Page 10

Sav

H eavy footfall pounded in the hall, and I looked up when dark curls swung into the room.

He was back, kneeling beside me, and my heart sped up when he lifted my leg, placing it atop his thigh.

Panic flared. Would the glamour hold, or would blood soak into his jeans and give me away?

All thoughts fled as iron scraped over virgin skin and veins bulged along my neck with the effort of holding in my tortured scream.

In moments, the key was turning and one leg was free.

“What do you think you’re doing?” a voice demanded from the hallway. I had been so focused on the pain that I hadn’t heard the approaching woman who now framed the doorway. She was thin and mousy with no curves to speak of and a pale complexion that made her seem sickly.

The man beside me looked up, startled, and a guilty expression crossed his face. He said nothing as they stared at each other.

“I’m getting your dad,” she declared, breaking their silent standoff, and spun on her heel.

“No!” He dropped my leg, leaving the other chained, and ran after her.

The haughty girl storming away explained a lot. He had been dragged into this cult by a girlfriend or a father, or both.

Clipped words wafted down the hall and away from me.

She didn’t trust me and neither did their fearless leader and he was an idiot, blah blah, blah.

I got the sense that this was more of a lover’s quarrel than genuine concern.

They were far enough now that I couldn’t make out their conversation, which also meant they wouldn’t hear me.

It was risky. The odds of escape on my own were far less likely than the eventual help from the green-eyed man, but relying on a human would never be my first choice.

I stood, rolling my free ankle. The damage was severe, but it was healing.

Some magic remained buried in me, after all.

Or perhaps as a cruel joke, my sister had not bound my healing magic to ensure I would suffer long in this world with no easy escape into the after. I could imagine her doing just that.

I stepped into the hall and moved in the same direction I’d heard the voices go.

The loose chain scraped over linoleum, making enough noise I half expected someone to dart out of one of the many doors I passed and wrestle me to the ground, but I couldn’t risk touching it and burning my hands.

Harsh fluorescent lights illuminated faded wallpaper and molding corners along my narrow path.

My ankle throbbed, vision swimming, but I didn’t stop. I couldn’t.

How I wished for the wood nymph. What destruction she could bring to this horrid prison.

I choked on the thought. My cage paled in comparison to the one that sapped her life just a few floors below.

I picked up speed. Those creatures needed me to escape.

They needed me to bring down this place and its vile leader.

I came to the end of the hall looking left, then right. The halls were identical to the one I’d just come down with nothing to distinguish one from another. It was a maze of tan doors and stained linoleum floors, and I wasn’t sure I’d ever escape.

I went left, begging Mab for aid in choosing wisely as my heart beat a frantic rhythm in my chest. Too slow, I was moving too slow. I picked up my pace, wincing as the iron bounced up and down on the bone of my ankle and bit back a shout of pain when it sliced through skin.

I heard it then, feet stomping at a clipped pace as they neared.

Glancing around, I tried the first two doors near me.

Locked. Damn. My hands were slick as I squeezed the next, finding it locked too.

As the pounding of feet grew closer, I swallowed hard and leaned against the wall, sucking in labored breaths.

Dane Clyde rounded the corner, eyes landing on me. The man and woman who’d left to find his dad came next. Dane closed the distance, getting right up in my face. I held my breath, leaning back to put as much space between us as I could in the confined hall.

He gave me a hard stare before bending down and inspecting my free ankle. The pair behind Dane said nothing as he spent several moments looking over my bare skin. His gaze crawled up my leg and stalled on my chest. Disgust curdled in my stomach.

“Jack,” he called without turning his gaze from me. The man with emerald eyes, Jack, stepped forward. “Do you know why this girl is staying with us?” Dane didn’t wait for an answer, barreling on. “She was caught freeing the fae animals at the protest today.”

Jack’s eyes met mine, a look of admonishment in them for my earlier lie. “Does that give you the right to chain her?” He raised a brow at me when he asked the question. What did that mean? Had he wanted me to free them? Would he have helped me if I’d told the truth?

The pause that followed hung heavy in the air.

Dane’s voice was steely when he answered. “We have more than fifty monsters in cages just below our feet. What do you think would happen if this fairy lover released even a handful of them?”

Jack said nothing, his gaze hard on the back of Dane’s head. For a moment, I wondered if this human hated Dane more than I did. The rage radiating off him in thick waves was enough to make me swallow.

I pressed against the wall, desperate to be free of both of them—of all the humans I’d been forced to endure these three years in their realm.

Jack’s gaze flicked back to me, some of the fury in his eyes banking, and Dane swore, spittle landing on my cheek. “If she freed even one of them, we could all be dead, Son.”

Son? Evil incarnate had spawned a child, and it was…Jack? That couldn’t be right. I looked between them. Strong jawline, impressive height for a human male. Same dark hair, although Dane’s was cropped short and graying at the temples.

It was true.

Revulsion rolled through me. I had asked Dane Clyde’s son for help. I was going to be sick.

The group was all watching me now and every moment that ticked by felt one closer to the bars sealing me in this hell forever. I had to do something, had to find a way out of this mess, even if it meant playing along.

I slumped to the floor, tears rimming my lashes. “I just… I can’t stand to see anything hurt,” I whispered. “Even the ones that scare me.”

Jack moved toward me, but Dane held up a hand. “She’s playing you, Son.”

The lack of emotion in his voice and the immediacy with which he had seen through me caught me off guard. I covered my surprise with another sob.

“She’s scared,” Jack said and tried to push past his father.

Dane held him fast. “She sees your soft heart and plans to use it. But listen to me, I can help her understand how dangerous those monsters really are. Don’t you want me to help her?”

Fear bubbled up my chest. The man was far too cunning for his kind. I wasn’t entirely sure I wasn’t in some sort of trap of his making.

Jack stopped resisting his father’s hold, and his jaw set in a hard line. “You can’t treat people like animals, Dane. ”

My gaze swiveled between them, waiting to see how it would play out.

My stomach sank as Jack shoved his father’s shoulder and marched down the hall. Away from me.

“Alice, take our new guest back to your room so she doesn’t get lost. If she behaves herself, perhaps tomorrow night we’ll show her to the showers and a change of clothes. Tonight, let her sleep in her filth to remind her what she’d done.” Dane said.

The mousy girl with dishwater brown hair and too-large eyes stepped forward for the first time since Dane had arrived. She held out a hand to help me up, but I didn’t take it as I balanced against the wall and stood.

“Just go.” She tried for an authoritative tone, but there was a tremor in her voice.

Narrowing my eyes at her, I pushed off the wall and turned, limping forward.

“Wait.” Dane’s voice was low.

I froze, ice leaching into my veins as I held my breath.

He strode down the hall, taking up more space than was necessary as he nudged past us and his big hand fell heavily on my shoulder and spun me around. He leaned down and plucked the loose chain I had been dragging from the floor. “Your leg, please.”

I bit the inside of my cheek and lifted my leg obediently, setting my foot on his thigh. My spine straightened as I glared down at the top of his head. He secured the metal around my still-healing ankle, and I imagined three painful deaths for him in the time it took him to finish.

He stared pointedly, waiting for me to remove my bare foot from his leg.

Hot blood pounded through my veins, lighting a fire in my belly that begged for his death. I made that silent promise as he stood, brushing off the dirty footprint I had left behind. I would kill Dane Clyde.

“Have a good night, ladies,” he said.

I smiled. Not for him, but for the promise I’d etched into my heart. And a fae always kept their promise.