Page 17 of Vengeance and Vipers

I pull myself together and practically sprint down the hallway to the Billiard room, cursing when I find it empty. I need to find them; I need to tell them.

I reach out with my magick, searching for them. They’re in the gardens, walking together. Plotting more like. It’s one of the only places where they can be sure they won’t be overheard.

I leave the house via the side door, and I wait until they’re closer to the house, away from the library where, no doubt, Maddox is watching. I don’t want him knowing about this. I don’t need him suspicious of me, too, because, even though my fae power is stronger than it’s ever been, Maddox is still the clan leader, and the magick of that position will always be stronger than mine, I suspect.

When they get close, I walk out into the path in front of them.

‘We have to go back,’ I blurt. ‘We can’t just leave a human girl in that place.’

* * *

JULES

‘How long have I been here?’ I ask Krase.

He doesn’t respond; just lays on his slab of stone and stares at the ceiling. He was lucid for a little while after Maddox was here the last time, when he and Maddox used that fae thing.

When he lets his head fall to the side to look at me now, though, his expression makes me want to hide because whatever is staring at me from behind those eyes, it’s not him.

He knows I’m scared. He likes it. Is this what they really are without their sanity or their human sides?

‘I’m going to come in there and rip out your insides,’ he whispers.

I roll my eyes. ‘Yeah. You told me,’ I mutter.

Actual threats in words I understand, and, weirdly, it makes me happier to know what Krase’s plans are for me if he does catch me than if he said nothing at all, and I had to wonder.

He sniffs at me again and frowns.

‘Why do you keep doing that?’ I ask, not really expecting an answer, so I’m surprised when he actually gives me one.

‘You don’t have a scent.’

‘I don’t?’

‘No,’ he growls like he’s annoyed by that.

‘I guess Iron didn’t take his conjure off me after the Mountain,’ I mutter, half to myself.

‘Iron,’ he scoffs. ‘That fool has less power in his whole body than this tiny little fae toy.’

‘Maybe that was true before,’ I say, ‘but things are a little different now.’

He doesn’t say anything back, just spins his tacturn, staring at it. ‘I know why you brought this,’ he says, and I look up, but he’s not talking to me, I don’t think.

‘But you’re just delaying the inevitable. Soon, you won’t be coming back out, and it’ll just be me.’ His eyes find me. ‘Me and the pretty human.’

His fingers clench, and, for a second, it’s like he’s at war with his own body, jerking and shuddering until there’s a low laugh and the tacturn is flung away.

It hits the bars of his cell and falls to the floor just outside mine.

‘No more fae toy to bring you back,’ the demon taunts, closing his eyes.

I stare at the tacturn on the ground. He won’t be able to reach it, but I bet I can.

I slip off the stone slab I’m sitting on and ease myself silently across my cell to the front where I sink to the floor and poke my arm through the bars. My fingers easily grab it, and I rise, holding the tiny magickal item in my hand for a moment before I wrap the chain around it and put it in the back pocket of my jeans.

Maybe I am a little magpie-ish, but a fae bauble is always worth something, and if I can get out of here, I can sell it.