Page 36

Chapter 35

Rolf

R olf hovered in the doorway. He was tempted to look back, to see if the horrors of his past were still there, but for now, all was quiet. A curved stone staircase, lit sparsely by torches, rose before him. His skin itched as his wolf paced, impatient to get to Adeline.

Happy to have you back, he told it. But, please, be quiet.

The wolf grumbled deep in his chest, and Rolf’s hand rubbed at his rib cage absently. He didn’t realize how much he had missed the presence of his wolf until it had gone quiet earlier.

He felt a silent nudge from his animal as it settled within him, and then, suddenly, a tug started deep within his chest, near his sternum. It pulsed, but it wasn’t in time with his heart. It was slower and felt strangely familiar.

Adeline . The tug shimmered when he recognized who it belonged to, sending shivers up his arms. There was no telling if she knew about the tug or if she could feel it back. But his wolf echoed in his head.

“Mate,” it said.

Mate. Adeline was his mate. His wolf grumbled in his head again, and a sense of urgency pushed at him. He had no idea that were-shifters could mate with vampires. But if it was possible, as his wolf certainly seemed to believe, then he needed to find her before something worse happened.

He took a step forward and braced himself for more illusions to filter in again, but nothing happened. Maybe they only occurred in those two rooms, a failsafe that kept invaders at bay.

But he was going to do whatever it took to get to her.

In all the stories from his childhood, there had been one fable that stuck with him the most. About a beautiful but lonely princess who was destined to live her life alone in a castle tower. The jealous prince kept her hidden away, worried her beauty was too coveted and she would be stolen from him.

He couldn’t remember how the story ended. In one version, the princess rescued herself, killing the prince with her own bare hands. And in the other, a wayward soldier fell in love with her, but the prince found out and plucked out his eyes.

If he had to have his eyes plucked from his skull to finally be with her, it would all be worth it.

He had to keep going. She deserved as much.

He tugged on the bond, wondering if Adeline could feel it, too, and hoping that maybe there was a chance she wouldn’t do anything rash until he could get to her. A part of him wished he had never agreed to her crazy plan to take down the coven. He knew it was a risk, but at the time, he thought it would pay off—he hoped it would pay off. What did he expect, that they would ride off into the sunset like in tavern ballads?

What a lovesick fool , he thought and smiled.

Yes, he was lovesick, and he loved it.

His arms ached for her, and so did his mouth. He wanted to taste her again. He wanted to wrap his fingers in her long hair and inhale her earthy scents of petrichor and amber. His belly tingled with an insatiable desire to lick and nibble and kiss every inch of her body. His ears missed the rarity of her laughter.

Rolf’s wolf paced in his chest, wanting to shift, wanting to ransack the entire castle so he could tear out the throats of every last one of them. But it wasn’t the full moon. And he needed to be smart about this. He didn’t know if unleashing his wolf was even possible without the power of the full moon, and he wasn’t about to do something risky.

With each step he took, his stomach grumbled, and exhaustion pulled at his muscles. He had no idea how long he had been down there. It didn’t matter because he was reaching the top of the stairs.

They opened up into a dingy, poorly lit hallway. The musty scent of the stairs collided with the stench of excrement and sweat. He hovered in the shadows of the stairwell, grateful there were no torches up here. Bodies milled about, mechanical in their movements as they carried things back and forth, disappearing behind multiple doors.

“The servants’ quarters,” he whispered out loud and then cringed, hoping no one had overheard him.

A servant walked down the hallway, their eyes staring into space. Distinctly marked by their pointed ears, the fae servant carried a tray piled high with food.

Glamoured , he realized, looking around. More servants milled about, their movements stiff and unnatural. All of them glamoured. If they were glamoured, then their chances of seeing and reporting him were minimal—not only that, but he could get around the castle with a lot more ease.

He breathed a sigh of relief. His chances of finding Adeline quickly climbed much higher if all he had to worry about were the vampires.

His wolf growled. His stomach rumbled. And it took him all of two seconds to snatch a small pastry from a passing servant. The tray wobbled slightly, but the servant continued down the hallway, unbothered. He bit into the delicate, buttery flakes and suppressed a moan as it melted in his mouth. With a glance down the hallway, finding the coast clear of vampires, he slid away from the door where the fae had gone.

Avoid the vampires, find Adeline. Then burn their whole nest to the ground.

He rounded a corner, following the scent of baking bread to the kitchens. Everyone inside moved so methodically that it made even his wolf shiver with unease.

“So unnatural,” he whispered, unable to take his eyes off the silent, glamoured fae servants.

A servant crossed in front of him as he stood in the doorway, their eyes glazed over, staring into the room before them. Underneath their collar were dozens upon dozens of bite marks. Some of them had healed, but others were festering wounds, seeping with pus.

Prisoners. That’s all they were. Forced to work and attend to the vampires in the levels above. How many years had they been stuck here?

He left the kitchen, following the curving hallway toward the scent of laundry. Steam billowed out of the large doors at the end of the hall; the scent of ironing and fresh linens hung in the air, competing with the smells of the kitchen. If it wasn’t so silent and creepy, he would have found it smelled like home. How it used to feel running to the servants’ quarters when he was a child.

But then he passed a door that was slightly ajar. It stopped him in his tracks. Curiosity got the better of him, and he pushed the door open wider.

Rows upon rows of doors lined a damp and moldy corridor. He grabbed a torch from a sconce on the wall and held his clothing up to his nose to prevent the smell of excrement and urine from clogging his throat. Muffled crying came from behind a few of the doors. The farther he walked down the hall, the worse the conditions got. Each door he passed was secured with thick chains and padlocks to keep the dozens of fae, and even several humans, imprisoned like they were in jailer’s cells. He lifted one of the heavy padlocks, its face etched with fine markings.

Rolf had seen markings like this on shards of rocks in the tunnels under his cabin. He had figured it was an ancient dwarf miner who was bored and decided to carve into the stone. But now, he wondered if it had been wards. The swirls glowed as he jiggled the shackle.

Why would these locks have the same marks as the stones he had found?

Ward marks, his wolf snorted.

Rolf stilled but then asked his wolf, And you know this because?

There was no response.

“Figures,” he whispered to himself.

According to Rolf’s limited knowledge of the fae creatures, dwarves hadn’t been seen in centuries. He had thought it was because they were gone. But now he wasn’t so sure.

He peered inside one of the rooms through the tiny window at the top. Several fae were all crowded together, huddling by their only source of light—a solitary, tapered candle in the center of the room. None of them looked his way, their eyes still vacant as if the glamour had never been lifted.

Sickening , he thought, and shuddered. His glamour had been so strong that it had lasted a hundred years. How long had these fae been down here? Glamoured? Working for these foul bloodsuckers?

Anger burned his throat, and his hand trembled with restrained rage, the flame flickering with his jerky movement. All of the time he had wasted trying to remember who he was and what had happened to him, and it was because of Adeline’s maker.

The vampires would pay. All of them. Because they were all complicit in this, and therefore they were all responsible.

His wolf snapped its jaws, and Rolf wished he were in his shifter form so he could rip the vampires’ heads from their bodies with a satisfying squelch.

This is despicable! he thought, and his wolf agreed.

It paced and snarled every time a fae cried out for their family.

What kind of monster would keep these magical creatures here against their will, away from their families and forests for gods knew how long, forcing them to work and eat and sleep in such conditions?

He spun on his heel, determination covering him in soothing waves. By the gods, he would figure out how to free these fae creatures, too. And then he would burn the castle, with the vampires trapped inside.

He was still stewing in anger, clutching the torch in a death grip, when a solitary humming reverberated down the hall. His heart beat loudly as he looked around, trying to find the source of the sound. Quickly, he placed the torch in a sconce on the wall, but there was no place to hide except the corridor and the laundry room. The laundry was too far away for him to reach without a guarantee that the doors were easy to open.

The humming grew louder, along with the sound of footsteps, and at the last moment, he ran back to the prisoners’ quarters and slid behind the door, watching for whoever came down the hall through the crack.

A blond, curvy vampire rounded the corner, jingling a set of keys. She passed the corridor, humming to herself, but stopped, pausing for a moment to sniff the air, and then turned.

Just keep walking.

Sweat dripped down his forehead, and Rolf slid his hand to the holster at his waist, wrapping his fingers around the hilt of one of his knives. His wolf paced in his chest, a low growl echoing in his head. He clenched his teeth together to keep the sound from escaping.

The female vampire did not keep walking.

Her floral scent filled the space between them as she entered the corridor, and Rolf inhaled, something piquing his memory. It was familiar, but he couldn’t place where he had smelled it before. He reeked after his travels, but he hoped that the stench of stale urine and mold would overpower his own.

The keys jangled in her hands as she flipped through the set and walked to the end of the hallway. Rolf slunk back into the shadow behind the door, his large form barely fitting. The blond vampire stopped at one of the doors halfway down the hall, fit a key into the padlock, and turned. It glowed a bright blue before the mechanism clicked and the shaft unhooked.

She opened the heavy door with a grunt and ducked inside. Rolf took a steadying breath and slid out from behind the door.

Do I lock her inside?

He stepped forward quietly but hesitated too long.

A bell rang from within the room the vampire had entered. The quickening patter of feet echoed down the hall. He didn’t want to find out if they were servants or vampires, so he melted back into the shadow of the hallway door. He cursed himself for not leaving when he had the chance, because now he was stuck.

He palmed one of his knives, a small assurance against the weight of fear that crushed his chest.