Page 81 of Of Nine So Bold

Mirrors.Magicmirrors, if the images playing across their reflective surfaces were any indication.

I swallowed hard, stepping around the fallen bodies of soldiers as I came into the room. Most had been cut down in the midst of trying to attack, while one sat in the chair ahead of the magic mirrors.

He was still breathing. The rest were clearly dead.

My stomach churned, but I ordered myself to stay steady. The soldier in the chair was younger, with wide dark eyes and an ashen cast of terror to his light-brown skin. I could see him shaking from the doorway, his whole body frozen while Dex held a blade to his throat.

“Where are the prisoners?” Casimir asked the young man.

A resolute expression coming onto his frightened face, the soldier clamped his lips shut.

I looked at the magic mirrors, scanning them fast. Most showed empty tunnels. Some showed human guards leaning against the walls, chatting and oblivious to what we were doing here.

One showed a wall of bars, behind which was a cavern full of giants.

A shallow breath left me. In the firelight and shadows of the cavern, I couldn’t see all the way to the back to find Niko in there. He wasn’t up front, though, and the ones I could see just looked tired, terrified, or like they were hanging onto their resolve to survive by their fingernails.

Gods…

My eyes caught on another mirror. More giants, this time in a tunnel. They were on the ground, writhing in pain with human guards around them.

And at the corner of the image in the mirror was Niko, a guard standing over where he lay on the ground. Pain etched my giant’s face. Pure agony, while the guard just grinned.

Inside me, the vampire snarled.

“Where is that?” Dex demanded of the soldier, pointing at the magic mirror showing Niko.

When the young man didn’t answer, Dex’s blade bit his neck, sending a trickle of blood running down his throat. “Tell usnow.”

Casimir growled, and at the sight of that blood, the urge to do the same rumbled through me. I was hungry. So damn hungry and that…

I shuddered hard, my fangs aching.

“Answer or we give you to my friend here,” Clay said to the soldier, nodding toward Casimir. “Trust me, it won’t go well for you.”

Worry filtered past my hunger at the threat. Human blood would be like poison for us. Unlike giant blood, it would strip away our ability to stillbeus, turning us into ravenous beasts like every other vampire. Clay knew that, so chances were that his threat was only to make the guard give us answers.

But I still glanced at Casimir, worried.

His eyes flicked over to meet mine when the guard turned toward the mirror. The feral look in his gaze took on a different edge, less insane and much more teasing. He winked at me.

My shudders took on a decidedly heated quality, but I wasn’t completely reassured, mostly because I couldn’t see him breathing.

Not all of this was an act. Like me, he needed to feed and this was testing his self-control.

The guard cast another glance at him, and quickly, the vicious look in Casimir’s eyes returned. He bared his fangs at the young man.

“Clock’s ticking, my guy,” Clay pressed.

“The cell’s in the mid-northern quadrant. That’s the western tunnels, subsection D.” A shuddering hint of stubbornness came into the guard’s eyes. “But you won’t reach them in time. The shackles are designed to kill them if we see any sign of resistance. Even if I turn them off, those stoneskins are already dead.”

The vampire in me didn’t pause to question, and my human side couldn’t stop it from reacting, no matter what my men had said.

I shifted and took off.

21

NIKO

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