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  “Please.” I wrinkled my nose in disgust. “Quit the act. For the first time in my life, I don’t look like a filthy animal. I get three meals a day with as many snacks as I want. I get to have a warm bath whenever I want, and I can go out as often as I please.”

  With Lorcan or Reysalor escorting me, of course, but she didn’t need to know that.

  “Cassandra, my daughter,” she said. “All I did, I did it for you. It breaks my heart to see you suffer, but your safety is everything to me. And now, you’re not safe. They’ll be coming for you, sooner than you expect.”

  “I expect nothing,” I said. “But I’ll burn any gremlins coming my way, so you should think twice before you summon them.”

  A column of black fire formed and twirled on each of my palms and then connected like a trace of lightning. I stretched them back and forth like an accordion.

  “Or maybe you want a taste of my monster fire first, so you can warn your minions how fun I can be,” I said. “I couldn’t release this fire of mine in that cage on you. How many nasty spells did you have to use to keep me in there? Where did you get them?” I waved a hand impatiently. “Looks like you aren’t inclined to answer. Fine, I don’t even want to know your dirty secret. I’m free now, so if any of your bitches come near me again, they will get a full dose of my fire, and more. And that goes for you and king, too. Understand?”

  Jezebel staggered back as if I’d slapped her. “How could you assume the worst of your own mother?”

  I snorted, letting the fire fade from my palms. “Oh, please. Don’t make me throw up my lunch. I’d prefer to keep it down, seeing as I haven’t had dinner yet.”

  King Dario, clad in a magnificent purple robe, stepped behind his queen in a flash, grabbing her shoulder to stabilize her. She pressed her cheek into his chest for comfort.

  I knew all vampires moved fast, but their king was even faster, though he didn’t possess Lorcan’s speed.

  I should have expected his move, but my emotions were so raw at seeing my mother. I was in the enemy’s territory; I should have been more alert.

  “You’ll show respect to my queen, your mother, when you talk to her,” Dario said, his dark brown eyes flashing in righteous fury.

  Vampires obeyed a very strict hierarchy, and their punishment for violators was severe.

  I tilted my head, taunting him. “Why the fuck is that?”

  A ring of crimson formed in Dario’s eyes.

  “You’re my subject, as is everyone else here,” he said. “I could kill you with one strike for a lesser offense. If it weren’t for my queen—”

  I cut him off. “Let me enlighten you, bloodsucker! Lorcan is not my lord, you aren’t my king, and that stupid cunt is definitely no mother of mine. As of this moment, I denounce her. No mother would ever lock her own child in a cage when the child did nothing wrong!”

  The hall fell into shocked silence. All vampires had super hearing, though probably not as good as mine. But it didn’t matter. I was sure even all the humans had heard me.

  Heads turned to us, yet Lorcan was still nowhere around.

  The fucker must be in the middle of the blood and sex orgy and he’d left me to fend off these vermin. I caught the sight of Jade, my guard for the night, blending in with a shadow at a far corner. She wouldn’t come to my aid, nor would she go fetch Lorcan. She wanted to see the vampire king finish me off.

  “I must teach you to learn your place,” Dario snarled, and moved, bullet fast.

  I’d expected it.

  Before his hand grabbed my throat, a blast of air slammed into him, sending him flying at least twenty yards away.

  Jezebel’s hands flew to her face, covering her trembling lips.

  A squad of vampire rushed toward me, and I sent blasts of air in each direction. They flew back at the impact, crashing into the tables and walls. Glasses broke and drinks spilled.

  I stalked toward Dario. He struggled up and zoomed toward me again, but my dark fire lashed out and strung him up. I could shape my fire into any form I wanted.

  I kept the fire icy low. I wanted some fun before I turned up the heat.

  “Kill the offender!” Dario shouted.

  “Dude, you need to chill out,” I said sweetly. “You’re jumpy.”

  My net of fire heaved him up and down, showing just how jumpy he was.

  He opened his mouth to curse me again, but I could manipulate air faster than he could speak. Chunks of ice materialized near his mouth and forced themselves into his mouth and down his throat.

  I grinned. That was a new trick. Perhaps I needed more assholes to challenge me on a regular basis; it certainly seemed to bring out new power in me. Wasn’t that what Lorcan wanted anyway? Now, I could conjure ice as well as fire and wind.

  Jezebel had repeatedly said the power in me was a monster in disguise, and I was more than giddy to set it free, just to see the pathetic, terrified look on her face.

  Dario’s eyes widened in fear and I watched him intently. So, vampires knew fear, too.

  “They should never have let you out,” Jezebel whimpered.

  Damn, she moved faster than any vampire could. The bitch snuck up on me while I was having a little fun with her husband.

  “I’m sorry, Cassandra, but you’re my responsibility,” she said, and with that, she threw a string of spells at me.

  I widened my eyes and dodged, but she was too close to me.

  An unseen force hit me straight in the chest, and acid ate at my skin.

  I hadn’t known that she had more of the dark spells. I’d assumed she’d used them all to wire my cage. And with Lorcan—my supposed protector—gone, she’d found another opening to sabotage me.

  How could I have been so arrogant and stupid as to think I was safe from her?

  The burn increased in a nanosecond. Fear pounded in my skull, worse than the pain. She was going to take me and lock me in another cage, and I’d never see the light of day again.

  I lunged at her before I went down, the heel of my palm smacking her in the nose. The sound of her cartilage fracturing would have been satisfying if I didn’t feel like an invisible cage closed in on me.

  My eyes rolled to the back in feverish panic as I fell on my back.

  “Lorcan! Reysalor!” I bellowed.

  10

  I heard a roar in response.

  The walls of the vampires around me collapsed. Lorcan and his elite guards tossed the onlookers away. One vampire who hadn’t scattered fast enough lost his head to a quick swipe of a sword.

  And now Lorcan’s guards formed a protective ring around their lord and me, their backs toward us. Why hadn’t they come to my aid when Jezebel attacked me?

  I howled as the unbearable pain seized my body and I convulsed on the marble floor like a broken, motorized doll. But before my head could hit the floor again, I was in Lorcan’s arms.

  “Cass, you’re safe now.” He cradled me. “I’m here.”

  My teeth clattered as I struggled to speak past the pain gnawing at me. “Safe, my ass! You left me!”

  “I was called away to inspect a valuable dagger I wanted to get for you,” he said, his voice laced with regret as another scream tore through me.

  It felt like tiny insects were gathering on my belly, digging into my flesh and eating it. Shrieking, I tore at my midriff until the gown ripped away from my body, revealing my front.

  Lorcan muttered a curse under his breath. “How the fuck did this happen?”

  With the little strength left in me, I raised my head and looked down at my stomach.

  A crimson pentagram was etched on my belly, a strange, menacing rune atop each of its points. They burned my skin, and the fire traveled from the five points to the three daggers imprinted in the center of the pentagram.

  Dark energy burned through, only to start all over again once the circle was complete.

  Nothing could be more excruciating than this pain I was enduring.

  “Cass! Cassandra!” Lorcan shouted o
ver my howling, forcing my attention back to him. “How can we stop this? Who did this to you?”

  “Jezebel… The cunt threw the spells at me,” I panted. “She used them to bind my power. Make her reverse it. Yank her fucking black heart out if that’s what takes.”

  I was both surprised and impressed that I was still coherent with this unholy pain attacking my body. If I were a lesser being, I’d have been dead already.

  “Secure the room,” Lorcan ordered. “Bring Jezebel to me. In chains.”

  “My lord, please reconsider your treatment of my queen,” King Dario pleaded. “Cassandra offended my queen and me. We were only trying to discipline our subject.”

  “When did I assign Cass as your subject?” Lorcan asked.

  “She’s my queen’s daughter.”

  “Don’t you know the girl is under my absolute protection?” Lorcan asked in an icy voice that made everyone cringe. His power rolled off like silent, violent thunder, and the tang of fear was thick in the hall. Even the vampire king shuddered. “Even so, your queen thought it was a good idea to harm the only asset I have who can save our race?”

  Of course, he didn’t want his little knife to be disposed of before he could use it.

  I screamed as another surge of pain radiated from my belly and shot to my skull. It was more than I could take.

  Someone, other than my mother, knew all about me and my weakness. Was it a god? He or she knew how to customize the spells to bind me, cage me, and harm me. If I got out of this, I would find the threat and eliminate it.

  “Look at the girl,” Dario said, contempt dripping from his words. “How can she be useful to our race? She’s nothing but a rabid creature.”

  I could picture how rabid and demented I looked. My damp hair stuck to my sweaty forehead, my two-toned eyes darted wildly side to side, like a wounded, cornered beast, and my body trembled and kept thrashing.

  “Dario, if she dies, I’ll kill every being in your court, including you and your queen,” Lorcan said softly.

  The vampire king flinched, tensed in fear.

  Two of Lorcan’s elite guards pushed Jezebel forward, then shoved her into a kneeling position.

  Dario hissed. “Be careful with my queen.” He turned to Lorcan. “My lord, please. My queen might have been a little harsh with her methods of disciplining her daughter, but my queen hasn’t been well lately. Her stress has increased exponentially since you freed Cassandra. She shouldn’t be held responsible—”

  “Take Dario to the dungeon,” Lorcan ordered his guards. “Anyone approaching him without my permission will be executed on the spot.”

  A guard zoomed in, disarmed him in a blink of an eye, and dragged him away.

  “High Lord, please—” Dario’s begging was cut off abruptly. Lorcan’s guards must have knocked him out.

  The hall quieted. It seemed at some point the guards had driven the crowd out of the room. Now there was only Lorcan, his guards, a chained Jezebel, and me.

  Jezebel gazed at me with tremendous sadness.

  “Hand over the counter spell,” Lorcan said, “and I might let you live.”

  “There’s no antidote, my lord,” Jezebel said. “All I’ve done was to protect her and everyone else. You don’t know anything about my daughter. She’s a monster. The worst you can imagine. She has no morals and no inhibitions. If I don’t bind her, she’ll be too powerful one day. And even you’ll be her prey and victim.”

  Lorcan gently laid my head on the floor and moved away from me. In an instant, he was in front of Jezebel. He grabbed her throat and lifted her from the ground, chains and all.

  He snarled, his eyes burning with rage. A burst of power peeled off him and rammed into her. Jezebel gasped but gazed back at him with pity.

  “As powerful as you are,” she said, “she’s already wrapped you around her little finger. That’s how seductive and dangerous she is.”

  “You’ll reveal every ounce of truth about Cassandra Saélihn,” Lorcan commanded, using his immense power to compel her. “First, you’ll undo the hex. Give up the counter spell and release her from your vile grip.”

  He dropped her to the ground like she was a bag of garbage.

  Obedience coated her eyes. He could compel her but not me. I almost cheered.

  “We can’t get rid of the spells, my lord,” she said. “I didn’t make them. I stole them. The spells were designed solely to bind her before she was born. I was supposed to be one of the most powerful beings walking the earth, but my daughter siphoned my power and rendered me weak at her birth. I was the product of careful genetic calculation and manipulation. My true and only purpose was to be the vessel to bear Cassandra Saélihn, so she could be the final instrument to destroy the world. When I learned the scheme, I fled with my daughter.”

  “Where did you get the spells?” Lorcan asked.

  She shook her head. “Some powerful force messed with my mind. Someone took away the crucial memories when I was pregnant with Cassandra and left me with bits and pieces in shadows. I strung them together and knew that my daughter was the destroyer of the worlds, and it’s always been my duty to stop her.” She raised her head, tears flowing down her pale face and dark scarlet lips. “She should never have been unleashed. I’ve done my part binding her again, and no one can unbind her now.”

  I bit down on my lip to stifle the scream of pain, and blood seeped into my mouth and down my chin.

  “You piece of shit!” I hissed. “Why didn’t you just kill me when I was an infant and be done with it? Why did you have to make me suffer?”

  Color bleached further from Jezebel’s face until it was paler than white paper. “I tried. I tried to drown you. I put you in the fire. And I threw you from high buildings, but you always regenerated. It broke my heart to do so, but I had to save the worlds.”

  Ouch. I shouldn’t have asked.

  Lorcan kicked Jezebel in the face with his shiny leather shoe. “How dare you do that to any child?”

  Jezebel fell backward, her head hitting the ground with a thud. “Don’t you get it? She isn’t as innocent as she looks. Wherever she goes, destruction and death will follow. She’ll be the death of us all, including you, the most powerful vampire—”

  Before I could blink, Lorcan was on her, his fangs protruding and sinking into her neck.

  Dario would do anything for Jezebel because of her blood—the most exquisite taste in the world. She had no power, but her blood held intoxicating and irresistible magic.

  Despite my pain, concern for Lorcan speared into my heart. I didn’t want him to get addicted to her. She would have control over him if that happened.

  The High Lord of Night swallowed half of Jezebel’s blood and spat out the rest in utter disdain.

  “Get her the fuck out of my sight,” he said, blood tainting his sensual lips before he wiped it off with the back of his hand.

  I howled as the burning runes sank to my insides, searing me.

  Lorcan was at my side again, holding me in his arms. “Cass, we’ll find the cure.”

  “Kill me,” I bellowed. “I can’t take this.” I’d rather take a coward’s way out than suffer this pain for eternity.

  But Lorcan wouldn’t kill me, not until I had fulfilled my part in his plan—kill the gods or be killed.

  A beastly roar rumbled through the hall.

  My panther had arrived. I choked. If he’d come to the party at the start, I wouldn’t have been abandoned. Reysalor would have stayed with me and guarded me.

  He tore through the vampires who tried to block him, jaws open wide, snarling in rage.

  “Let him pass,” Lorcan ordered.

  Reysalor moved to my side and lowered himself. Who did this to her? His voice echoed through my mind.

  Lorcan looked at Reysalor, before he gazed back down at me. Pain was raw in his stormy gray eyes.

  You failed her! You fucking failed her! the panther roared at Lorcan. Why did you even let her out of your fucking sight? What could b
e more important than her?

  Lorcan’s eyes also flashed with rage, yet he didn’t reply. Regret ate at him.

  I screamed and thrashed. The burning pain had spread throughout my body and multiplied.

  A bright light burst in the air, and where the panther had been, a broad-shouldered, golden-red haired man stood—a beautiful fae warrior. He crouched beside me, his turquoise eyes gazing at me with worry, rage, and agony. He looked exactly like the man the panther had shifted to in my dream.

  Reysalor was a fae shifter, and he’d kept it from me!

  The fae stared at the burning runes on my belly. “Can you use the runes that diffused the spells on the cage to remove these?” he asked Lorcan worriedly.

  Lorcan shook his head. “They’ll hurt her. When I received the vision of those spells, the instruction was they could only be used to open the cage. As soon as I inscribed them, they were erased from my mind.”

  “What vision?” I demanded as unceasing pain wracked me.

  Lorcan sighed, and helplessness pained his gray eyes.

  I had wondered how he’d obtained those counter spells. A bigger power in play, and it seemed we were all pawns.

  “You’ve tasted the bitch queen’s blood,” Reysalor said. “You know her dark secrets now. Just get the counter spell from her fucking mind!”

  “Jezebel doesn’t have it,” Lorcan said. “Her mind is muddled, all shadows and fragments, except for a determination to protect the world from her own daughter. The spells were her backup plan. If Cass survives the next forty-eight hours, her pain will lessen, but the spells won’t leave her. They’ll continue to bind her power.”

  I let out ragged breath. My power roared beneath me, unable to break free of the dark spells. I was caged yet again, but this time in my own body. When I pushed my power and rammed at the inner prison, the burning on my flesh only increased.

  I trembled at the onslaught of agony.

  Without my power, I was useless to the vampire lord and the fae. They should just leave me here and save themselves the trouble.

  Reysalor gently pushed my damp hair back from my forehead. Lorcan watched him. He didn’t like the fae touching me, but he didn’t stop him, either.