Cassie Alexander - Bloodshifted

I leaned over it to see inside, but the light from the flame didn’t travel far, and the scorpion emblem scattered shadows. I had an impression of a person at the bottom of it—or a person-sized bundle of rags.

“Prisoner?” I whispered.

It was night out; he should be awake. But he said he’d been starved—maybe he wasn’t strong enough? Or maybe he was fooling me? Or maybe it was a corpse at the bottom of the well, and my vampire was in another castle.

I reached forward for the grate itself. “Don’t!” the Shadows warned, but too late.

I gasped in pain and almost dropped the lighter. “What the—”

“Just because it’s tarnished doesn’t mean it’s not silver.”

“Oh.” I rubbed the fingertips of my left hand.

“Careful, you’ll scar,” said a parched voice that wasn’t the Shadows’.

“Prisoner?” I crouched forward. “Is that you?”

There was a groan from below.

I held the lighter up again, and then bit the meat of my thumb, hard, and flicked the blood that welled up there down into the pit before I could heal.

The trapped creature at the bottom rushed up in a burst. It crawled up the sides of the well like someone was pushing FAST-FORWARD. It had a gaunt and drawn face, teeth straining out from a withered skull. It was the stuff of nightmares, the exact image of the last thing you see before you know you’re going to die.

I yelped and jumped back into the dark. The sound of my shout echoed, echoed, and echoed behind me.

In the darkness, the first thing I was afraid of was that somehow he’d gotten out, that he was in the same room as I was. It took a moment for me to swallow my panic and start feeling around on the floor until I found the lighter. I flicked it on again, because I needed to look around and make sure I was still alone.

“Didn’t mean—starved,” hissed a voice, now much closer than it had been.

“Prisoner?” I asked, my voice rising.

“Yes. Don’t look,” he recommended, from inside his cell.

I nodded, eager to agree. Just a second of the silver had felt like fire—and it looked like it was three inches thick. I was strong, but was I that strong?

“We can’t help you. It burns us,” the Shadows said, as if reading my mind.

I leaned toward the pit. “Your promises are still good?”

“Always,” whispered a too-close voice.

“Then get back.” I wished there were a way I could keep the lighter on while holding it with my teeth. Then again, seeing him get nearer would only help me to imagine him breaking off my fingers and sucking on the stumps like bloody teats. My imagination didn’t need any help. I set the lighter down again, and before I could think about it reached in, grabbed hold of the grate, and pulled.

It didn’t budge. Not even a fraction of an inch.

I tried again, hands on fire, and it felt like the silver was cutting through my fingers as I pulled.

“Fuck.” I reeled back, holding my fists up to my chest, teeth grinding together so I wouldn’t scream.

There was a harsh laughing sound—it took a moment for me to realize it was the prisoner, not the Shadows, mocking me.

“If it were so easy, don’t you think I would already be out?”

“I just need gloves,” I spit out, when the pain let me breathe next. “And three other people to help me.”

“If I could have one entire life—I might be able to get free,” the prisoner said from inside his cell.

I clasped my hands together. They’d gone from burning to aching, as if they’d almost gotten frostbite.

“I’ll work on it.” I didn’t even know where I was, or how I could get someone else back here—to kill them. Fuck fuck fuck. “I need some time, though.”

“Will you be able to escape your own cell again?” the prisoner asked with a voice raspy from disuse.

I honestly didn’t know. “Shadows?”

“For now, yes. But we expect you to come up with answers soon.”

Of course they did. I stood, dusting my burning hands off on my short skirt. “I’ll be back. Assuming I’m still alive.” I put the lighter back inside my bra.

“Before you go—” I heard a shifting noise from inside the silver cell. “Another drop?”

I closed my eyes in the dark. He was starving, and we both knew there were no guarantees I’d be able to even come back here, much less free him.

“Please,” he said.

“Of course.” I pretended there’d never been any question. I squatted down beside his cell, savagely bit my thumb again, and milked it. I heard the first few drops spatter and hiss as they hit the silver. I swung to the right two inches and, hearing nothing, assumed they dripped down. When the blood stopped, I put my hand down, and the Shadows that were here with me rolled into my palm.

The Shadows took me back to the cell where Wolf had abandoned me. I got back inside and replaced the lock. Then I held it in place while the Shadows swam inside and acted like Wolf’s key. Feeling it click shut felt like I was sentencing myself.

“Half of us are going to gather our brethren. The rest of us will stay here and await whatever genius next falls from your lips.”

“I’ll be sure to speak up then,” I said, and curled up into a ball with my back against the wall and my knees beneath my chin.

It was hard not to flick on the lighter to check the time. Every passing minute got my hopes up that maybe Raven had forgotten about me, and that I’d sit out the final fight.

Baby—after all of this, the rest of our life is going to be really boring. I promise.

Just when I’d almost convinced myself that it had to be daytime, and began pulling the lighter out, I heard heavy steps approaching in the dark. The cell opened and I wasn’t alone anymore. Rough hands grabbed for me with poor aim, proving that Wolf wasn’t completely nocturnal. “Your Master awaits,” he said, picking me up and hauling me out of the stone room. I held on to one of the bars as we passed, but he wrenched me loose.

We went back to the Catacombs, and Wolf deposited me in Raven’s feeding chamber without saying another word. He didn’t lock the door behind himself. I could have run, but what would be the point? I knew it was still night.

I looked down at myself in the dim room. My clothes were torn from the car accident, and I had splashes of that man’s blood on me, and my hands—I gasped as I held them up to the lamp’s weak glow. They were striped, like the prisoner’s skin, worse than they had been from Raven’s knife—burned from all the silver I’d touched.

“I’m surprised you didn’t make another run for it,” Raven said as he came in, firmly shutting the door behind himself. I put my arms to my sides, caught.

He stood, waiting, enjoying my discomfiture as I bit my lips not to speak.

“And so now you’re the silent type. Of course.” Raven leaned back against the door, one hand behind his back. He grinned malevolently. We both knew I was trapped.

“You don’t look like someone who wants to cure cancer to me.”

He paused, and then laughed. “That’s Natasha’s fight, not mine. I have enjoyed the fringe benefits of her research, though, I’ll admit.”

When he was this close it wasn’t hard to imagine why she was with him. I was still scared, but being in his presence was like being made of iron and fighting a magnet. “Why’re you with her?”

“Would you believe that I want to protect her?”

My face must have said I didn’t, because he laughed again. “I like seeing her hair lighten from the sun in the summer. I like seeing the light in her eyes. She still has hopes and dreams and the certainty of the very young. Instead of my blood, she wants my affection. She’s the first in four hundred years, do you know what that’s like?” It was not the answer I was expecting—nor was the expression on his face as he said it. He meant it. He honestly loved her.