Page 63 of Bewitched By a Vampire

This place smelled like death.

Night had wrought enough of that to know the smell of it.

He stilled his body and slowly pieced together his strength, driving back the darkness that ebbed and flowed through him, mastering it again and regaining control. As it waned, his senses grew clearer. It wasn’t a bed beneath him. It was stone. He was no longer in the suite. He was in a cell.

Night looked down at his wrists. Unbound. He rubbed at them and then his bare arms, trying to warm his chilled muscles. The witches had taken him somewhere.

If he was here, where was Lilian? Was she in another cell nearby? She wasn’t in the same one as he was. He tried to sense her, but he couldn’t feel anything beyond the four stone walls that surrounded him.

He rolled onto his back and grimaced as he continued onto his front and his hands and knees. His muscles protested as he staggered to his feet and ached as he rolled his shoulders and began moving around the cell, attempting to warm up. He didn’t feel the cold as badly as humans did, thanks to his vampire genetics, but the spell had done a number on him. He swore he could still feel it now, freezing his muscles whenever he managed to get them warmed up.

Night kept working his arms and his legs, rubbed his chest and refused to let the spell win. Eventually, his muscles no longer chilled whenever he warmed them, and he grinned. A small victory, but a victory nonetheless. He flexed his fingers and curled them into fists, and narrowed his eyes on the wall. If he couldn’t sense Lilian, maybe he could find a way to see if she was on the other side.

He was strong and healed quickly. He could probably punch a hole in the wall given enough time. There were downsides to such a reckless plan though. Injuring himself would mean he would use up precious strength as his body healed, and he would need blood to restore it and continue healing.

He also had his doubts about the wall.

To test a theory and see if his suspicions were correct, he went to the wall and pressed his palm to it.

And went flying backwards into the centre of the cell.

He landed hard on his backside and glared at the wall as blue, red and green glyphs shimmered outwards across the stones from the point he had touched. If he had punched it, he probably would have been hurled across the room with enough force to trigger the containment spell on the other wall. Good thing he had decided to practice caution instead. He didn’t want to be a vampire pinball.

A panel on the door to his right slid back, the scraping of metal on metal loud in the silence.

Night locked gazes with a woman and then she closed the panel again.

He picked himself up and went to the door. “Is Lilian all right?”

No answer.

He growled and wanted to press his hands to the iron, to hammer it with his fists, but the image of being ricocheted around the room by the spell was enough to keep his hands at his sides.

“Answer me. I demand to know if Lilian is all right!” He snarled those words, his bloodlust rising as the stricken way she had looked at him filled his mind.

He was sure she was in danger and that it was his fault. These witches had been after him. Anger at himself flooded his veins, twisting together with fear for Lilian, and rage directed at the witches, blending into an explosive mixture that had him pacing away from the door and back again.

The urge to bash his fists against the door was strong and he had a hard time resisting it as he stopped before the flush iron panel.

“Answer me!” He raised his hands and held them before him, tempted to lash out even when he knew he would only end up hurting himself.

Fear rose to grip him, filling his mind with images of Lilian being tormented by these witches. His precious Lilian. He sagged to his knees as his strength left him, his hands falling to his lap as he stared at the door.

“Lilian,” he murmured, despair swift to flood him, to see the opening in his strength and slip inside to tear it down. He lifted his head, his brow furrowing as he looked at the peephole, his voice low and weak. “Please. I need to see her. I need to know she’s all right.”

The witch still didn’t answer him.

Night fought the rising tide of his anger, refusing to let it cloud his mind and colour his actions. As much as he wanted to rip apart every witch in this coven, he couldn’t. Attacking them would only get him killed, and if he was dead, he couldn’t save Lilian.

“Think,” he muttered to himself, low enough that the witch wouldn’t hear through the door. “There has to be a way.”

He straightened his back and closed his eyes as he rested his palms on his thighs and steadied his breathing, conserving his strength as he focused his mind, shutting everything out.

He centred himself, allowing all of his feelings to fall away and logic to rise to take its place, and drawing on his knowledge of witches and his past battles with them.

A solution would present itself.

It always did when he meditated like this.

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