Page 20 of A Touch of Brimstone

He ignored my question.

This guy.

“You’re…” I prompted, letting the word linger.

“Dominic.”

“Oh, all Dominics are greeted with a military welcome?”

He stopped abruptly. His depthless dark eyes, which always had a flicker of a fading fire in them, studied me in contemplative silence before he resumed his rushed long-strides.

“Why are you guarding prisoners? It seems like you’re in a position to have others do that.” It would be a lot easier to continue with my questioning if he was more forthcoming and not power walking.

“I have help.”

“You do most of it?”

A tiny nod in response.

“Is it a micromanagement situation? Do you feel like you’re the only one who can handle it?”

He sped up, forcing me to jog and ignore the rows of closed doors we passed just to keep pace with him. We turned down a long hallway. At the sight of the library, I stopped. Seeing it lifted my mood even if for just a moment.

Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, a rolling ladder, vaulted ceiling with gilded trimmings. In the corner, there were oversized plush chairs in pairs with a small table between, and a circular ottoman in front of each. On the other side of the room, a semi-private area boasted a cognac-colored leather chaise. Warm yellow walls made the room so inviting. The only thing that would complete the paradise would be a coffee/tea bar and a snack station. I couldn’t imagine ever wanting to leave it, even for food.

I stepped in, inhaling the scent of leather, vellum, aged paper, and the faint scent of oak that lingered in the air. It was like being hugged by a book. It took effort not to just stay there, but I turned around to find Dominic regarding me with a smirk.

“Sorry,” I said, backing out.

We returned to our journey down the never-ending hallway. After another turn, he unlocked beautiful double doors, but when I pressed my hands against them, they were heavier than expected and more difficult to move than Dominic made it look.

The doors led us to another section of the house that seemed as if it didn’t belong. Dull beige walls, unimpressive flooring, and no evocative art, beautiful décor, or beautiful libraries. This area was functional. Dominic stopped at a heavy door that I assumed led to the prison. To my surprise, there wasn’t a lock or any other barrier to entry.

“You sure magic released them and they just didn’t walk out?” I mumbled.

He turned to face me, studying me, his expression indecipherable, but the intensity of his gaze could not be ignored. When he moved closer, the heat of his body wrapped around me, his fiery gaze held mine, and pulling away didn’t feel like an option. He studied me with interest, while I just gawked at him like a person oblivious to the social contract of not staring.

“You are quite the peculiar human, aren’t you?”

In my book, peculiar was right up there with exotic. Definitely on the wrong side of normal but not interesting enough to be considered quirky and not unique or winsome enough to be weird.

He whispered something; the door illuminated and opened. I followed him down the spiral stairs, holding close to the rough stone walls of the stairwell faintly lit by warm yellow sconce lights that ran along the walls.

A dungeon. Significant parts of the footage were dedicated to the supernatural prison. My expectations were squalid conditions and minimal amenities. A stone-walled antechamber with harsh unforgiving lights and what looked to be poorly cleaned bloodstains on cement floors led to a large room, divided into two rows of twenty-by-twenty smaller rooms, each with a full-size bed and a small door that I assumed led to a bathroom. The front of each room had frosted glass instead of bars.

It was far better than any prison I’d seen on TV, but for occupants who spent their days causing chaos, killing, and pillaging, a mundane existence in a small room must’ve been torture.

“This is where you keep the worst of the worst?” I asked, still surprised by the decent conditions.

“The only sentence in the Perils is life.”

“Once they’re sentenced, they die here?” I frowned. “Aren’t vampires immortal? And shifters and witches can live to be close to two hundred. This is where they stay for whatever infraction landed them here until they die of old age? What happens to vampires?”

He seemed surprised by my breadth of knowledge.

“The Discovery of Magic,” I reminded him.

Nodding, he frowned. “I obtained a copy. That book is grossly inaccurate and I urge you to be very wary of the information within it. The only thing that was correct was the information about the existence of vampires, shifters, and witches. Vampires can only be killed with a stake through the heart. It failed to mention that if they feed before they meet true death, they live. Best way to kill a vampire is to subdue them with a stake to the heart and take off the head.”

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