72

The tunnel doorway opened into a hallway. It wasn’t the earthen-floored darkness of the tunnel system, but more like the servants’ hallways that snaked on the lower floors of the manor. It was narrow with stone walls and dim lighting.

I pushed the secret door to the tunnel closed behind me. The cold air was permeated with a terrible stench of ammonia and iron – piss and blood. Then, a wail cut through the air, low and long. A weak cry of pain. Behind that, a howl sounded. A thump like a body being struck. The scrape of metal on metal.

Cold fear crawled into my throat. The dungeons weren’t just a holding place—people were being hurt. I pulled my knife from my waistband and crept down the narrow hallway, toward the terrible sounds calling me like a dark siren. The hallway led to an immense archway. There wasn’t even a door. The dungeons were just open, as if I were already in the dungeons now. I most likely was. The tunnels had been a secret entrance. I’d bet that behind me, at the far end of this hallway, there was a great locked door to keep the prisoners inside.

I pressed myself to the wall to try to hide as best as I could, and peeked around the archway.

It was only the fear of being caught that kept me from crying out. The main center of the dungeon was immense, as if whoever had built it had expected to keep and torture half an army. A huge wooden table was just off the center of the dungeon, half in shadow, surrounded by rolling tables dotted with saws and flogs and knives and hammers.

A skinny man was strapped the table by heavy leather straps, and he tugged ineffectually and lethargically against them. Occasionally, he stilled, so only his chest moved with his breaths, and then suddenly he’d jerk back into wakefulness and cry out. He didn’t seem to notice my presence at all. Nor did the others held in the dungeons, in the tiny, dank cells that lined the walls. They were all wolves, in their animal shape, in various states of sickness and injury. Most were pressed into the far corners of their holding cells, making themselves small. Internally, my wolf cried out at the sight.

Who was doing this? Was this all the work of the Bloody King? Certainly these all couldn’t be Daybreak wolves. And for what reason were they being held?

“Reyna,” a familiar voice whispered. “Is that you?”

My heart soared, whiplash from the despair of a moment ago. Griffin. He was here—he was alive. We had to get out of here, and fast. Whoever had strapped that man to the table… I had a feeling they would be coming back to finish the job. I hurried across the dungeon. Some of the wolves stirred at my presence, baring their teeth and raising their hackles, but some didn’t even have the energy to lift their heads.

In the furthest cell, Griffin was still in his human form. He reached through the bars, and I took his hand.

“Griffin,” I said. “Are you hurt?”

“You’ve come for me,” he said. He sounded almost awed. A gash marked his cheek, and his tan soldier’s uniform was streaked with dirt, but he seemed okay. “How’d you find this place?”

“Of course I came.” I squeezed his hand. “Did you think I’d leave you here to die?”

“Die?” Griffin’s brow furrowed. “The only one who is going to die is the King of Nightfall.”

“What?” I pulled my hand away. “You can’t be thinking of going through with this challenge.”

“He’s taken too much from us already,” Griffin growled. His eyes flashed clay-red again, and my wolf raised her hackles at the sudden and unexpected show of dominance. I’d never seen his wolf this close to the surface, not outside of a planned moon-shift. “I’m going to destroy him. The challenge is just the beginning.”

“He hasn’t taken anything from us,” Not yet, at least. “All he’s done is force me to participate in this stupid competition. And I thought we both agreed I’d handle this so we could start our lives.”

“You don’t understand,” Griffin said, low. “Frasia doesn’t belong to him—it belongs to your pack. To your father. To Daybreak. And when we marry, it will belong to me.”

He bared his teeth in an instinctive show of aggression, like the thought of the challenge filled him with a violent desire he couldn’t suppress.

This wasn’t the man I knew. This wasn’t the plan we’d made.

Then it all began to click into place.

“You didn’t come here to try to ‘rescue’ me,” I said slowly. “I’m just an excuse to challenge for the throne.”

“Of course I want you to be mine,” he said, “but our lives are secondary to the throne.”

“Secondary?” I gaped at him. “We were supposed to have our own lives, away from the court!”

He stepped closer to the bars and tipped his head to the side. “You had to have known that was a fantasy,” he said condescendingly.

“We had a plan,” I said. Shock pinned me to the spot. “I trusted you.”

“You can’t have wanted that to happen to your pack,” he said. “To your family. To lose the King’s Choice? After losing the throne by force? It would’ve brought so much shame. You really thought we could go through with that plan?”

“I thought you didn’t care about any of that!” I whisper-shouted. My world was crumbling around me. “I thought you cared about me!”

“I do care about you,” Griffin said. “Reyna, I do.”

I found it was becoming harder and harder to believe him. I wrapped my arms around myself, feeling cold and small in the dungeon.

“See it how you wish,” Griffin continued, “but your father needed a reason for me to come challenge for the throne. Your presence here was the perfect reasoning. And now, the king will die, and the Kingdom of Frasia will be returned rightfully to Daybreak.” “Has this been the plan all along?” I asked quietly.

Griffin sighed. “Reyna, you can’t really believe I was satisfied with what we had, can you?” I did. I thought he was. I was satisfied—why wasn’t he?