Cursed of moon

Chapter 25

“Time to wake up, Ms. Davenport.”

I opened my eyes as that cold, clinical voice floated from above me. Blinking, I stared in confusion at the smooth concrete floor spread out around me. I pushed to sitting, amazed that my temples weren’t throbbing. Blood smeared the floor where my head had cracked against it, but then I remembered that I was part werewolf now. I healed fast.

Heart speeding up, I assessed my surroundings. Tall concrete walls and one door completed the room. No windows. I was in a prison cell.

Shit. Not good.

My breaths sped up more when I remembered Jakub on the cliff’s edge, invisible yet there. And what had happened to Kaillen, Barnabas, and Fallon? Why hadn’t they responded?

I frantically felt for the mate bond again.

A sob of relief filled me when I felt that Kaillen wasn’t dead.

Knowing that calmed a part of me as I searched the cell for anything that would give me clues to where I was, but nothing about this place had any identifying marks.

Okay, stay calm. Kaillen isn’t dead. He’s still alive. He’ll find you.

My eyes widened, and I tried to keep my heart from beating out of my chest, but panic was on the verge of blazing through me. This was literally our worst fear come true.

A quiet zapping filled my ears. Bites of magic pulsed on my wrists. A glance down confirmed that I was wearing the glowing blue cuffs. I’d been so consumed with my mate that I hadn’t even realized I was bound.

I laughed almost hysterically. Well, Jakub-Dipshit’s certainly not original.

But I didn’t have time to process that before the corner door opened. A man stepped into the cell. Medium build. Dark-brown hair. Wide mouth.

He was the same supe who’d been in Philadelphia. This man had to be Jakub. Rage filled me as my hands balled into fists.

Jakub stopped in the doorway and stood completely immobile. His cool, detached expression didn’t waver. “I was growing impatient. You were unconscious for nearly two hours.” As before, I detected that strange accent from him.

I nearly scoffed. I probably would have been unconscious all day if not for my wolf. Inside me, she growled, hackles raised.

“Where am I?” I demanded.

“Where you should have been when my sorcerers took you from Ontario.”

Philadelphia again? The cuffs’ magic pulsed along my skin, but hopelessness didn’t fill me. I’d been spelled with immunity by the SF. I could break out of these cuffs, but I had to bide my time. I had to do it at the right moment when Jakub least expected it. “What do you want?”

“You,” was all he replied.

“Why me?”

“Because you’re the key.” Despite the fact that he’d finally caught me, there was no excitement in his voice. No triumph. Just cool clinical interest, as if I was an experiment and he was collecting my data.

“You’re one sick bastard, aren’t you?” I kept my voice even, as though being cuffed in some freakin’ concrete prison cell was no big deal.

But my goading didn’t have its intended effect. I saw no anger in him. No bruised male pride. The only reaction Jakub gave was a slight incline of his head.

I shivered. Something about this man was . . . off.

I jutted my chin up. My wolf snarled inside me again, rage making her physical form heat and swell. She lunged against my control, trying to force the shift. Visions of tearing out Jakub’s throat with our teeth filled my mind, but I pushed her down. Right now, I couldn’t lose control. Now of all times, I needed to maintain my human form.

I held up my hands in the glowing blue cuffs. “Now that you have me, what are you going to do with me?”

His detached expression remained. “Why don’t you follow me and find out?” He crooked a finger in my direction, and something shoved against my back, as though invisible hands pushed me from behind.

I whipped around to look behind my shoulder, but nothing was there. Yet the force remained. Whatever magic Jakub commanded was incredibly strong, because the force at my back was like a telekinetic spell on steroids.

“What you’re sensing is merely a taste of all that’s at my fingertips,” he called over his shoulder. There was no arrogance in his tone, no boastfulness, merely a cold hard fact that he was enlightening me to.

“What are you?”

“I’m sure you’ve often asked yourself the same.”

I struggled against the force pushing me, but even though I planted my feet on the floor, using my newly enhanced werewolf strength, it was useless. I was no match for it.

“You can fight me all you want, but it will be futile. I am the master here, and you will be one of my puppets, just as the others are.”

“What do you mean by—” The question died on my lips when the force pushed me into a large open room.

My throat turned dry as my eyes popped wide open.

The room was a perfect concrete circle, maybe a hundred feet in diameter with a soaring domed ceiling. No windows. No color. Just concrete. And around the room’s perimeter was a circle of cages.

Just like in the nightclub.

Inside each cell was a supernatural. Fairy, vampire, werewolf, siren, half-demon, the list went on. Every single supernatural species that existed was in one of the cages. There were men and women, young and old.

Shit on a stick. This really isn’t good.

I knew I was staring at the twelve missing supernaturals that the SF had been searching for. A flash of something Tessa had said came to me, from when she’d been a captive in Jakub’s collection. “There’d been other supernaturals, too, across from our cells, but they’d been there longer than the three of us, and they were—I don’t know what they were doing to them, but it left them . . . It changed them.”

My heartbeat ticked up more as I assessed the twelve supes’ vacant expressions. “What did you do to them?”

Jakub gave me a perplexed look, as though it were obvious. “They’ve been harvested.”

I began to tremble, my entire body vibrating, but not in fear. Fury strummed through me that this psychopath felt he had the right to do this to others.

It took everything in me not to lash out at him and kill him once and for all, but I couldn’t, not yet. I needed to know what his endgame was, why he was doing this.

So instead, I felt inside myself again for the mate bond, hoping I could feel if Kaillen was coming, if he’d sensed where I was and I could know if he was on his way.

But then his one fear came back to me.

He’d been worried that I would be transported to a building that he couldn’t penetrate. I eyed the concrete walls again and swallowed hard.

I felt inside for him and gave a frantic tug.

An immediate tug came back, nearly violent in its pull. My relief was so swift that I nearly slumped to the floor from it. I sent a soothing response toward him, as best I could, just so he wouldn’t panic like I had when our co

“What did you do to Kaillen on the cliff?” I asked Jakub.

Jakub cocked an eyebrow just as the sound of stomping feet came from the hallway he’d dragged me from. Twelve supernaturals marched out, each of them carrying a long sharp-pointed metallic spear. All twelve of them sported the constellation tattoo, and their tattoos were glowing.

They moved quickly and efficiently around the room, each of them placing their spear on the floor in front of each cage. When they finished, they bowed at Jakub. Actually bowed, like he was some freakin’ high lord.

The submissive gesture halted them long enough for me to see their faces and expressions. Like the caged supernaturals, Jakub’s men also held distant gazes, as though they no longer commanded their own senses.

My brow furrowed. “What did you do to them?”

Before Jakub could reply, his men left, leaving me alone with the dipshit. The spears all stayed on the ground, pointed toward the center of the room.

“Tell me!” I demanded again when Jakub didn’t reply.

“I take what I need from them when I need it,” was all he said.

“Are the supernaturals working for you part of the European mafia too?”

He cocked his head. “You know where I hail from?”

“Answer me!”

“That is not your concern.”

A prick of fear strummed through me, but I shoved it aside and focused on distracting Jakub, on delaying whatever he had pla

“He’s still alive if that’s what you’re wondering.” I know. “But I couldn’t have him interfering, now could I?” Jakub added.

That invisible force shoved me again, this time toward the center of the room. I pushed against it, thrashing and flailing as fury exploded into my gut that he was treating me like a doll.

Jakub waved a hand and all twelve cages opened, their doors swinging on silent hinges as the vacant-looking supernaturals came to attention like zombies in their cells.

Frantic breaths rose my chest, but I squashed any panic down as I dove into that deep dark cavern inside me and reached for my awakening power. Even though I wanted to discover Jakub’s endgame, if Kaillen couldn’t get here in time, then waiting was no longer an option.

Jakub needed to die. I needed to escape. And this place needed to be destroyed.

I grasped my awakening power just as the force holding me in place positioned me in the center of the room and held me there. My eyes widened when I realized I stood in the center of a circle. Etched into the concrete floor were constellation symbols and circles.

My heart beat harder when I looked at the spears. They looked like . . . arrows. Heart ticking up even more, I frantically took in the catatonic supernaturals marching toward those spears from their cages. All of them had constellation tattoos on their necks.

The moment the twelve catatonic-looking supernaturals picked up their spears, their tattoos began to glow, telling me that our theory of the tattoos somehow holding magic was even more likely.

Around me, the constellation symbols carved into the floor hummed and then flared to life, a turquoise hue rising from them.

“Why do I have a feeling I’m in the middle of a ritual?” I asked, yet despite trying to keep the panic from my voice, it cracked.

Jakub’s only response was a cool flick of his eyes my way.

The tentacled power inside me rose and slithered, just as another tug came from the mate bond, stronger and filled with so much wrath that I knew Kaillen had sensed my panic. Hope burned through me along with renewed determination. Kaillen was alive and searching for me. I just had to hold on until he arrived.