Two vamps occupied the cramped quarters.

I turned to sucker punch Conan in the throat, but he was already slamming the door shut. Much more quickly than he’d opened it. Creep. I knew the door was spelled, but I put my fist against it just to be sure. A strong current pulsed beneath my skin. The spell had a strange signature. I’d felt something similar to it on the walk down here. It didn’t feel like witch magic. Witch magic was organic; this felt concrete.

“Put the chains around your wrists,” Conan ordered through the tiny window. “The ones hanging on the far wall.” A single, thick finger came through the bars to point me in the right direction. I growled. I wanted to tear the digit off his hand.

“I’m not staying in here with … them, so go tell your Queen the deal is off,” I snarled, bringing my face close to the window as he hastily withdrew his finger.

“If you don’t do what I say, I will kill the male vamp who they say is yours,” Conan sneered. The guy had one look. “I hope you refuse, because I need to feed and he looks like he’d put up quite a nice fight.”

Ray could likely hold his own, but if Conan drank my blood, it would be disastrous.

I turned and glanced around the dirty cell.

The two emaciated vamps hissed at me from their respective corners. It seemed they hadn’t fed in … years.

I was fresh meat.

The only light in the cell came from one lone torch hanging precariously from the seeping stone wall. It appeared in jeopardy of going out. “I didn’t realize your Queen was so sadistic. This is hard-core imprisonment. How long have they been in here?”

“That’s no concern of yours. Now put on the chains. The cuffs are spelled so you won’t be able to get free.”

We’d see about that.

I walked over to the chains dangling from the far wall.

The good thing was they weren’t silver, so they wouldn’t burn my skin. The bad thing was they were several inches thick and likely made from reinforced wolfram, one of the strongest rare metals on earth and extremely hard for a supe to break out of, hence the name.

Anything with pure natural qualities was tough for us to defeat.

I picked up a single shackle and glanced behind me at the two vamps. Defeating them and freeing myself at the same time was going to take some skill. I tried not to be too regretful of my decision to acquiesce to the Queen’s wishes. We have to be on our best game here, I told my wolf. We break the chains as soon as possible and keep the vamps from drinking us at all costs. She growled her agreement. She was laser focused on the two bloodsuckers. They were so gaunt their faces appeared permanently skeletal.

“I said put on the chains,” Conan snarled from the kiddy window. “But then again, I am getting pretty thirsty.”

“I’m going, I’m going,” I said. “And you better stay away from Naomi and Ray if you know what’s good for you. If I find out you’ve hurt them, or partake in a single drop of their blood, I’m coming after you.”

He laughed ominously. “You aren’t getting out, wolf. Meet Yuri and his wife, Alana. Our resident cave dwellers. They will rip you to shreds and leave you wishing you were dead, most likely before I can walk back to my office. This is the end of the line for you. Only the worst offenders are put here. Welcome to hell.”

My eyes darted to the vamps as I clicked both shackles around my wrists. I needed Conan to leave quickly. The vamps seemed to be waiting for him to leave, too, because they hadn’t moved. But it was hard to tell by their vacant stares. They were each slumped in a corner opposite me. I lifted my arms and wiggled the chains at him to prove it. “I’m in. You can leave now. I’m sure you have pressing business to attend to.”

“I might just stay and enjoy the show,” he said.

As the weight of the wrist cuffs settled on me, I felt the spell. It had the same weird signature as the door, but this spell had a taste, which was even more bizarre.

The two vamps perked up once they saw I was secure, rising to their knees on the dirty ground and starting to gyrate like a couple of snakes in the grass. Jesus, they’re completely deranged. It looks like they’ve been down here for centuries and get to drink only when they have naughty visitors. We need Musclehead to vacate the area. I’m going to throw some power into my words and see if I can send him away. If not, we’ll have company before we’re ready. You focus on breaking the spell or we’re going to be vamp dinner.

As she sent power into the spell, it manifested strangely in my mind. It was honey colored and tasted sour. It wasn’t nearly as powerful as what we’d tackled with Selene. The cuffs rang with it, but it hadn’t penetrated farther into my body, which was a bonus.

“I think your Queen is calling you, Lurch,” I said, throwing strength into my words, aiming it right where his face sat pinched in the window. “You better scurry away and see what she wants.”

His head tipped back, glancing down the hallway.

“Yup, I just heard her again.” I pushed outward, filling my mind with bright golden light, making each word count. “You better go and see what your Queen wants. Could be important. We don’t want a repeat of last time, do we?” This guy had “inept” written all over him. Once I successfully got him to leave, the power I’d used to urge him would evaporate, but I hoped he’d be gone long enough for me to do what I needed to do, which was escape. And just maybe he would forget to check on me again, because he was that stupid.

He turned and grumbled, easing away from the window. His footsteps finally echoed down the tunnel, and I joined my wolf in trying to break the spelled cuffs.

As soon as he’d gone, the male vampire, whom he addressed as Yuri, scuttled up the wall Exorcist style. Without stopping, he clawed his way along the ceiling, making his way to me from above. Jesus! That’s the creepiest thing I’ve ever seen. We need to break these chains quickly. My wolf threw all our power into the spell. It was a more technical spell than we’d encountered before, kind of like picking a lock. She yipped at me anxiously as she went. I took that as a Please try to stall the creepers if you can while I focus on the hard stuff.

“Listen, buddy,” I told the specter, who clung upside down eyeing me, his dirty hair dangling from his head in greasy hanks, his eyes a dead, listless black. “You don’t want to mess with me. If you come at me, I’ll have to kill you. Do you understand what I’m saying? You’ve managed to survive down here for, what, a hundred years? You don’t want to die now at the hands of a wolf.” I knew I could put these two out of their misery fairly easily. “Or maybe you do?”

Before I could say any more, the female, Alana, lunged at me from the corner.

Without thought, I extended my arms fully, flexing my wrists hard on the chains while I arched my back against the cold stone and swung both legs up like a gymnast balancing on the rings. My feet connected with her squarely in the chest, right as my body morphed into its Lycan form. It all happened in less than a heartbeat. She flew with a screech into the wall across from me, hitting it hard, and tumbled to the ground. Dammit, she’s not down. She rose immediately, albeit on wobbly legs, and shook herself off while Yuri hissed at me, enraged I would dare hurt his female. He primed himself to spring, bending his arms and snarling.

My wolf continued to work feverishly on the lock spell, unable to aid me with the vamps. You have to speed it up. I can’t fight them both in chains. She gave me an irritated bark. I couldn’t use my feet against Yuri, because he was coming at me from the wrong angle. Instead I primed my right fist, bringing it up to my ear, and waited. He’d have to be almost a foot from my face before I could act. And once I did, I would only have so much room before the chain expired, culling my punching radius down to two feet at the most.

He dove.

My wrists were coated in fur, the unforgiving metal gouging into my new larger frame. Once Yuri was within a foot of me, I smashed my fist into his cheek with so much force the entire chain snapped out of the limestone—bolt plate and all. Yuri flew into the stone wall across from me and crashed to the ground in a jumble of arms and legs. He lay there unmoving. Thank goodness. He wouldn’t stay down forever, but he’d hit the wall harder than his bride and since he was so starved, it would likely take him some time to heal his injuries.

I turned to inspect the holes where the chain and bolt plate had pulled out. I don’t get it. How could we pull the entire thing out of the wall? It should be spelled. Or maybe it was and we’re just stronger? No time to contemplate because Alana gurgled from behind me. Let’s pull the other plate out and use the chains to our advantage. I lifted my left arm and jammed it downward in one quick motion. The second bolt plate snapped cleanly from the wall and sailed in the air. I turned, flicking my wrist at the last moment and directed the chain toward Alana.

The corner of the plate took her in the forehead.

It landed there and stuck with an ugly thunk. She wheeled backward, clearly not used to this much resistance from a prisoner. Right as she spun from the impact, my wolf broke the spell and the shackles on both wrists snapped open. Alana crumpled in a heap, taking the rest of the chain with her, the plate still lodged in her head.

Well, that was horribly gruesome.

I glanced from Yuri to Alana, both looking like nothing but bags of bones piled on the floor. I kind of feel sorry for these two. I turned back to the wall and scratched my head. Breaking out of those chains was too easy. Eudoxia would never allow her restraints to be broken so readily. Something’s up. My wolf perked her ears in agreement. I don’t hear anyone coming. Let’s see what we can find.

I gathered power to myself and sent it outward, trying to sense if there were any other spells or signatures around me. The two vamps had surprisingly strong magic pulses when my energy cascaded over them. They must be very old. Almost as old as Eudoxia, but not nearly as strong. Conan had said the male’s name was Yuri. That sounds Russian to me. Maybe we should shackle him up and try to wake him? If he’s been around that long, he must know something. My wolf growled, undecided. What else are we going to do? I don’t feel any other power signatures nearby. I want to know why she put me in here with these two, because I don’t think this was a mistake. She knew they would be easy for us to defeat. Something was definitely up and that was puzzling. I was missing something big. I’m beginning to think there was trouble brewing all along between her and Valdov and I’ve somehow propelled us right into the middle of it. I glanced at the still-unmoving Yuri. Let’s find out what he knows. We don’t have a better option.