Land of Monsters (Savage Lands #8)

Chapter 9

The moon slipped through the heavy woodlands. The craggy terrain, coated with ice, snow, and mud, made the trek strenuous. Smoke billowed from the chimneys of the homes scattered around the land, the soil heavy with magic.

There was no escaping the sensation that the land felt haunted, the result of centuries of war, death, and pain. Tragedy soaked into the earth, wrapping itself with fae magic, which pulsed like a vein in the neck.

Bram Stoker’s fairy tale, though he never stepped foot in this country, lured people from all over the world with his words. As if the story he made up was what really happened inside these walls, when the truth was far more salacious and luring. This history wasn’t recorded in human history books but were stories that simply echoed in the land if you listened closely enough.

“There.” Dzsinn pointed through a break in the trees, speaking for the first time since we departed Bra?ov.

My gaze went up to the stone castle perched on a hill between two valleys. Firebulbs glowed around the base of the fortress, making it look like it floated in the sky. Snow coated the reddish-brown peaked roofs and tipped the branches of the trees like frosting.

Sitting at the Eastern border of Transylvania, the fortress was once used in an attempt to stop the Ottoman Empire’s expansion. Vlad the Impaler passed through here, burning villages and murdering hundreds of people. After the fae abandoned this land and went into hiding, it had seen many human leaders come and go and witnessed many wars and famines.

The place spoken in lore, truth or not, became the bones of the castle. It sat high, casting a dominance on the village below. It wasn’t the biggest or prettiest castle in this area by far, but it held a power. A past that clung to the stone, a memoir of its complicated tale.

In my gut, I knew Raven was here, as if I could hear her calling for me. Feel her power drawing me to her like a spell more commanding than any lore.

“There are at least a dozen guards based around the entrance.” Dzsinn held binoculars to his face, his head scanning over the property. “A dozen guards are at the front gate, a few in the forest behind, and a handful down at this back gate.” He handed them over to me.

Taking them from him, I peered through the night-vision lens. The distance and clarity were so sharp I could make out every feature of the men through the dense night, even the smallest details of the old gas jeep sitting at the back gate.

These weren’t cheap. “Nice.”

“My connections allow me the best of the best.”

“Someone is pretty high up in the Unified Nations to get top-grade stuff like this.” I shifted my pack on my shoulders, feeling the warmth from two tiny forms sleeping in there.

Dzsinn didn’t respond, and I didn’t expect him to; his connections were what kept him in business. He would protect them at all costs.

“I have no doubt they will have Druid spells around the walls.” I handed him back his binoculars.

“And I told you it wouldn’t be a problem.” He stuffed them back into his bag, his attention still on the castle.

I stared at him, recalling our chat from the night before, the intimate information he shared with me about himself earlier.

“There are all sorts of Djinns, and each type holds unique powers. My type, which is very rare …I am immune to Druid magic.”

“What?” My head jerked to him.

“It’s where we got the reputation for being all-powerful. When Druids couldn’t hurt or stop us, some believed we held the ultimate supremacy.” He folded his hands. “And unless my moles are dead, no one, except another genie, can break our summons.”

That’s why he reacted the way he did when his spies didn’t respond. “So either they’re dead, or Sonya has another Genie hidden away in there?”

His attention went to the room, not answering my question.

“If you are touching me, I can get us both through any Druid spell without notice.” Dzsinn looked uncomfortable sharing this knowledge. “I can get us in, and I have connections to get a fae lock pick. Though they are getting less reliable, the spells to guard them are getting tougher.”

“Won’t be necessary.” I grinned, sipping my brandy. “I have my own.”

Sitting back now, my gaze darted to the pack hanging off my chair, then returned to him. “Now tell me how we are getting into the castle.”

“The tunnel location is near that back gate.” He pointed down the road to a handful of guards and two jeeps. “Getting through the spell will be easy enough, but getting past them and through fae locks won’t be.”

I smirked, my elbow tapping into my pack. “Wake up, menaces. Time to rise and wreak havoc.”

Dzsinn’s lids narrowed, not understanding who I was talking to until a muffled noise came from the bag.

“Keep your super-packin’ briefs on, mushroom man,” Opie grumbled, climbing out of the pack and onto my shoulder, the imp in the backpack behind him looking pissed off at the world. “This level of art takes time.”

Dzsinn tried not to react, but it wasn’t every day you saw a brownie and an imp dressed in strips of rope, parchment, bits of t-shirt, and duct tape.

“Opie, did you destroy the rope?” I groaned, nodding at the bag I kept the supplies in.

“It’s really your fault, isn’t it?”

Yeah, I should’ve known better.

“That shirt was to find Raven’s scent.” I motioned to the fabric around his ass.

“You know how bored I get! And we were in there for years!”

“It was two hours.”

“Close enough,” he exclaimed, touching Raven’s shirt that he cut up like a fringe miniskirt, strands of rope bunching the fabric up around his waist. Duct tape circled his chest and biceps like a tube top, and he added a paper fan, made from the castle blueprints, on top of his head like a crown. Bitzy had a mini crown, which was held down with duct tape, t-shirt diapers, and a rope as a tie. “I thought you left supplies for me to fashion amazing outfits like this.”

Dzsinn stared. “A brownie?” Brownies were known to be exclusive creatures, only venturing out at night to clean and pinch tiny, shiny things in payment. They usually preferred very little contact with people, but Opie was anything but ordinary.

“This is Opie and Bitzy.” I gestured to them and nodded to him. “Dzsinn.”

Chirp! Bitzy flipped him off with both hands, slumping down further into her little seat. She was still pouting because I left the mushrooms back in the room.

“Ohh, you’re a genie?” Opie clasped his hands. “I’ll bet you love when they rub you off!”

“Oh gods,” I muttered, trying not to groan or laugh.

Dzsinn just blinked more. Opie was a lot to take.

“You have sub-fae with you?” Dzsinn’s gaze went over them.

“Fortunately or unfortunately. Not quite sure which one.”

Chirp! Chirp! Basically, fuck you, asshole .

“Yes, Bitz, you think I’m the worst right now.” I rolled my eyes, muttering. “Cranky imp.”

“An imp?” His attention snapped to her, really taking her in like he hadn’t quite noticed her before. They were almost non-existent anymore; the population was nearly annihilated because their bodily fluids were known to have great healing properties for fae.

Shock flickered to a hungry glow in the genie’s plain brown eyes, like he could see her worth. The price of such a rare species. What someone would pay for her.

A blast of fury cracked a tree branch over his head, dropping a heavy limb next to his feet, his focus jumping back to me. I didn’t have to say a word for him to understand what I was saying.

You touch her. You die.

His eyes narrowed in confusion at my response. It was rare, even in today’s world, for sub-fae to be treated as equals. To be protected. I never liked the behavior toward them before, but even more now because these two were family. Against our refutes and denials, especially Warwick’s, they had wiggled into our lives and become part of us. And every one of us would kill for these two.

“Do you like it when they rub your lantern hard or soft? Or maybe spank it?”

“Opie…”

“What? He might be into that! Who are we to judge?”

I sighed. “Remember I said if you came along, you’d stay quiet?”

“No, but I remember when you begged for these fingers, which can spread magic in the tiniest of holes and crevices, to assist your needs.” He wiggled his hands.

“I’m regretting all my life choices right now,” I grumbled, slipping the backpack off my shoulder. “I also asked for you to find Raven. And since you’re wearing her shirt, I need you to track her scent so you can locate her once you’re inside.”

“Wh-what? I’m sorry, did you say track her scent?” Opie exclaimed. “I’m not a dog!”

“Do you find someone by their smell?”

“Well, yeah…” He crossed his arms. “But I’m more like a sommelier!” He whiffed his hand at his nose. “Detecting the subtle hints of their bodily juices.”

“Oh gods. Please shut up.” I turned my attention to Dzsinn, his eyes still greedily watching the imp. My manner shifted, my voice low. “Just know they belong to Brexley, and if anything happens to them, you do anything to either, it won’t just be me you will deal with. The Wolf will come for you too.”

I saw the most subtle gulp before he nodded.

“I understand.” I could see truth in his eyes. “Besides, sub-fae, in my experience, can be some of the best moles.”

“Dogs, now moles?” Opie huffed, stomping his foot on my shoulder. “Do I look like a furry animal with a big nose to you?”

“I’m not gonna answer that,” I replied, placing Opie on the ground. “Remember what I told you?”

“Yes.” Opie nodded with a huff. “Don’t be myself.”

“That’s not what I said.” I ground my teeth. “I said don’t do anything crazy. We need just a small distraction, nothing that tells the entire castle we are here. Stick to the plan and get back to us. Do not deviate. Got it?”

Another huff.

“Got it?”

“Yes.”

Chirp! Bitzy flipped me off. I was gonna take it as a yes too.

I gulped, emotion gripping my chest, realizing everything at stake. “And please stay safe.”

Opie peered up at me. “You too, Master Ash. Otherwise, I will have failed Master Fishy, and the big guy will be so mad at me.”

Chirp! I translated her middle finger as words of love, but more likely, it was, “Don’t die, asshole, because I won’t get those mushrooms you promised me!”

Without another word, the brownie and imp disappeared into the darkness, heading for the group of soldiers guarding the back gate. The plan was simple: if they drew the guards’ focus enough, we could slip by unnoticed.

“You trust them to pull this off?” Dzsinn asked, gripping a gun in his hand.

“I trust them to cause mayhem.” I tucked further into my hood, pulling my weapon from the back of my pants. In my mind, I envisioned the map we had studied the night before, the blueprint of the castle, the markings that noted a tunnel built just under the building in the back entrance where the guards stood now. Most likely designed for the rulers of the castle to escape if they were invaded. “Let’s go.”

Sonya and Iain would be expecting me; they’d be waiting for me to come for her and be on alert for any sign I was trying to get in. I wanted to make sure that didn’t happen. Slip in with the help of a genie without detection.

Jumping across a frozen creek bed, we crept closer to the back gate. The way the men weren’t chatting or moving around prickled at my gut. The way they stood seemed unnatural, robotic, and a few of them twitched, as if something under their skin was starting to consume them.

I couldn’t deny Sonya had the formula and was changing these human men, following in Istvan’s footsteps. I had seen it too many times in Věrh?za: guards losing themselves bit by bit, day by day. As if their systems first went into shock, shutting down, going unemotional, before the fae essence started to change their chromosomes, turning them into beasts. Most humans couldn’t adapt to the change, their brains pretty much melting and dying in the most painful way. Human bodies were not meant to encase magic like ours.

My working theory was if you did survive, like Hanna, it was because somewhere in your bloodline, you had fae DNA.

“Where the fuck are they?” Dzsinn muttered to me as time ticked by, every second adding to the tension, the fear this would all fall apart before it even started.

“I don’t know.”

Right as I spoke, a hissed crackle filled the air. Dread dropped in my stomach. Peering around a tree, my eyes caught a burning rag dangling from the old jeep’s gas tank. Even a hint of gasoline or fumes left inside would be enough.

“Oh fuc—”

BOOOOM!

The jeep flew up into the air, a fireball exploding from the belly, twisting the frame as it flipped down the road, the shriek of metal tearing through the quiet sky, scraping the pavement. The guards reacted instantly, running toward the jeep, their hollers mingling with the roaring inferno, creating more chaos.

“That was not the plan,” Dzsinn hissed next to me.

“No, but it worked.”

Taking advantage of their distraction, we slipped out from the woods, darting across the street. The sounds of more men shouting from above, heading for the commotion, drove up my adrenaline.

This pretty much just announced my arrival.

“Grab onto me and don’t let go,” Dzsinn ordered me, pulling up his cloak and displaying his pale arm. I had to be touching him directly for the spell to let me go through too. I squeezed his forearm as he pulled us through the enchantment, running through the arched stone gate. Normally, going through fae doors or spells was like stepping through jelly. It rubbed at your skin, the energy fizzing around you, but this felt like it recoiled, sucking back, not wanting to touch us. Like we were the ones who had a barrier around us, giving us room to walk through.

The moment we were inside the grounds, we darted for the specific structure. The blueprint showed the tunnel started right under one of the outbuildings.

“It’s locked.” Dzsinn tried the handle.

I peered around for my two companions. The reverberations of another car rumbled down the hill from us, the shouts of men just feet away. At any moment, they could return and find us here.

“Where the fuck are they?” Dzsinn snapped. The sound of boots hitting the gravel caught my breath. Two figures came around the building, freezing us in place. Deep in our dark wool cloaks, we pinned ourselves into the shadows as two soldiers, leaving their guard posts along the forest behind, ran by. My finger pressed on the trigger, ready to fire, my pulse hammering in my ears. The guards barreled past us toward the commotion.

“Too close,” Dzsinn muttered. “We can’t stand here. We have to find another way in.” The genie twisted for the steps heading up, the dark forest providing more cover.

Right then, my attention caught on something scurrying toward us through the darkness, my chest heaving with relief seeing Opie scamper up the steps to us. “Your saviors are here!”

“Saviors?” I clipped, swiping down and picking him up, Bitzy snug in his backpack, flipping me off. “You practically screamed we were here. I asked for a subtle distraction, not this.”

“That was subtle.” Opie frowned.

“To Warwick, maybe.”

“We had to improvise.” He shrugged.

“Hey.” Dzsinn motioned for the locked door. “Talk later. Unlock this door now.”

“So bossy.” Opie put his hands on his hips. “Sounds like you might need your lamp rubbed again.”

Chirp-chirp.

“I was not volunteering myself!”

“Just unlock the door!” I hissed, peering over my shoulder. The noises from the fire and the men drowned us out, but I could feel their interest in the explosion waning. No longer looking for the how, but looking for the who. “Hurry.”

“The broomstick is back up your ass again, fairy.” Opie stretched his fingers together, using my hand as a perch. “Relax.”

“I’ll relax when you get us in.”

“How many times have I failed?”

I slanted my head.

“Okay, how many times today?”

“Just get us inside.”

He started to fiddle with the lock, his face scrunching up. “Ohhhh, this is old school.” He bit his lip. “I thiiinnkk I goottt it…”

“Hurry!” Dzsinn whispered hoarsely. The screech of an army jeep pulled through the archway, the headlights beaming along the back, but it would only be seconds until someone looked over and spotted us in the doorway of the building.

“Opie…”

Click!

The door gave way, and we stumbled into the dark room. I shut it behind us, listening for anyone calling out our location. Seeing us enter.

“Can we stop with the close calls?” Dzsinn huffed. “Brownies aren’t usually this loud and annoying.”

“And to that I say, you are welcome, sir.” Opie bowed, showing the parchment fan on his head was singed at the edges.

“That wasn’t a compliment,” Dzsinn muttered, moving deeper into the space.

Chirp! Bitzy stuck up her fingers at the genie.

“Everyone be quiet,” I muttered, already scoping out the room. The house was probably once the groundkeeper’s, left mainly abandoned with just threadbare, dusty curtains and a large rug. I searched for any cuts in the wood panels, uneven sections, or a trap door that could lead to the tunnels.

“Shit.” Dzsinn’s low voice pulled me to him, following his attention to the far wall.

I blinked.

“Fuck.” I stood straight, taking in the top-grade rifles decorating the entire wall. “Sonya’s got some connections.”

“They’re Russian-made.” Dzsinn’s brown eyes met mine. “Military issued.”

“ Kapd be a faszom . ” Suck my dick . I muttered, not wanting to think about the implications. The very people pretending to play nice with the Unified Nations, trying to become allies, were giving weapons to Sonya? Was this a one-time transaction, or were they working together?

My stomach knotted at the notion the same people hunting Raven were also tied to Sonya. Did she already know who she had in her prison? Was I too late? Anxiety bubbled up my throat, a desperation to find my girl.

“Caut? pe camp!” Search the field! a voice boomed from outside, whipping us around, drilling more panic into my bones.

“The entrance to the tunnel has to be somewhere here,” I spat. The building was old, but not as old as the castle. The tunnels would have come first. “Check the floorboards.” I dropped to my knees, Opie leaping down next to me on the ground, searching as my fingers ran over the planks.

Dzsinn kicked at the rug, pulling it away from the floor, but nothing looked different, no hidden trap. “There’s nothing here.”

The door to the house rattled and my heart stopped, my head lurching up. The door handle twisted, only seconds away from people entering, finding us here.

Dzsinn and I moved at the same time, bolting across the space to a closet near the gun wall. Swinging the door open, I stumbled forward, my foot not finding purchase. A full step down, my boot hit a stone stair, my body slamming into the wall with a thud.

Dzsinn rushed in after me, Opie slipping in right as our door shut and the outside door opened.

Darkness enveloped us, the clunks of boots moving right next to us, squeaking the wood floors. I could hear them grabbing weapons before running out again, the door slamming behind them.

Taking a deep breath, I sought to calm my beating heart, my eyes trying to adjust to the pure darkness, feeling Opie crawl up onto my shoulder.

“Does it smell like rat cum to you guys, too?”

“What?” Dzsinn choked at Opie’s words.

Chirp!

“I don’t know personally, I was just asking!”

Chirp! Chirp!

“Not true! That’s a total misunderstanding!”

“Both of you shut up.” Digging into my pack, I yanked out a flashlight, the beam defining the small stairwell we were in. Uneven and worn, the steps curved around, taking us to a low basement. The stale air held a timeworn smell of rotting soil, vegetables, and oats, like this was once used to store food. Before refrigerators, most basements were used to keep things cool. They came back in style after the wall between worlds fell twenty-two years ago when electricity frizzled out all human-made appliances, the system not able to bear the magic.

Dzsinn pulled out his own flashlight, moving to the opposite side of me, both of us searching the dingy room. Nothing much was in it except a stack of wooden crates at one end. Trudging to them, I shoved them over, my torch illuminating the ground where they sat, landing on a change in the foundation, a cut in the stone.

“Here!” I dove down, my fingers scraping around the outline of a trap door. Dzsinn rushed over, and we dug out the packed dirt around the edges, pulling the hatch up with a grunt.

Pointing my torch into the hole revealed another set of stairs leading deeper underground to a tunnel that would bring us inside the castle walls.

To her.

Images of her smile, her irritation, her laughter, making me scramble down the steps, desperate to get to her with a frenzy I didn’t understand. It robbed me of air. Of any logic.

Pulling out my gun, I kept the flashlight in my other hand as I descended the steps, the air becoming even more stale and musty.

Dragging the crates back overhead, trying to show as little evidence of our existence as possible, Dzsinn followed me down. His own torch bounced shadows off the walls, our feet echoing our steps on the uneven stone. Low, crude ceilings forced my head down, the walls closing in on my shoulders. The tunnel stretched out before me, with nothing but endless darkness in front of my beam. PTSD from my prison time kicked in, heating my veins with anxiety. To be trapped underground, in dark, cramped quarters bubbled up a wail inside my chest. I wanted to turn back, to breathe air, to feel dirt between my toes, but I pushed forward.

Raven. Her name repeated in my head like a chant.

“When was the last time anyone cleaned down here?” Opie fidgeted against my neck. “Not that I would clean it… I mean, I hate to clean… but it’s so filthy!”

“So is your mind,” I muttered.

Chirp! Chirp! Chirp! Bitzy responded, sounding more like a cackled laugh.

“Really, tree humper, you are going to talk about dirty after what I watched in the room the other night?”

“I thought you didn’t arrive until that morning?” My nose wrinkled up.

“Technically it was morning…”

“And you watched?”

“No.”

Chirp!

“Okay, well, not the whole time.”

Chirp!

“No, I didn’t enjoy it!” Opie exclaimed. “Like you can talk. I know where your middle finger went later!”

“Please, stop talking now.” Though I welcomed the distraction, their chatter kept me from losing my shit.

Taking steady breaths and staying calm, I kept my feet moving forward. The path quickly began to climb, taking us up the hill in long switchback sections.

The beam of my torch reflected off something in front of me, my eyes squinting to make sure I wasn’t imagining it.

A hiccup bounced in my lungs.

“Look.” I pointed my light for Dzsinn to see a ladder stretching up to a manhole overhead, the metal of the cover bouncing back my light. Tucking the flashlight and my gun in my pants, I scaled the creaky wooden ladder. A deep grunt rose from my chest when I pushed at the manhole, my muscles straining as I rammed my strength into it.

A pop of air released with a whistle, the cover sliding over and revealing the night sky.

“Turn off the torch,” I ordered Dzsinn below me. Gripping my weapon again, I slowly stuck my head out of the hole, peering around. The castle loomed overhead, the lights from it glowing down on the snowy trees and bushes, a frozen pond a few yards away. Opie hopped off my shoulder and dropped into the powdered snow.

“Good thing I brought the warming toe gel!” He wiggled his feet.

“Yeah, that’s what it’s used for,” I scoffed, cataloging every detail near me.

I slipped out and Dzsinn scaled to the top right after, getting his boots on solid ground.

“There.” Dzsinn motioned over, my eye following him to an arched doorway built into the rocky hillside. “One of the last queens here put in an elevator and a direct passage from her tower to her private gardens in her older age. That should be our way in.”

Snow crunched underfoot as we made our way to the door. Voices from below could still be heard, but the commotion was no longer a distraction. They were on high alert now.

Reaching the door, I cast my senses out, trying to hear anything on the other side. Met with silence, I put my hand next to the lock, nodding for Opie to climb up to my arm.

Not even a minute later, I lifted the handle, gun pointed forward, opening it gradually so as not to make a sound. I stepped inside, my finger twitching on the trigger, ready to find a troop of guards waiting for us. My gaze and body darted around, scanning the larger corridor we moved into.

Opie, returning to my shoulder, gripped my hair as if he sensed something wrong like I did. A sick, sinking sensation dropped into my gut.

Firebulbs flickered on as we moved deeper into the large underground tunnel. The remains of old tourist displays were scattered around, giving information on the castle and mythical vampire, but they weren’t the most recent additions to this ancient place.

“Fuck. Me.” The gun almost dropped from my hand. Hot-cold sweat dampened my skin at the memory of seeing this before, knowing exactly what it was.

A factual horror was being written here.

“What the fuck?” Dzsinn’s tone shivered up my spine, his eyes wide, not understanding what he was seeing.

The wall was lined with several dozen tanks, each filled with a body suspended in liquid. Humans.

My stomach heaved when my eyes landed on the person inside the first tank.

Iacob.

“Oh gods,” I muttered as my gaze drifted down, recognizing a handful more human men from the pagan encampment. There were ones I didn’t recognize, and I assumed the rest of the men were from villages around here.

Unconscious and naked, they were submerged in a clear substance, a mouthpiece breathing air into their lungs as they waited.

This was their priming station, the first step in their change to becoming fae-like.

Volunteers or not, most of these people would die in the transition.

“Seriously, what the fuck is this?” Dzsinn asked.

“Frankenstein’s lair.”

The rumors about what Istvan had been doing leaked out with dime-novel absurdness. Most never got close to the truth of the chilling things he achieved, even worse than the stories. Many did not want to believe it, even when they saw the soldiers he created with their own eyes.

I had seen it all. Experienced the truth of every rumor.

Dzsinn would’ve heard all the tales, his ear close to the ground, but seeing it was different than experiencing it.

“This is the first stage.” Air battled in my lungs at the knowledge that soon a fae would be hooked up to them, dumping their essence into the human body, changing their human DNA forever. If they survived it.

Caden was the first successful case done this way. His own father hooked him up to Warwick, ripping the Wolf of his magic and placing it in his son, turning his son from human to fae.

Caden and Warwick now shared characteristics and traits, bonding them like twin brothers, while they continued to resent each other, disliking the link tying them to each other for infinity.

“They are being prepped to be connected to a fae.” Sonya was replicating Istvan’s work. Taking what he did and making her own mindless drones. To do this, she would need a lot of fae to use as donors, fae that were at her mercy. Like others from the encampment, like Vlad and Codrin.

A growl formed in the back of my throat. My determination to find Raven grew like weeds taking over my body.

“Ash!” Dzsinn hissed as I bolted down the corridor, my fury ready to level everything that got in my way. If one strand of hair on her head had been hurt, I would rain hell on this fortress.

The firebulbs flicked on when I passed, my feet clipping the paved floor, my soles squeaking when I came to the end in front of an out-of-use elevator, cutting off our path to reach the castle.

Every second I wasted, she could be tortured, could already be losing herself to Sonya’s mission. Warwick was lucky; death seemed to stay clear of him, but most fae were not. They didn’t make it after all their power was drained from them.

“No.” I tried to rip open the doors, but the doors were jammed firmly together. “No!” I bashed at the frame, prying and pulling, noises burning the back of my throat.

“Ash?” My name drifted to me, but I couldn’t stop, my frustration snapping into pieces. “Ash!”

Dzsinn’s voice finally snapped my head to him. He stood just slightly around the curved elevator, waving me on to follow him. Confused, I peered around, thinking it was a dead end, but a small hallway trailed behind the elevator to another section of the underground labyrinth.

The rough cut of the walls, the fresh dirt and rock dusting the unpaved path, suggested it was a newer addition, sending a warning up the back of my neck.

Dzsinn and I held our guns, slipping down the passage, when noises started echoing through the tunnel, booming roars and high-pitched shrieks. Every hair on my body stood on end, my system flooding with alarm. The path turned, becoming a metal walkway with a bridge opening up to a cavern below. The entire ground floor was filled with at least thirty cots with young women chained to them. Wearing almost nothing, some human, some fae, they all appeared beaten, drained, and shut down.

My stomach rolled again when I spotted Celeste, Viorica, Brandu?a, and a few others from the camp among the women chained to the beds.

However, the beings watching them, moving through the beds, guarding the women, turned me to stone. My brain struggled to understand what I was seeing, trying to classify it so I would understand.

“What the fuck?” The words barely made it out. Unfathomable fear drove a stake through me, pinning me to the floor. Every ordeal I went through in Věrh?za, every horror I experienced, hadn’t prepared me for this.

The stomach-turning beasts were below me.

And right in the middle was Raven.