Page 77 of A Throne of Blood & Vengeance

“Little bit, yeah.”

“Uh, how exactly are we supposed to keep Cali occupied, Sam?” Kieran asked just as Aniela and I started to leave.

“I’m sure you’ll think of something, Kier,” I said confidently. If anyone excelled at small talk, it was Kieran. “But feel free to tell her about Dominique. We won’t be long.” I glanced at Aniela. “Right?”

I didn’t know exactly where the dungeon was in House Salvatore, but if it was like House Harker and the SovereignHouse, the entrance would be towards the center of the first floor, which we were on.

“Fifteen minutes at most.”

“When we’re back, we’ll plan our next move—with Rynn.”

On that final note, Aniela and I started at a quick pace down the hallway. I still couldn’t believe Rynn washere. She must have had some reason for leaving the Velesian realm. I sighed. Or not.

Most of the time, Rynn was the most levelheaded of the three of us. Cali and I both had tempers that sometimes got the better of us, but Rynn did have a habit of being reckless when she got frustrated—of not taking into account the bigger picture.

So would she have decided to run away from the Alpha Pack on a whim because of some comment they made that she took great offense to? Yes. Was Rynn capable of avoiding a realm’s worth of Velesians and sneaking into Moroi territory? Also yes.

My friend was a sneaky bitch, and usually I adored that about her, but it felt like we were on a collision course with all-out war between the Moroi and Velesians. So Rynn choosing this moment to hold up her middle finger to the Alpha Pack and seek sanctuary with us wasn’t ideal.

That said, if Rynn didn’t want to go back to the Alpha Pricks, then they could kiss my luscious ass. She’d been mine first.

The Alpha Pack was a secondary problem though, because if Cali learned that Aniela had locked an injured Rynn in the basement . . . things would get bloody real fast. Cali was overprotective of both of us, but normally, she just glowered threateningly, and that was enough. Something was clearly going on with her though. I had little doubt that she would respond with violence at seeing Rynn imprisoned, and we couldn’t afford to have our potential allies killed.

Plus, I liked Aniela and looked forward to teasing her mercilessly about Ary when we weren’t dealing with a mad,egomaniac queen, conniving and murderous wraiths, and an impending war with the Velesians.

“I need to go on a holiday,” I muttered.

“What’s that?” Aniela gave me a side-eyed look as we turned a corner and headed down another hallway towards a door guarded by four guards.

“A holiday,” I repeated. “It’s something I came across in some Fae writings. Basically, it’s like a trip you take, but for fun.”

“Where in all the hells did they go in Lunaria for fun?” Aniela scoffed. “The beautiful beaches with tentacled monsters hiding just beneath the surface? Or maybe the badlands with its oppressive heat and enormous spiders that hide beneath the ground to jump out and grab you? Oh! I know!” She waved a hand at the guards, and they obediently opened the door at our approach, giving me a curious look but nothing more as we walked past them. “The lovely northern forests! Where moon devils fuck with your head and send you running into huge carnivorous flowers that will spend days sucking you dry before spitting out your dried corpse.”

“Actually, I think they went somewhere else.”

Aniela stopped on the narrow stairwell, and I did the same. We both stared at each other for a long moment before we burst out laughing.

“Everything is so fucked!” she sputtered between laughs. “Lunaria is the absolute worst!”

“It truly is.” I wiped the tears away from my eyes. “Maybe someday, we’ll find out what the Fae did to find themselves here.”

“Come on.” Aniela started down the stairs again. “She’s just one level down.”

I followed after her, still laughing under my breath. This place truly was fucked, and it only seemed to get worse as the years dragged on. Clearly, something in the spell our humanancestors had cast to turn themselves into monsters had also ingrained a dark sense of humor in all of us.

Good call on their part. We all would have gone insane ages ago if we couldn’t look at the dark, cruel world around us and laugh in its face.

Two more guards waited outside the door on the next floor. Aniela had put way more security on Rynn than Carmilla had on me, which made me wonder if my aunt had underestimated my ability to escape . . . or if she’d needed those rangers somewhere else.

“Aniela.” The tall, blond guard on the right nodded deeply towards the Heir he served before giving me a shallow nod. “Harker.”

Grief slammed into me hard and fast. His hair was the same golden blonde shade as Adrienne’s. They weren’t related—Adrienne hadn’t had any surviving family—and he looked nothing like her in any other aspect, but my grief for her and Emil was still an open wound. One that I’d hastily slapped a bandage on in the name of survival, but it’d just slipped, leaving my wound bloody and raw.

“Samara?” Aniela gave me a puzzled look, her hand braced on the door she’d just started to open.

I slammed the wrapping back on the wound made of grief and rage and gave her a tight smile. “Let’s grab Rynn and get back before Cali loses her shit.”

“Calypso Rayne is here?” The ginger-haired guard traded glances with the blond one. “Inside our walls?”

---