Camelia must have cast some sort of barrier around us. Similar to the boundaries around the Vale, but keeping us in instead of keeping others out.
My head pounded, and I blinked a few times to get the stars out of my vision. When I finally steadied myself enough to look up, I saw Jacen fighting with five of the guards. One of the guards was already lying in the snow beside him, his neck twisted in an unnatural position. Jacen snapped another guard’s neck, and he went down beside his comrade.
They weren’t dead—they would heal—but not for a few hours.
I forced myself back up, ready to help him fight. I could come up from behind and snap another guard’s neck. They would never see it coming.
But before I could start to run, something pricked the back of my neck—a needle.
I opened my mouth to warn Jacen, but the world spun around me, and everything went dark.
Annika
I woke up shivering. The floor was hard and rough, uneven spots jamming into various places in my body. Everything hurt—my legs, my arms, and mainly my head. My stomach, too.
I’d only been hungover once—New Year’s Day sophomore year, when a group of us had stayed over one of my friends houses whose parents were away. We’d all had way too much champagne while celebrating New Year’s Eve, and had woken up the next morning feeling like crap.
This felt similar, except multiplied by a hundred.
I lay there, unable to find the energy to open my eyes, and all my recent memories flooded back to me.
Jacen coming to see me at the Tavern, kissing him in the alley, the vampire guards coming for me, Jacen revealing he was a vampire prince, the two of us running away, my drinking his blood, escaping the Vale, confronting the wolves, and finally, the fight with Camelia and the vampire guards.
They’d injected me with something.
What had they given me? How long had I been out?
And what had happened to Jacen?
I groaned and rolled over in the dirt. I needed to open my eyes and figure out where I was, but I had a dreadful feeling that I wasn’t going to like what I would find.
“I expect you’re feeling like Hell,” a familiar voice said—Camelia.
Her irritating voice felt like pinpricks in my brain.
I doubled over and retched, heaving out everything I’d eaten in the past day. The smell filled my nose, making me retch again, until my stomach was empty. The mess was all over the dirt floor beside me—bile mixed with blood.
I rolled over to my other side, not wanting to look at it.
There were bars in front of me—this dirt-floored room must be a prison. And sitting beyond the bars, on a small beach chair sipping a margarita, was Camelia.
“You look like Hell, too,” she said with that irritating smirk. “In case you were wondering.”
“What did you give me?” I croaked, forcing myself to sit up and lean against the stone wall. I reached behind my neck to where the needle had entered—the area was puffy and sore.
“Just a sedative.” She shrugged. “But that’s not why you feel like crap.”
“Enlighten me, then.” I glared at her, having a feeling from the way she smiled in return that she couldn’t wait to do so.
“You drank Jacen’s blood,” she said. “Which gave you the abilities of a vampire for a day. But you didn’t think doing so would come without consequences, did you?”
He’d never told me about any consequences. But I remained silent, not wanting her to know that.
“You did, didn’t you?” She laughed. “You humans are so naive. Would you like to hear what the consequences are?”
I stared at her, waiting. Then, realizing she wasn’t going to continue without my asking, I forced out a strained yes.
“I thought so,” she said with a smile. “The vampire blood temporarily gives you strength, but it takes a huge toll on your body. You won’t feel normal for a week, at best. But there are ways to speed up the recovery process…” She took a sip of her margarita and watched me, clearly baiting me again.
I said nothing. I wasn’t going to give into her silly games.
But I also could barely move. My head spun, my mouth tasted like sandpaper, and my muscles felt like they’d been torn to shreds. If there was a way to feel better, I wanted to know.
“What ways?” I finally gave in.
“Most usually jump for more vampire blood.” She smiled. “That would do the trick instantly. But there’s also an herbal remedy I can whip up—it’ll make that hangover disappear in hours instead of a week.”
“And why do I have a feeling you won’t be supplying me with either one of those?” I asked.
“I won’t be, but not for the reasons you might think.” She tilted her head and pulled her hair over her shoulders, somehow managing to look regal despite sitting in a beach chair in a dungeon. “Firstly, you’ve done nothing to deserve the herbal remedy. And as for the vampire blood… the human body isn’t meant to have power like that. It feels fun at first—exhilarating. Addicting. But over time, it would wear your poor, weak body down, fast-forwarding the aging process until killing you completely. And neither of us want that to happen to you, now do we?”
I clenched my hands into fists, my nails digging into my palms. Why hadn’t Jacen told me about any of that? He’d just given me his blood recklessly, and I’d taken it.
Once more, I cursed myself for trusting a vampire. It was yet another reminder that as long as I was human, I would be a pawn in a game ruled by supernaturals.
“Where am I?” I asked, wanting to change the subject. I had a good idea about where I was, but I needed to hear it officially.
“The dungeons of the palace, of course,” she answered. “But don’t worry—you’re not a prisoner. We simply needed to keep you somewhere you couldn’t escape from until the vampire blood left your system.”
“If I’m not a prisoner, then why am I behind bars?”
“Because if you don’t agree to what I ask, then you will be a prisoner,” she said firmly. “I thought it would be best to give you a taste of what your short future would hold if you decline my offer.”
I looked around the small cell. It was dank and dingy, without even a place to sit. The only item inside of it was a small pot—likely the equivalent of a toilet. But the strangest thing about the dungeon was how quiet it was.
“Are there any others here?” I asked. “Or am I the only one?”
“There are others,” Camelia answered. “But I’ve cast a sound barrier around us to keep our conversation private. After all, I have an important proposition for you, and I don’t want anyone listening in.”
“The same proposition that killed Mike?” I glared at her. She opened her mouth to speak, but I continued before she could. “Don’t tell me he’s alive. The vampire guards already told me otherwise.”
She sat back, apparently taken by surprise that I knew about Mike’s fate. But the shock disappeared from her face a second later, her expression returning to its mask of calm.
“I never wanted Mike to die.” She looked down as she spoke—almost as if she were grieving—and then refocused on me. “Only a human can accomplish the task I need done, and he was so strong—with the way he defeated that wolf—that I felt sure he could succeed. But his death wasn’t in vain.”
“No?” I raised an eyebrow, raking my nails through the dirt floor to keep from breaking at the reminder that I would never see my friend again.
“I sent him to obtain an extremely valuable object,” she said. “He didn’t succeed, but he got something nearly as important—a rare seeing crystal that told me exactly who could obtain the object in question. Only a powerful witch can use the crystal—it took even myself a few weeks to master—but you can only imagine my surprise when the crystal showed me an image of you.”
“Me?” I asked in disbelief. “Why would it show me?”
“Trust me, I have as little of an idea as you,” she said. “I see nothing special about you—a dirty human blood slave. But alas, it did show you. And the crystal doesn’t lie. You are the human destined to retrieve the sapphire ring that contains the powerful witch Geneva.”
And from there, she told me exactly what she wanted me to do.
Annika