up in here watching porn, what are you doing?

” She raised an eyebrow at the bodies still writhing on one of the screens, two female humans and a Fae male.

Some fantasies were universal. Her gaze slid over the other monitors, snippets of data and statistics on one, names and ages on another.

The dead prisoners, Rae would bet a silver bar on it.

The alarm ceased, and the Fae swallowed thickly. “I, um, track the test subjects,” he stuttered, jerking his chin at the metal racks beside the door.

Rae moved away from the Fae, eyes roving over the metal cases on each rack, this one all black, the other, only red.

“Wait,” the Fae pleaded. Rae ignored him. Pulled down one of the cases, unclipping each clasp and humming as she surveyed the contents. Vials, all full of clear liquid.

“You’re trying to transfer magic,” she murmured. The only piece of the puzzle she couldn’t work out yet was that the syphon they’d put on Aidan back at Rush wasn’t a human invention. It wasn’t Fae either.

She pocketed a few of the vials, a body slamming into the wall of the open doorway, but she didn’t shift her gaze away from the Fae.

His hooves scraped against the floor as he shifted in his chair, pushing his glasses up his nose with a finger.

She stalked back over to him, noticed the crusted tissues on his desk, and rethought her decision to touch his keyboard.

An ID card was clipped to the top pocket of his shirt and Rae snatched it off, reading the name. “Ezekias Kypra. Do you know the Drunken Ram in the Eastern Quarter?” She pocketed the name card too. With the right contacts, it was easy to find out who anyone was with a photo in Demesia.

A nod.

“Meet me there tomorrow night, eight sharp, and I’ll make sure my colleague doesn’t gut you.”

“Colleague?”

“My cell mate.”

The Fae paled.

“Someone put a syphon on him. Who?”

Ezekias swallowed. “Calder.”

“Show me.” Rae flicked her chin at the monitors, just as Aidan slipped into the room.

Ezekias began to shake, fingers slipping over keys. “Here.”

The screens changed, one with a split camera view of a lab and another with a blueprint of the facility. “Good boy,” Rae said, tapping his shoulder with the tip of her blade. “Have a glass of visk waiting for me, won’t you?”

Vale stalked closer.

“This one lives,” she said, patting a hand against his thick bicep.

She moved to the second rack, the one with red cases, swapping out two of the vials for the ones she’d taken from one of the black cases before fastening it again and sliding it under her arm. “After you, Vampire.”