Page 42 of Isabel and the Werewolf Beast

He shoved me to the floor. “Stay down or I’ll kill you. How could you care for her? You don’t know her. She would tell me if she befriended a werewolf.”

“I know her. We’ve been stuck together in the curse for months. I don’t know how long she was stuck in it before I came along. I don’t know who you are.”

He flicked back his long hair and stared at Isabel’s body under the blanket for a long time before he said, “I’m Lucian, her maker.”

“She told me about you.” I lifted the necklace that was dangling around my neck where Isabel’s fingers had clipped the clasp closed. “You gave her this moonstone when you first turned her to help her with her emotions.”

His glare snapped to the necklace. “You stole that.”

“I didn’t. She gave it to me. I can show you the jewelry box outside. Why would I steal the jewelry box and come back up here?”

“Nothing is making sense. Least of all you. I will place you in the basement for now while I investigate these lies you say are true.”

“Lucian,” I pleaded. “Let me go so I can find Silas and her head.”

“If what you say is true, I will. Follow me to the basement or I’ll incapacitate you and drag you down the stairs. Your choice.”

“If I run?”

“You won’t get far. I’m old and fast. Plus there is a ballroom full of vampires downstairs that would love to kill a werewolf on sight. Most are not as willing to talk as I am.”

“Okay,” I said, my shoulders slumping in the face of this defeat, but I’d do anything to help Isabel. “I’ll go to the basement.”

Lucian clicked his fingers and Nemisis flew from the windowsill and landed on his arm.

“Watch your mistress,” he told the bird.

The raven flew from his arm and landed on the solid, dark timber bedhead.

Lucian walked to the door and turned a key in the lock. He placed the key in his breast pocket and stepped over to the dressing table. He lifted a bottle and placed it back. Opened a drawer and shut it again. What was he looking for? He lifted a hairbrush, and glanced at Isabel, his face turning into a twisted grimace of anguish. Lucian cared for Isabel. Was it a matter of him turning her that made him care or was there more between them? He opened the drawer and placed the hairbrush inside, shoving it toward the back as far as he could go. A click echoed in the quiet room and behind the dressing table, a panel in the wall opened an inch.

He pointed at the wall. I scrambled to my feet and rammed the wall inside. A dark hallway lay inside. No lights shone, but we both had night vision and could see in the pitch black. I followed the hallway around a few corners and then climbed down a set of steep stairs that went on forever. At the bottom of the stairs was an enormous cavern of nothing.

Lucian walked to a wall and touched it as though looking for another trigger. All this time, Isabel had secret passageways inside her castle and I didn’t know. If this were under any other circumstances, I’d be enjoying this adventure. Instead, every step further away from Isabel churned my stomach more. An ache started in my chest.

Another click echoed, this one even louder considering where we were and the wall opened into a room beyond. This room was small. Like a tiny cave. Or cage. My muscles trembled at being locked away. A werewolf needed to run. I understood that much about myself. I’d learned more by reading Isabel’s books, but it wasn’t enough. Nothing I’d learned could have preparedme for what had happened since I stepped into this deadly curse.

“I’ll be back to question you again,” Lucian’s voice echoed eerily in the cavern. My prison.

Chapter twenty-two

Dante

I’d thought the time had stood still during the curse and the perpetual full moon, but inside the pitch-black cavern where no sound penetrated and the only noise was the steady beat of my heart, time truly stood still. I didn’t know how long had passed or if Isabel was still headless.

Nothing.

I understood nothing.

Where was Asher? Had he waited for me in the forest and the vampire Lucian killed him? I doubted he’d let Asher live if he found him. I at least knew Isabel and could prove it. Asherwould be a lone wolf in the forest waiting to be picked off by a vampire. I hoped he’d run far. So very far that even I wouldn’t be able to find him.

My stomach growled. I placed a hand over the tight muscles of my stomach. At least during the curse, I hadn’t suffered hunger. Or thirst. My lips were dry and bleeding. I licked the welts trying to drink the tiny drops of fluid. Vampires might have something with this drinking blood. What would Isabel’s blood taste like? Why was I thinking about blood? I must be going insane in this cavern.

Endless torture that’s what this was. I deserved it. Isabel had never hurt me and look what my brother did to her. If it wasn’t for me asking her to bite me, then he wouldn’t have cut off her head.

The door slid open. I scrambled to my knees, but I swayed from the lack of food and water.

“Out, werewolf,” Lucian said.

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