Cold emanated from the rough rock that surrounded her. It penetrated the soles of her stylish ballet flats and ankle-length linen slacks, and raised goose bumps on the skin of her arms that were left bare by a matching sleeveless shirt. She had dressed for warm weather on the beach, not spelunking.
The chill suggested she was pretty deeply underground, but underground where? If she were being held on Justine’s estate, why would Justine bother to stash her underground in a cell?
It would have made much more sense if Justine had hedged her bets and kept Melly in a more or less comfortable state, perhaps locked up somewhere in Justine’s mansion and close at hand, so that Justine could get to her quickly and easily if she needed to change her course of action.
But whatever had happened to turn Justine rogue, Julian was somehow involved, so maybe Justine couldn’t go back to her home. That had a ring of truth to it. Melly was willing to bet she wasn’t anywhere near Justine’s estate.
No, she was somewhere else, somewhere secret enough that Justine believed neither Julian nor any of his people would locate her. And since Melly had been knocked unconscious, she had no memory of the kind of journey it had taken to bring her to this place. She could literally be almost anywhere.
She ran a mental check on herself. Her hands were shaking, but that was from nerves and shock more than anything else. As a Light Fae, Melly healed fast, but her leg and hip still ached fiercely from the downhill tumble she took when she had been on her weekend ski trip. She was hungry and thirsty, but not so much that it had become urgent. Rather, she felt more or less like she did whenever she’d had such a busy day, she forgot to eat.
Also, there was the flashlight. It meant she wasn’t in an Other land, where magic was enhanced and modern technology didn’t work.
Logically that would mean she was no more than a day’s journey away from Malibu, but the trick was, how had they traveled? If Justine had put her on a plane, a day’s journey could mean that she was on the other side of the continent, somewhere on the East Coast.
Her shoulders sagged. Deduction could only get her so far. She wouldn’t be able to figure out where she was until she got aboveground and could have a look around.
Her mind darted to more hopeful thoughts. If she had been gone from home a day or so, someone would have noticed her absence by now.
She ran over the timeline. She had been coming home from her ski trip when Justine had kidnapped her. She had arrived in Malibu in the early evening, and she had been scheduled to be on set the next morning to start shooting a new movie.
Melly always showed up for work on time. It was a point of pride to her that she didn’t trade on her status in the Light Fae demesne. If anything, she worked harder than anybody else in order to be taken seriously as a professional.
She knew to a fraction of an inch how much acting talent she had — or didn’t have. She might not star in any Oscar-winning films, but she liked her career, had fun with it and made a lot of money, and those who worked with her knew she was as reliable as clockwork.
When she hadn’t shown up for work, events would have been set in motion. Her mother Tatiana was not just the Light Fae Queen. She was also head of Northern Lights, the movie studio where Melly’s latest movie was being shot, and Melly was her heir.
As soon as Melly’s absence had been noted, and someone had checked out her little Malibu beach house and found her gone, the situation would have rocketed to Def Con 1. Sniffling, she thought of the Queen’s extreme displeasure that even now must be hanging over Los Angeles like a nuclear mushroom cloud.
Because if her mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.
Then there was Melly’s younger twin, Bailey. She and Bailey had always had a sixth sense about how each other fared. Even though Bailey lived and worked in Jamaica, she could very well have known something was wrong with Melly before morning had ever come.
“I bet you knew, didn’t you, Bailey?” she whispered, holding the thought close like huddling in a comforting blanket. “And you called Mom. Maybe you even got her out of bed.”
Then her mind, traitorous bitch that it was, slipped to Julian.
She thought of how their reunion might be, after he rescued her from Justine’s clutches. He would run toward her, his rough, hard features and wolflike eyes alight with emotion and concern.
Her imagination put them in a sunlit, open field strewn with wildflowers. (She tried to picture Julian in a flowing white poet’s shirt, black pants and black boots, but she couldn’t get his ancient, scarred cowboy boots out of her head. Plus, Julian was about as poetic as a bull mastiff, so she gave up on that image almost immediately.)
She would run toward him too, arms outstretched, and as he snatched her close and lowered his head to take her mouth, the camera could zoom in for a close-up…
Oops, wait a minute, she forgot. Vampyre. Cut the scene.
He would run toward her over a moonlit, open field strewn with wildflowers…
That wouldn’t film very well. Nobody would see the wildflowers in the moonlight. Besides, filming a running scene at night over a rough, open field was a good way to trip and break a leg.
And Julian wouldn’t haul her close for one of those deep, soul-destroying kisses he knew how to do so well. More likely he would yell at her for some stupid thing or other, because that’s all he did these days.
The back of her nose prickled and she blinked rapidly as her eyes dampened. Damn her stupid eyes. She must be allergic to some kind of mold in this gods-forsaken pit.
She wasn’t going to think about Julian anymore, or how he might respond to Justine’s ultimatum. As heir to the Light Fae demesne, she knew better than to hope he might act out of some kind of sentimentality. He was the Nightkind King. Even if he had any lingering feelings for her, other than anger, he couldn’t afford to give in to kidnappers’ demands.
Damn, the lock was a stiff son of a bitch. She could feel the ends of her makeshift lock pick catching on the interior mechanism, but the hairpin was made out of soft, cheap metal. She had already bent it out of shape, and it kept trying to bend further. And the darkness was so absolute, it was starting to get to her.
Since she was rescuing herself, she didn’t need to worry so much about conserving the flashlight’s batteries. Flipping the switch, she took a moment to survey her cell. It was rough and bare, except for a cheap-looking, collapsible cot with a thin foam mattress, and a folded, green wool army blanket. There was also what looked to be a hole in the floor in one corner. Was that some kind of primitive latrine?
Grimacing, she turned back to the door, took the end of the flashlight between her teeth and worked carefully at the lock.
There it was. She felt it catch through her fingers. The mechanism gave way to the gentle pressure she exerted, and the lock turned. Halle-fucking-lujah.
Blowing out a heartfelt sigh, she kissed the pieces of her lucky hairpin and tucked them with the second hairpin, in the pocket of her pants. Then she collected the jug of water and packet of food. She might be miles from anywhere and facing a stiff hike, and she would need to eat and drink soon.
Stepping out of the cell, she ran the flashlight’s thin beam of light around the immediate area. As she did so, she realized there was more than one cell. With a sense of dread, she counted a total of four barred doors, although she was relieved to see the other cells were empty, their doors standing open. Two of the cells had thick manacles chained to the walls. To her left, the roughly hewn tunnel simply ended a few feet beyond the small cellblock.
These four cells were the end destination. But why carve them so deeply into the earth that not even a hint of light penetrated? What kind of creatures had Justine held captive down here?
Vampyres. She trapped Vampyres.