The hard floors are nothing compared to the pain inside me. My heart squeezes, bleeds, stops, then it starts all over again. There’s no pause to this agony. No moment of relief. My wolf howls and weeps, over and over, nonstop. It’s his pain at the broken mating bond and my pain at losing Cassandra. They mix and empower each other, and it’s unbearable to still be alive when she isn’t.
Sitting with my back to the cold stone that makes up the walls, I keep my eyes closed. In the darkness, I can recall her face. It’s the one way to pretend I’m not in this place. Stuck in an underground cell, with no way out. No hope. No escape.
A hand grips mine, the skin as hot as my own. I open my eyes to meet Mei’s sad gaze. She twists her lips at me as she tightens her hold on my fingers. She says nothing as we stare at each other, the silence almost unbearable.
“I’m so sorry, Mei,” I start, tugging her closer. She sits in front of me, our knees touching. “I can’t believe I got you out just to have you locked in again.”
She clucks her tongue. “It’s not so bad. At least I’m not working day and night, cleaning behind the Collector.” She squeezes my fingers. “At least we’re together.”
“That’s true,” I tell her, but I can’t fake it. I can’t pretend I like the outcome. Yeah, we freed a bunch of people from the Collector. I have my sister back. But at what cost? Cassandra is dead, Kayn dragged us into his personal underground prison, and we have no way of leaving it. We’re at the very heart of his house, surrounded by, I don’t know, hundreds of vampires. There’s no way we can win.
Mei scoots closer, sits next to me, and leans her head on my shoulder. I want to talk to her. She’s been through hell enslaved by the Collector. I want to hear her out, promise her we’ll escape and be happy... But how could I? I don’t believe it. I can’t find myself within this pain, and I can’t find the words to tell her.
As if reading my mind, Mei squeezes my fingers again. We sit there, in silence, not knowing what to say. Tristan’s soft sniffs are the only thing I hear.
The door slams open. I grip my sister closer, turning to the bars and waiting for whoever has come inside. My wolf isn’t working like he should, not with Cass’ death weighing upon us, but he’s as alert as he can get. Closing my free hand into a fist, I get ready for a fight.
The two vampires walking closer pay me no mind. They drag something between them. One opens the cell door across from me. The other throws the shape inside. As soon as the lock clicks, both turn around and disappear back out of the door.
The scent of blood is so strong it almost overpowers the smell of dragon. Apollo lies where they dropped him, red blood seeping from uncountablewounds on his arms and legs and torso. He doesn’t move. My heartbeat spikes.
“Apollo?” I call out, pressing myself to the bars.
“Is he alright?” Tristan asks from the cell to my left. I can’t see him. His voice is strangled with sadness and worry.
“I don’t know. He’s bleeding a lot.”
Tristan’s breath grows louder, ragged. “But he will heal, right?” he whispers, and fear clogs my throat.
I can’t lie. I can’t tell him I don’t know. That Apollo might die. That Kayn has disappeared with Donatello, and he beat up Apollo, and he might kill us off, one by one. Kayn wanted Cassandra above all else, and now that she’s gone—really gone, gone for good—he must be so pissed off. So desperately angry at us for losing her. For letting her die.
It’s our fault. We should have been stronger, better mates. What kind of shifter lets their mate die in front of them?
If only I had risento the challenge. If only I had been stronger...
Apollo grunts. I shoot to my feet. He flips his body slowly, so slowly it hurts to watch, and lets his back hit the ground. Another deep grunt, then his eyes blink open.
“Apollo!” Tristan cries out. “You’re alive!”
“Of course I’m alive,” the dragon spits, his chest rising and falling with shallow breaths. “Shit, do you think so lowly of me? A beating from those weaklings can’t hurtme.”
Tristan sighs in relief, but I see through Apollo’s facade easily. He’s hurting. They beat him up to the very limit of his shifter healing. I can see bent bones snapping back intoplace, the blood flow trickling to a stop. One of his eyes is swollen shut, his lip split open. It will take his body a while to heal completely.
And the vampires knew. They beat him up but kept him alive. Do they have a plan? Does Kayn have some sort of plan?
“What did they want?” I ask him.
Apollo scoffs. “Fucking nothing. Nothing other thantobeat me up.”
“Did you see Donatello?” I ask, my hopes diminishing with every second that passes. Donatello has been missing since we got here, and he’s Kayn’s progeny. Kayn must be pissed the most with him. After he commanded Donatello to find and capture Cass, and he did the exact opposite... Kayn must be thinkingof nothing but vengeance now.
Apollo takes a beat. “Yeah.”
That shoots adrenaline through my veins. “Is he alive?”
“He is. But not by much. I bet Kayn’s been beating the crap out of him since we got here.”
Sitting back down, I let his words sink in. So that’s it? Kayn is going to beat us up, torture us, then let us heal, so he can do it all over again the next day? Is he so mad he’ll use us as his toys, playing with us until we break? After he’s done with Donnie and Apollo, he’s moving on to Tristan and me. Then what? Is he going to torture my sister? Is he going to hurt her just for being my relative? Just to hurt me?