by Bella Jacobs
I fire two rounds into a scuffle on my right, taking down the guy fighting one of ours for her gun, then to my left, stopping a woman rushing me from the dressing rooms in her tracks. She skids to the floor, twitches once, and lies still, but I kick her weapon away from her hand, anyway. When it comes to turning my back on my enemies, I don’t take chances.
I’m so focused on eliminating every potential threat that I almost miss the moment Nico makes his move. But that instinctive part of me, the one that had already slotted the boss vamp into my “don’t trust that motherfucker” file, catches movement out of the corner of my eye—a flare of white shirtsleeves and the flash of long red curls pulling straight as their owner is jerked into the air so fast she doesn’t even have time to scream.
It’s Nico, with his arms wrapped tight around Scarlett as the cable hooked onto his waist whips them both into the air. Bane, who’s only a few feet away, jumps up, snatching at Scarlett’s ankle, but she’s already out of reach. The massive man lands, a scowl black as the starless night outside taking possession of his face as he breaks into a sprint, gunning hard for the back door.
I spin, looking for backup.
Luckily, Dust is close, and not currently busy killing someone.
“Dust! Up there!” I jab a finger toward the ceiling, where Nico and Scarlett’s black boots are disappearing through the hole one of our teams blasted in the ceiling on the way in.
Dust’s features tighten as he reaches for the close of his body armor, popping open the snaps at the waist. He’s about to pull it over his head when the bomb goes off. I know it’s coming—our plan was to blast an opening into the tunnel beneath the dressing rooms, bypassing a portal that’s probably been warded to only allow Atlas’s people inside—but it still knocks me off my feet.
I fall to the ground, arms flying up to protect my head as a rack of T-shirts falls over on top of me. The second blast vibrates the floor beneath my stomach, but when it’s over, three sharp whoops sound in the now-silent air.
The all-clear signal.
Only things aren’t all clear. Nico just ran off with one of ours, and that sure as hell wasn’t part of the plan.
The rack of shirts abruptly vanishes, and then Dust is in front of me, squatting down to say for my ears only, “We’ve got to get Wren. We’ll find Scarlett as soon as we can. Nico might just be getting her to safety, now that the fighting is over.”
I cut a dubious glance his way. “Really? You saw her with that sword, right? She can handle herself.”
Dust sighs. “I know. I don’t like it, either, but we’ve got to give him the benefit of the doubt until we’ve got our people back and aren’t outnumbered ten to one.”
“Wren won’t like that,” I say, coming into a crouch beside him. “I think one of us should go after them, and considering you’re the only one who can fly…”
“I’m also the only one who can pilot the mini-copter now that Nico is gone, which I’m sure he realized when he decided to take the aerial route out of here.” His lips tighten. “But I have to stay here. Wren and Creedence can’t wait. Trust me.”
“What choice do I have?” I grumble, rising to follow him over to the hole in the floor, where a half dozen hyper-efficient vampires are already hard at work assembling the mini helicopter we’ll be sending down the shaft, as well as a white quarantine tent, because whatever is down there with Wren and Cree is the kind of toxic even vampires worry about.
“Masks on,” the head the of the bomb squad shouts, bounding back from the edge of the hole he’s made. “The fungus starts a few hundred feet down, but it’s already airborne. The spores are so thick, I can’t see the bottom.”
“You can’t see the bottom because it’s at least two miles down.” The woman speaking presses a gas mask to her face, pulling it on with one hand while the other keeps the instrument she’s holding trained over the shaft entrance. “Maybe more,” she adds, sounding robotic through the mask filter.
“Come on.” Dust reaches for his own mask, clipped onto the back of his utility belt. “Let’s go get our girl.”
The thought sends hope stabbing through my chest, followed quickly by a wave of anger. But that’s good. Anger is better than fear. Anger keeps my blood pumping as I pull on my mask and help screw rivets into place and agree to stay up top while Dust and Kite head down with a scientist—a petite vampire with her hair pulled into a tight braid at the base of her neck. She’ll be monitoring the navigation system, Dust will be piloting, and Kite is there to do the heavy lifting if Wren and Creedence aren’t able to get into the hazmat tent on their own.
I could carry them, too. Both of them at once, if I needed to. But Kite can sense what they’re feeling. He’ll know if he’s doing more harm than good by moving them and be able to call for a medic to come attend to them, if needed.
And I’m not such a control freak that I can’t stand back and let someone else take point. But I’m also not afraid to ask the hard questions while I’m waiting.
“Where did Nico go?” I ask Cash, the lieutenant who hooked me up with Nico in the first place.
He shrugs, his dark eyes blank. “Not sure. But I’m sure he’s all right. Nico knows how to take care of himself.”
“I’m not worried about Nico. I’m worried about the woman he took with him. Scarlett is one of ours.”
Cash’s lips turn down as he shrugs again. “Really? I didn’t see Nico take anyone, and that doesn’t sound like him. Could be you’re mistaken, bro.”
“I’m not,” I say, holding his gaze, but Cash’s innocent-look doesn’t crack.
He just shakes his head and says, “Wish I could help you out, but like I said…I didn’t see nothing.”
I nod. “Right.” Which means Nico told him to see nothing, which means Scarlett is almost certainly in trouble or well on her way there.
But Dust’s right. There’s nothing we can do about it now, not until we’re out of the mouth of the beast. We poke it now, and the jaws could snap shut, trapping us all inside.
Still, it isn’t easy to stand shoulder to shoulder with a bunch of fucking traitors, wondering what ugly surprise they’re going to whip out next.
Chapter 22
Wren
The harem is quiet tonight.
I’m not officially a member—and I never will be—but I prefer the smaller bedrooms here over the giant, basketball-court-sized room where I spent my first night in the castle. Just as I prefer cotton pajama pants and a T-shirt for sleeping instead of the starched and lace-trimmed nightgowns Atlas laid out on my bed shortly after my arrival.
I roll onto my side on the overstuffed mattress, brow furrowing as I try to remember what exactly happened that day.
I remember going through the door in the cave…
I remember being terrified of what waited on the other side…
But then, there’s nothing until Atlas showed me to my room, as warm and welcoming a host as any woman could ask for.
He even had dinner sent up to my room. And, once I caught wind of Creedence’s energy coming from beneath us in the castle dungeons, he gave me medicine and water and let me take them to my mate myself. He was that certain I was a woman of my word, and that my longing to form an alliance was sincere.
I wouldn’t say he’s been easy to fool, necessarily, but it hasn’t been that hard, either. But I’m doing what he expected me to do, what Delilah, his mate with the Sight, told him I would do in most versions of the possible future.
At least, that’s what I’ve been telling myself…
But as I lie here in the dark, straining for some sound from the other side of the harem, where Atlas’s remaining wives sleep—still thirtysomething more to go before we’ll both be down to four mates—I wonder who’s the player and who’s being played.
I swing my legs off the side of the bed, sliding my feet into the silk slippers Atlas gave me yesterday as yet another pre-wedding gift. I now have a closet full of lovely summer dresses, modified by Atlas’s
tailoring staff to fit me perfectly, complete with matching shoes and jewelry. Even a few hats, one decorated with real butterflies sewn onto the straw with delicate thread.
Of course the butterflies are dead, but beautiful all the same.
“Now they’ll always be beautiful,” Atlas had said as he pinned the hat onto the loose bun I’d wound into place on top of my head. “Or as close to always as any mortal thing can get. But you…” He’d leaned in, pressing his lips to my forehead as he pulled in a deep breath, as if relishing the scent of me. “You will be lovely for eternity. I can’t wait to spend it by your side.”
He’d drawn back afterward, gazing down at me for so long I was certain he was finally going to do it—finally try to kiss me and put the true mettle of my acting skills to the test—but in the end, he’d only smiled and promised, “I’ll never rush you, darling. There will come a day when you’ll reach for me. I’m happy to wait for it.”
He acts as if we have all the time in the world, which, if what’s he’s told me is true, we do. Or we would, if I were truly going to become his one and only mate and rule the world for eternity at his side.
But we’re not going to get that far. As soon as we’re both down to four mates, and the playing field is level, the gloves are coming off. If Creedence is healed and the others are somewhere in the castle by then, we can fight together. If not, I’ll fight Atlas alone, and I’ll win. His mates have no choice but to lend him strength through their bond, but they won’t lift a finger to help him fight. It didn’t take many hours in the harem before that became abundantly clear.
His wives hate him as much as they fear him.
As long as they think I have a chance of beating him, they’ll let me try.
Sometimes, when I look at Delilah and Thisby—two of Atlas’s oldest wives—I swear I can see it in their eyes, the knowledge of what I plan to do.
So why doesn’t Atlas see it? I wonder as I pace around the bed to the moonlit window leading out onto my balcony. Because he doesn’t want to see it? Because he’s blinded to the truth by his own madness and a nasty case of hubris?
Or maybe he knows exactly what I’m about, but has his own dark, secret plans that will cut me off at the knees.
Or maybe he’s just that certain he’ll be able to squash me like a bug if I dare to challenge him.
Or maybe, maybe, maybe…
The possibilities churn through my head until I’m dizzy, but I still can’t remember how I came to be here in this castle. I don’t remember who or what was waiting on the other side of the door. I don’t remember climbing stairs or walking through any of the doorways I’ve discovered so far.
All I remember are flashes of sick green glowing in the dark, a tunnel that never ends, and a sinking feeling clawing at my core, assuring me I’m doomed.
Doomed to repeat the same mistakes, over and over, until it’s too late.
No. Not again, a voice cries out in my head—in warning, in supplication—but still I reach for my robe, draped over the bench at the end of the bed. Still, I pull it on and drift through the French doors and out onto the balcony, where the moon is so bright and close it feels like I’m on another planet.
The sense that I’ve stepped into an alternate universe, something even stranger than a mirror world hiding just out of sight of the earthly plane, grows even stronger as I pad across the paving stones. Near the top of the stairs, I step on jagged shells left behind by a crow hurling nuts from the sky and wince, but when I lift my foot to inspect the bottom of my slipper, there is no blood.
An absence of blood is usually a good thing, but this makes the hair on my arms stand on end and that nagging voice in my head wail louder.
Don’t go down the steps. Don’t go into the tunnel. Run to the forest, to the portal in the woods. Run and don’t stop running until you’re as far away from this nightmare as you can get.
But I can’t run. Nothing has changed since last night or the night before. I’m here because it’s my best chance to beat Atlas, and I’m not going anywhere.
Not until I see this through.
Or until something happens to convince me that there’s a better plan, a smarter, safer way to bring Atlas down to my level and give my four and me a fighting chance.
No chance, no chance. The Voice of Doom is still audible, but it sounds like it’s getting tired. So am I. After a day of wedding planning, dance lessons, and a tour of the south wing, where Atlas keeps his spoils of war and petty thievery, all I want is to collapse in my soft bed and get oblivious for at least six hours.
Instead, I trail my fingers along the marble rail beside the steps and descend.
Down, down, down I go, curving around the outside of the civilized part of the castle, getting closer to the things that lie beneath, the déjà vu prickling at my brain growing stronger with each step. At the bottom of the stairs, I almost obey the terrified bleating in my head that begs me to turn left instead of right. The woods are dark and filled with Kin Born soldiers serving at Atlas’s pleasure, but there’s a way out somewhere in the tangled brambles and twisted trees.
But there’s another voice now, one from deep within that insists there’s no choice but to go right into the tunnels, to pass through the gaping stone mouth of the giant, wild-eyed dragon decorating the entrance, and to search for what I’ve lost.
What I’ve lost…
Not so long ago…
Fingertips skimming over the oddly warm stone wall, I step into the near-dark, slippers crunching on gravel until the floor turns to hard-packed earth. The tunnel, lit by only the faintest blue glow from above, dips left and down, and I follow, keeping a hand on the bumpy granite. Somehow I know that it’s granite and that when the tunnel is glowing in firelight it will be dusty rose with glittering veins of brighter pink and dark gray. I inch forward, steps cautious until, suddenly, I stumble into a hole in the floor.
But it doesn’t send a jolt of surprise skittering through my hyperalert nerves.
Some part of me is expecting it.
“What is this place?” I whisper aloud, hoping that wiser part of me will answer.
But it’s eerily quiet. The calm before the storm, the held breath before the thunder crash. Something is coming, I can feel it crawling all over my skin, like spiders wearing spurs, but my memory won’t spark.
Spark…
My belly flips, and my blood goes cold. I obey the instinct to drop to my knees in the hole, curling up tight seconds before a shaft of fire blasts through the air over my head. Heart slamming, I pivot my head to the side to see a white dragon with blue-tinged scales and rheumy eyes blasting flames toward the entrance, making the granite walls glow. Glow dusty rose with glittering highlights, just like I thought.
Like I remembered?
When it’s finished, the tunnel goes dark once more. I sense the danger has passed—for now.
The dragon is a mindless part of the defense system, an old, blind lizard trained to blow at regular intervals. As long as I move in and out in between them, I’ll be fine.
Though I’ve never made it out before; I know that, too.
My footsteps whisper-quiet, I creep past the dragon, moving deeper into the bowels of the castle, toward what I still can’t say. But the drive to keep moving only grows stronger as my eyes adjust to the gloom just enough to make out the forks in my path.
I go left first, then right, then head straight down the middle of a three-pronged path. “Straight on ’til morning,” I murmur, the words sparking memories of a movie I hated as a child.
I freeze, my feet going still as my thoughts race.
It was a cartoon, the story of a magical boy who refused to grow up. He kidnapped a girl and her brothers from their nursery and brought them to a land of blood-thirsty pirates, killer mermaids, and ravenous alligators.
Back then, I lacked the sophistication to understand why the storyline upset me so much—I just knew it felt scary and mean, and I would leave to play with my blocks every time Scar
lett put it on—but now there’s no question. Peter Pan is a story about a girl on the verge of womanhood being taught to submit. To leave the relative freedom of childhood behind and learn to play her grown-up part, a part that is so much worse than anything Peter or his Lost Boys are running from.
For the girl—whether she stays in the human world or goes with Peter—her future will be spent sewing shadows, serving meals, and keeping men’s lives running smoothly, all while depending on the affection of a mercurial boy to keep her safe and battling murderous pixies for scraps of his attention.
I couldn’t see why Scarlett didn’t hate it. Or feel sorry for Hook—if a flying boy cut off my hand and fed it to an alligator for fun, I’d try to capture him, too.
I lift my left hand, wiggling my fingers in front of my face in the faint blue glow from the vein of light running along the ceiling. I press my other palm to my heart, feeling it beat through the thin fabric of my silky shirt.
And suddenly I know what I have to do. It’s madness—as mad as flying out the window with an innocent, heartless boy who refuses to become a man—but I do it anyway. I turn to the wall, searching the rough-hewn granite until I find a jagged edge sticking out at a forty-five-degree angle.
Then I slam the heel of my hand into it as hard as I can.
The pain is immediate and intense, making me wince and clench my jaw to hold back the cry clawing at my throat, but it doesn’t bring me to my knees. And when I turn my palm back to my face, there is a wound, but no blood.
Not a drop. Not a whisper.
Because shifters don’t bleed in dreams, we haven’t…
“Since the middle ages.” Atlas’s voice echoes from farther down the tunnel, lifting the hairs on my arms. I can’t see around the bend, but it’s him, no doubt in my mind. “It was an adaptation to keep us from being glamoured into slavery by powerful vampires.”
