Page 24 of Born Free

I try rolling. I try to bend a leg. Anything. I have to get out of here.

But my blood feels like it’s filled with cold molasses.

“Why the hell did I call you if you’re going to be this cautious?” Santiago asks, impatient and annoyed.

“We need a plan,” the newcomer responds with annoyance. “We’re not even supposed to be here. Neither of us is a Royal. They could kill us just for setting foot in this town.”

Town. Castle.

My heart starts beating faster, burning through the molasses.

“We need to move. If someone really is out there… All we need is twenty seconds of explanation,” Santiago says. “The second he realizes she can’t truly die, we’ll have his absolute, undivided attention.”

“And we can finally get out from under that sad excuse of a Royal,” the other man growls.

So, not everyone in the House of Badillo is thrilled about Orlando’s leadership.

“You really think he’ll make you a Royal?” the other man asks doubtfully. “It’s all about blood, and you can’t change that.”

“They’re my terms,” Santiago says.

“He’ll just kill you if you tell him what you have and you don’t turn her over.”

“You underestimate how desperate he is to get Sevan back,” Santiago says.

And all the blood drains from my face.

Sevan.

I know that name.

Castle.

There’s only one that’s applicable to the vampire world.

One eye peels open, revealing a ceiling that looks old and dusty. The other struggles to lift.

What the hell has he done to me? It’s bad enough I’ve died about a dozen times in the last, well, I don’t know how long it’s been, but he’s obviously drugging me so it takes me much longer than usual to wake from the dead.

My medical brain can’t help but start considering the long-term side effects I could be left with.

There has to be some benefit to being a vampire, though. Surely this cursed blood can burn out whatever the drugs are doing to me.

I take a deep breath as I feel my lungs begin to unfreeze, like tar beginning to dissolve out of them. My head lolls to the side, and I get a good view of where we are.

It looks like a cottage, a really old one, and one that’s probably been abandoned for a while. The windows are cracked, and moss is starting to grow in the corners. It’s little more than one room and a kitchen by the front door.

I’m lying on a dusty rug on the ground. Santiago and the other man stand in the kitchen arguing. The moonlight streaming through the windows gives me a pretty good idea it’s long past midnight, whatever time zone I’m in now.

“She’s waking up,” Santiago points out. “Either grow some damn balls, or we need to kill her again.”

They debate. Kill me? Drag me straight to the castle doors? No biggie.

But I hear something outside.

Footsteps.

They’re quiet, nearly silent. One set is quietly joined by another. Two people.

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