Page 143 of Stalked By Seduction and Shadows

“They’re down there,” Hanson decided.

I motioned to Percy to carry on clearing out the upstairs for any stragglers, while the main group worked quickly to locate the door to the basement. Everything was still. Everything was quiet.

We blasted open door after door, finally finding the one with intricate wooden carvings that revealed a grand descending staircase.

The scent of mortal blood grew richer. I couldn’t only scent the blood circulating in their veins, but also the fresh blood that had been spilled recently. My tattoos thrummed, and Hanson’s magick went fiery in the air. He’d dedicated his entire life to fighting the slave trade, which was why he’d joined my secret mortal ranks a century ago.

In a flash of vampiric speed, we’d cleared the stairs, where our first group of born guards greeted us with all their trademark old world hospitality.

A dagger flew toward my head. Fire magick sprayed. A wall of translucent shadow blocked the dagger, and Mason sprayed her corresponding water magick. The murky water turned to ink, spraying several born in the face. They flailed around, blinded.

“Pathetic effort,” I said with disdain. My thorns sharpened and extended, and I used them to slit the weakened borns’ throats. My shadows slowly receded back to me as I watched my clan slaughter the rest with ease.

Mason parried a strike with an enchanted short sword, swiftly pivoting to plunge her own dagger into the born’s heart.

This was who they’d employed to guard their precious slaves? Perhaps this was merely a decoy batch, a warm-up. Were the born truly this rusty after so many centuries since the war?

I glanced around the room, a luxurious entertainment space with lounge furniture and several tables low to the ground with a few ceremonial daggers strewn about. I realized with disgust that the tables were human-sized, likely serving as ritualistic feeding altars. We had one or two of those in Odessa, but ours were theatrical stage props for willing participants.

We forged on, blasting another door off its hinges and moving down a long hallway.

With our keen senses, we picked up on several sources of noises trickling through the air. Another wave of fighting began, more cramped and chaotic this time as born flooded in from the other end of the hall. The smell of blood was potent. These vampires had recently gorged themselves to be at their strongest, that much I was certain of.

My shadows weaved through the air in a dozen limbs, some solid weapons and others tendrils of disorienting glamour magick.

My clan and I deftly moved out of each other’s way, magick melting from tattooed skin and shooting through the air in an array of different gifts. Percy’s shadows were poison, capable of melting away skin from bone. And then melt the bones too.

“Pick up the pace. No frills, just efficiency,” I called out.

There was a very high likelihood Evangeline would rather her batch of trafficked mortals die than be rescued. It was nearly guaranteed.

But when we’d destroyed the latest batch of lackluster born guards, I realized the faint noises from this lower level had died out, almost as if I’d imagined them.

In flashes of movement, my people spread out to pick the dungeon apart for signs of Evangeline and the slaves.

“Clear,” I heard, over and over, as Mason and I stood with Hanson.

After a heavy blast, Percy strode back into the hall with a deep frown. “Found where they were keeping them. Among several other grim things I won’t soon be able to unsee.”

I looked over at Hanson. His talents did not include combat, fear ripe in his eyes even as his features lay determined. His usefulness in gifted sight was more than powerful enough to earn him a spot in our ranks, protected like one of our own during specialized raids.

His eyes went glassy. “They’re running,” he said.

Mason wiped a bead of sweat from her brow. “There’s nowhere for them to go. We have them surrounded.”

“I see them running,” Hanson repeated. “Carried away in a river of blood.”

Sometimes Hanson’s visions were more poetic than practical. Their esoteric artistry might’ve been very lovely in literally any other situation.

I rubbed my mouth. “Keep looking. Their scents are growing weaker. There has to be a secret room they’ve escaped to.”

When Hanson shook his head, my frustration was cut short by the distinctive sound of conflict above. Durian’s forces must’ve arrived.

I closed my eyes. When Scarlett was the first thing I saw behind my eyelids, I nearly unleashed my string of curses out loud. But her piercing blue eyes soon faded, and I stood inside my own dungeon in Odessa. In particular, the room where Scarlett had asked to be claimed—that which connected to my dungeon in the castle.

“They model everything off what we stole,” I said, my eyes flying open. “If Nyx has a secret underground passage system, then so too does Hatham.”

“But where…” Mason trailed off, realization dawning on both of us at once.

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