“Is this a fucking labyrinth?” someone grumbled.
The fae captain was beginning to feel the same way, although he didn’t say that. One of the first rules of leadership was looking confident, even if one didn’t feel that way on the inside. And inside, he wasn’t calm.
He needed to get out of here. A thousand-pound weight was pressing down on his chest, and he wouldn’t be able to rest until he saw Brynleigh with his own eyes.
“You’ll never get out of here,” the rebel fae slurred. He’d woken up sometime between the second and third door. “They’ll stop you. You have no magic and two guns. What do you think you’ll do?”
“We’ll fight,” Ryker grunted, slapping the man’s hand on the next biometric lock.
That was the only option.
The door hissed open, just like all the others, but this time…
The rebel chuckled. “Told you so.”
CHAPTER 35
Death Threats and Late Arrivals
The fourth door didn’t open into a hallway like the others. It revealed a large workspace that might have been an office at one point. Several long tables covered in papers and computers took up floor space. Warm lights hung from the ceiling. They must’ve still been underground because there were no windows.
It wasn’t the change in scenery that had Ryker’s heart racing and his stomach dropping. It wasn’t even the dozen impressive guns trained on his group or the multiple strands of deadly Death and Earth Elf magic hovering threateningly in the air.
No.
That was caused by the too-beautiful-to-be-real vampire standing in the middle of the group of rebels.
Jelisette de la Point’s cold, obsidian eyes drilled into Ryker’s, and a malicious smile crept across her features. Dressed in black training leathers, she looked like a warrior vampire from the time of the Four Kingdoms.
“Greetings, Captain Waterborne.” The violent vampire strode towards him and smirked. “Going somewhere?”
Hatred coiled in Ryker’s gut, and keeping his stolen weapon trained on Jelisette, he snarled, “You bitch.”
She did this, somehow. Set Brynleigh up. Ryker could sense it in his gut.
“Is that any way to speak to your mother-in-law?” Jelisette raised a brow.
“Fuck you. Brynleigh doesn’t see you as a mother, and neither do I.”
Both he and his wife were sorely lacking in the maternal department.
“I would have kept her as a daughter, you know,” Jelisette said cruelly. “Once, I thought she’d be able to replace me. But now I see the truth. My progeny is nothing but a lying, backstabbing bitch.”
He growled.
“I tried to offer her the world. I gave her immortality and rules to live by, and what did she do?” Jelisette’s lips curled into a hateful sneer. “She threw it all away. She told youeverything. How dare she think she can play me and the Black Night? Your wife is nothing but a fucking waste of blood. I should’ve let her die all those years ago.”
Ryker wanted to rip Jelisette’s heart out of her chest.
His finger found the trigger. The gun probably wouldn’t kill the vampire, but shooting her would feel fucking incredible. “Don’t speak about my wife like that.”
Brynleigh deserved all the respect and care in the world, and he would ensure she knew exactly how amazing she was.
Once he survived this.
He glanced at the collection of weapons.
Ifhe survived this, he amended.