Page 118 of Son of a Witch

“Do not injure yourself, little female,” my bracelet translated for me.

“Leg go ooofff meee.” My fight was helpless without my strength, the vampire wrenching me from the cage despite my kicks.

Relying on my magick to remedy my situation and get me out of this turned futile when I couldn’t summon a complex chemical equation.

“Do not fight me, female.” The vampire’s grasp on my neck tightened and the crunch of air from my tendons prompted me to go slack.

The swelling in my tongue slowly receded, letting me get out more distinct words. “Where am I?”

The vampire laughed. Cold. Cruel. Cunning. “In my lair.”

His lair.Styx.

Sticky fear dripped down my back like pond scum. “What do you want with me?”

Styx ran a clawed finger along my cheek. “We have plans for you, little female.” His astringent smell burned my nostrils.

Plans? What fucking plans? Where the hell were my men? My team? Dad?

I called upon all my focus to scan my surroundings. Underground, by the look of it, with minimal light or windows. Cages along the walls with all sorts of gantii trapped in them. Water sprites in jars without water. Baby dragons, fairies, up to large gantii like griffins, phoenixes.

Fuck. Memory sprung to mind of my last location. A gantii trading den. Pascal and me hunting through the merchandise for Fae blood. My blood ran cold when my man got shot and injured. Me dropping the box to save Pascal. Me passing out.

My gaze darted everywhere, searching for a weapon. Vampire guards posted in every corner packed Guardian stun guns. I just had to reach one somehow. Get out of Styx’s hold first. Tough odds with how tight he clutched me.

Fuck. Was Pascal still lying in the den? Did the assholes there finish him? My stomach soured and I wretch all over Styx’s foot.

What really made my hopes shatter were the faces I recognized from Cell Ward A of the prison.Guardians.Escaped inmates trapped in cells. Some slept as if drugged. Others awake and frightened in their cramped confines. I did my best with my pounding, dizzy head to count them. Twice. Approximately twenty fugitives.

My stomach lowered to my feet.

What the hell was this place, and why were they caging Guardians?

Styx clamped my jaw between his fingers. “Your friends praise your talents. They call you the witch with great ability.” He squeezed, telling me I would die if I disobeyed. “You’re going to save our race.”

Race. Save. Why?

Memory came in flashbacks. Finding vampire goo in the cemetery, collecting it and taking it back to the lab. Testing the vampire goo and finding the proteins unstable and breaking down. Rescuing the doctor the vampires kidnapped and discovering her experiments to cure the gantii of a genetic abnormality causing their infants to die and their race to inch towards extinction.

Why the hell did they need me?

I jerked my face away. “I won’t do a thing for you.”

Styx’s hideous features sharpened. Slits for nostrils. Skin thin and stretched over a scrawny frame hiding his immense strength. Long, jagged teeth that packed a nasty bite. Bony, elongated fingers ending in claws. My body shuddered with the memory of a vampire throwing me into the wall and fracturing my shoulder.

“You have no option of saying no.” Styx’s smug grin turned blood-cold. “Not when I possess leverage to give you incentive.” He flicked his finger.

Two gangly vampires dragged an unconscious form inside the dusty cavern and dumped him at the foot of my cage.

Dark hair and chocolate skin. Hulking frame rippling with muscle. Dried blood over a small wound on his neck that looked like a tranquilizer dart hole. My wolf.

“Raze.” I wriggled to get out of Styx’s grip to check on my mate, except the gantii’s clutch was far too strong, squeezing hard enough to force me into submission.

Styx laughed, a horrid rasp of a noise. “You will do as I command, do you understand, little female? Or I will hand your wolf over to the Lycans.” My body iced over in preparation for the words he laid out next. “There’s a price on his head for slaughtering their previous Alpha, and they’re looking for vengeance.”

CHAPTER39

Tor

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