My skin crawls.How is she back in her cage?!
Second rushes her, ripping the flaming door off its hinges.
“What happened?” he demands.
“They caught us,” she cries. “We were so close to the wall, but we didn’t make it.”
Panic surges through me. “Where’s Aurelia?” I ask while Second hands Samantha the shirt off his back.
She shakes her head, tears running, and looks up at us with sad eyes. “The king has her.”
Second snaps for the cages, ripping them open as I dart for Aurelia’s empty cage and start searching the wall behind it for a latch or a way through.
I peer over my shoulder as Second hands Samantha the dagger from his hip.
“Do you know how to get to the dungeon?” Second asks her.
She nods. “It’s where they brought us from when we first arrived, before locking us in here.”
“Good. Take the girls to the dungeon—there’s an exit to the sewer. The others are waiting to help you. Swim under the gate, and you’ll dump into the bay. Take the bridge and run to the nearest village,” Second tells Samantha while wrenching open the last cage. “Wewillfind you when it’s over,” he promises. “And if we don’t, you know the way to the Night Kingdom now. Try again. Don’tevergive up. Tell them everything you know.”
Samantha nods at him, girls clinging to her. “Thank you, Second,” she says and wraps herself around his torso.
“Go!” he demands as my hands find a crevice in the stone.
I press into it, and my heart leaps when the wall groans and slides. I race through the opening, eager to hunt my prey and desperate to find Aurelia.
The passageway is dark and damp, and my boot slips in my haste. I catch myself on the stone wall and regain my balance, my nervous rasp exhaling into the dim corridor.
I can do this. I have to do this.
I sprint to the right as Del instructed and come upon a large wooden door that creaks open with ease.
Nerian is hunched over a work table. At the sound of whining hinges, he spins.
My eyes dart around the room, searching for Aurelia.
I try not to be distracted, but the horror in here is the illustration of an insane vampire, a portrait of death and pain and gluttony. The stone walls are lined with canisters and bottles and boxes, filled with bones, jewels, hair.Trophies.
I step over the dead girl at my feet, her neck broken at an awful angle, body several days old. And then I step over the next.
They’re not Aurelia.Thank gods, but where is she?!
A large window on my left is unshuttered, the soft light of dawn beginning to break, and I wonder if Nerian likes to suffer in sunlight, too.
“King Nerian,” I address him, kicking an empty wine bottle away with my boot. “I’ve come to take your throne.”
He grins at me. “It’s not for sale, dear.”
“I wasn’t planning on purchasing it from you,” I say, spinning my twin blades in my palms, my mind racing with how to approach this. “Seems you’ve curated quite the collection.” My eyes flit around the room, landing on his bloody worktable and then on the large wooden crate in the corner.
“Yes, thank you for noticing.”
Gods, how could anyone not?
The king threads his bloodstained fingers along the teeth around his neck.
A thousand years of dreamwalking has caught up with this vile male. I can’t fathom the mental fatigue of that torture for so long. It has broken him, alongside his bloodlust. The curse of the vampire will take us all someday. And I hope there’s someone willing to kill me when I can no longer stand it.
