Page 196 of Vampire Kings Box Set

“In the cage,” Raymond said, opening the door and pushing Will inside. Will had to stoop in order to avoid hitting his head. It was clearly designed to make him move about on hands and knees, or in the form of a wolf, though he felt the peculiar sapping energy that inevitably came with being near moonsilver. There was some of it about, somewhere.

“Hey,” Will said again, as he came within a foot of Henry. He was relieved to see the pack master. He felt a lot less alone. At least, he did until he saw the look in Henry’s sunken eyes a little more clearly. Henry looked angry, hungry, and something Will had never seen in his eyes before: afraid.

“Lorien, you are not supposed to be here,” Raymond said. “Gideon will discuss this with you later over his desk. Get out. Now.”

If Lorien had a tail it would have been between his legs. Will watched, concerned for a whole new set of reasons as Lorien quietly complied. Something was deeply, fundamentally wrong here. Lorien didn’t do as he was told unquestioningly. Lorien sassed and had attitude and was stubborn. Something terrible must have happened. Over, and over, and over again.

As Lorien exited, a dark-headed little bastard walked in. Will felt his hackles rise at the sight of him. As if the evening hadn’t been bad enough, he had to be confronted with this asshole.

“Now you’re going to get what you deserve,” Chauvelin interjected as he swaggered in through the door Gideon had exited through. “You should have stayed out of our affairs, pack master. As for you, Will, I finally get to see you where you deserve to be, in chains and behind bars. You are going to suffer for what you did to me, William. You are going to yearn for prison after what I do to you here. I am the keeper of this dungeon, and you are all mine to do with as I please.”

Will simply stared at Chauvelin, saying nothing. When the moment had dragged on long enough, he came up with a single word response.

“Okay.”

“Enough fraternizing with the beasts,” Ray said. “Speaking to them is a waste of time. They do not understand words, only actions.”

Will glanced back at Henry, trying to gauge his reaction. Henry said nothing. He just stared at Will with a look that might have been hateful, or might have been sad, or might just have been outright traumatized. Will was starting to have a very bad feeling in the pit of his stomach. Anger had taken him from Maddox in a single reckless act of invitation. He was beginning to realize that he had allowed himself to be manipulated, and that the consequences of that manipulation might be much worse than death.

Ray shut the cage door behind him and left the pair of them in the dark. Will found himself looking awkwardly at Henry, wondering why he suddenly felt incredibly guilty.

“You look like shit,” Will said when he and Henry were alone.

“I have been a prisoner for two years. Lorien has been in Gideon’s grasp for two fucking years. Where the hell were you?” Henry’s teeth flashed, his upper lip curled back in an angry snarl. His fists were clenched, and for a second, it seemed like Will might be about to get his lights punched out.

“I was besieged with Maddox. We didn’t know you’d been taken.”

“Did you ask? Did you try to find us? Or did you just not care? Did it not occur to you that…”

“I literally couldn’t leave the house without Gideon killing me. As for why Maddox didn’t follow up, I just found out he’s been lying to me about my mother. And that my mother is dead now. Because Gideon killed her, purely so I couldn’t ever know her.”

“Boo fucking hoo,” Henry replied.

“Alright, well, fuck you too.”

Henry jabbed a finger at him. “We dropped everything to save you, and the moment you got what you wanted, you stopped caring about anybody else. You and Maddox. Two. Fucking. Years.”

Will had been planning to sulk most furiously about Maddox’s lie and the loss he had sustained. But now that he was confronted with a massive failing of his own, it was very disruptive to his own self pity.

“You couldn’t escape?” It was a stupid question. Obviously, he couldn’t escape. If he could escape, then he wouldn’t be there anymore.

“If one of us gets free, the other one dies,” Henry said. “And it’s all because of you. Because you pissed Gideon off so badly, he’s captured, tortured, and killed everybody you know. All without you noticing.”

“Fuck,” Will cursed. He leaned back against the cage, then leaped away with a scream. The cage walls burned his bare skin quite nastily.

“Moonsilver,” Henry said. “You remember that, don’t you.”

“Fuck. Yes. Fuck,” Will swore. “Don’t worry, Maddox won’t…”

“Maddox isn’t going to save you, and neither one of you tried to save us, so…”

“I’m sorry,” Will said. “I really fucking am. But I didn’t put you in this cage. And I probably couldn’t have gotten you out, either.”

“That last part is true,” Henry acknowledged.

“Ivan,” Will said. “Where’s Ivan?”

“I don’t know.”