Page 65 of Wynter's Bite

“Bring the lantern,” she ordered, before plunging into the dark passage.

The servant’s quivering hands shook so hard the light flickered like angry lightning. Bethany hoped her own tremors wouldn’t return. Still, she made out the unmistakable shape of barred cells lining the walls.

Ames’s shuddering breathing echoed in the damp stone walls. “We’re not supposed to be in here,” he wailed in a feeble, thin voice. “I don’t even know what’s down here. Only that it is forbidden.”

“Hush,” she said, turning the blunderbuss toward him, though not having the heart to aim it. “If you’re not supposed to know, you should be able to plead ignorance of this entire matter. Light these cells, please.”

Ames shuffled closer, his wobbling light steadying enough for her to see an achingly familiar glint of red from the depths of one of the dank cells.

“Justus!” she whispered loudly, shuffling forward.

He hung from shackles on the wall, his head resting on his chest in what must be an uncomfortable angle.

Ames gasped behind her, clearly not expecting to find a dungeon beneath his master’s forbidden door.

“Do you have the keys?” Bethany asked without much hope.

The elderly footman shook his head. “I told you, Miss, we’re not permitted back here! What is this place? Is it some sort of prison? Or is the Squire like the Marquis de Sade?”

Bethany cursed under her breath. How in the devil was she supposed to unlock the cell door? Much less the shackles?

“Bethany?” Justus lifted his head and peered at her with groggy, unfocused eyes. He was often lethargic like this during their days together, but she still couldn’t fight off a pang of worry that his captors had tortured him. “W-what are you doing here?”

“I’ve come to rescue you,” she said flatly.

A bubble of laughter escaped his lips. “Maybe you are mad. Please, leave this place before they find you as well. Go to Cornwall... to the Earl of—”

Justus cursed as another door slammed open and one of the vampires who’d captured Justus strode out, looking cross, yet also bleary-eyed. “What in bloody hell is going on here?” His eyes lit with recognition when he saw Bethany. “I knew you were wise to our kind. We should have taken you as well.”

Fear cascaded through her being like storm-tossed arctic waves. It was then that the full awareness of where she was doing struck her. She was under the roof of other vampires. Though she knew Justus would never hurt her, to the rest of his kind, she was food. Her basest instincts felt the vampire guard’s appraisal of her. He was a predator, she was prey.

But fear would not aid her in this mission. She brought back the alien anger that had taken residence in her soul and nurtured it.

Bethany aimed the blunderbuss at his chest. “Unlock him, or I will blast a hole in your heart.”

The vampire sneered. “Foolish human. Do you really believe you are fast or strong enough to stop me from wringing your neck?”

“I have people waiting for me,” Bethany said coolly. “If I have not returned with my cart in one hour, they will bring the constable here. I know the squire would not appreciate that sort of scrutiny.”

“The constable will find nothing here when I’m done with you.” The vampire charged, a blur of speed.

Bethany pulled the trigger of the blunderbuss.

The blast roared in her ears as she jolted backwards. Her head slammed against the stone floor, making white spots flare like exploding stars in her vision. Her breath left her battered lungs in a whoosh as smoke filled the air.

Her ears rang like church bells as she struggled to sit up. When the smoke dissipated, she saw the vampire lying on the floor, his chest a gaping wound of blood and viscera. And yet he still breathed.

“You killed him!” Ames squeaked. He sounded a hundred miles away, though she saw him cowering against another cell wall.

“He’ll likely live,” Justus said coldly from his prison. “Now fetch his keys. They are on his belt.”

Bethany crawled over to the sprawled vampire, her gorge rising in her throat at his injuries. She kept her weapon trained on him as she removed the ring of keys from his belt loop.

It took multiple tries to find the right key as Justus stared at Bethany as if she’d sprouted an extra head and Ames continued to cower in the corner, praying for salvation. No one else came charging down here, though surely someone upstairs had to have heard the shot.

Finally, the correct key slid into the lock, turning the rusty tumblers. Bethany pulled the cell door open and ran to her love. “Did they hurt you?”

“They were saving that particular pleasure for tonight,” he said as she once more tested keys in the locks on his shackles. “I cannot believe you’ve done this mad thing.”

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