House of Kings(60)

“Onto the reason our new guests are here,” he says, his eyes slowly rising to meet mine from beneath his dark lashes. The wicked smile grows on his lips.

“There has been a bit of an insurrection growing in the United States for some months now,” he says as he stands. And slowly, he begins walking around the table, his fingertips pressed together. “See, leadership was just being restored there, so we did not hear about it here in Roter Himmel. And I am deeply saddened to hear that this betrayal has come from one of our very own Royals.”

I expect a deep gasp from everyone around the table. But their expressions only grow grimmer. These Court members around the table are after all centuries, if not thousands of years old. Surely, this isn’t the first plot of treason they’ve been witness to.

“I am afraid I have brought the dear Alivia Ryan Conrath here to stand trial,” Cyrus says, looking over his shoulder at me. “And the evidence is quite damning.”

A set of hands suddenly grabs me from behind, pulling me back. My chair tips backwards, my boot kicking the table as I tumble back. A surprised scream rips from my throat and we’re moving so quickly. In just a moment, the table, with Raheem and Trinity, my only allies in a very dangerous place, are disappearing down the hall.

I see as Raheem jumps to his feet, but before he can make a move for me, three other vampires have jumped on him, pinning his face to the ground, his arms wrenched behind him.

“Just do as they say!” he yells to me, his voice frantic, his eyes wide and terrified.

“Don’t fight them!” I scream back, so very afraid they will hurt him for his willingness to jump to my aid. “Please! Not for me!”

My captors turn down a hall, and my view of Raheem is suddenly cut.





DOWN A SET OF STAIRS. Past so many rooms. Around a turn. Down again. Turn. Cut. Straight. Turn. Down. Down.

There’s no possible way I could ever find my way back. No way I could find my way out should I escape.

But I can feel it in my gut. In that instinctual third eye we all have—I will not escape. That will be made sure of.

The air grows colder as we descend into the belly of the castle and mountain. Moisture coats the walls, hangs in the air like a disease, waiting to leach into my lungs and poison me from the inside out.

Further still, we travel down. Not a ray of light could ever penetrate down this far.

Finally, we tumble out into a narrow passageway. Torches line the walls, licking so close to us, I’m sure my hair will catch fire. Doorways open here and there, most of them shut and locked secure.

I realize: this is a prison.

Steel walls a foot thick separate the cells, and secure, steel doors slide closed. We go down past five cells before I am roughly thrown into an open door. I fly through the air before crashing into a stone wall.

The sound of metal on stone screeches through the air as the door is slid closed and the lock secured. There is the sound of footsteps retreating, and then it’s quiet save for the faint sounds of breathing from random cells.

I right myself as fear leaks into my brain. I look around me, and there isn’t much to see. Stone floor, three steel walls, one stone one that I’m guessing is an outside one. A board is attached to one wall, held up with cinder blocks. It’s a bed, but there’s no padding, no pillow, no blanket. Not that we sleep much.

In the steel door, there is a small sliding window. I hope that’s where they deliver food and—since I’m a vampire now—blood.

But as I notice the very dim, very faint glow that begins to spread from the ceiling, I look up.

A small cylinder rises up in the ceiling. The reflective quality to the inside of it confuses me at first. But then I realize it’s covered in mirrors.

And the top of it opens out into the pre-dawn sky.

Second by second, the dim glow begins to intensify. And the realization hits me: we are just minutes away from dawn. That tube lets out into the outside. And those mirrors are there to reflect the brightness of the sun back into my cell.

“No,” I breathe in a whimper. “No.” I shake my head, backing away from it, toward the door. In just a few minutes, I’m going to be in agony, my fully dilated eyes unable to handle the blinding sunlight that is about to arrive.

I turn and smack my palms against the door. “You can’t do this!” I scream. “This is torture! You can’t! I didn’t do anything! It wasn’t me!”

“Pipe down!” someone yells from another cell with a thick Hispanic accent. “Screaming won’t do you any good.”

Another yells at me in what must be German.

“Liv?”

It’s little more than a whisper. Quiet. Unsure. Hopeful. Coming from the cell right next to me. “Liv? Is that…is that you?”