A Kiss of Blood (Vamp City #2)(43)

She and Jazlyn were in this together, now, whether that meant escaping in unison or suffering the slave auction hand in hand.

Lily couldn’t . . . wouldn’t . . . leave her friend behind.

Quinn woke with a groan, her arms at once numb and in pain, as if they’d been pulled out of their sockets. Her mouth ached where a cloth gag bit into the corners. She felt herself hanging, her wrists caught tight in . . . manacles. But her feet were dragging the floor.

Stumbling, she righted herself, pushing herself to her feet, easing the pressure on her wrists, which were, apparently, chained to the stone wall behind her. If only she could as easily relieve the pounding in her head.

The last thing she remembered was . . . wolves.

Her heart began to race as it all came back, how the wolves had surrounded them, attacked them. How, for once, she’d managed to use her power for defense, but she’d been unable to keep Arturo from getting caught in it, too. How impossible it had been to hit the wolves with her bullets even at close range. Or, if she had hit them and didn’t know it, how impossible they’d been to kill. Only one had gone down, and he hadn’t stayed there for long.

Ultimately, none of it had been enough. One of them had shifted into a man and slammed his fist into her jaw. Lights out.

Had Arturo gotten away?

Blinking, she found herself deep in the shadows, ribbons of light teasing the dirt floor beneath her feet as a torch flickered outside the bars of her prison cell, just out of sight.

Why would they chain her up inside a prison cell? Talk about redundant. Then again, they knew she was a sorceress. Maybe they thought this would keep her power in check. Wouldn’t they be in for a surprise? She doubted chaining her would stop anything. Anything but her ability to escape.

Rolling her shoulders eased the ache in her arms as she listened to the faint rumble of voices in the distance. Above her, the ceiling appeared to be nothing but rock, as if she were deep beneath the ground.

A prisoner of werewolves.

Hell.

Tipping her throbbing head carefully against the rock, she sighed, her heart rate slowly returning to normal, which under the circumstances, it probably shouldn’t. If they had an ounce of sense, they’d realize she was the only one who might be able to save Vamp City. They’d be fools to hurt her.

“Vampire?” she called softly, but no reply met her ears. Her heart clutched as it occurred to her that he might not have survived.

The thought stunned her. He had to have survived. Arturo Mazza could not be gone. Not after six hundred years. Not like this.

No, he wasn’t dead. She refused to believe it. But if he were free, she wouldn’t still be in this cell. He was probably chained up, too, somewhere.

Well, one of them was going to have to get them out of here. It might as well be her.

The manacles were tight around her wrists—too tight to pull her hands through—so she tried yanking the chains free from the wall behind her. That didn’t work. Not the human way, at least. Closing her eyes, she concentrated, imagining the manacles popping open, imagining the chains flying free and not . . . thank you very much . . . knocking her out in the process. Still nothing.

Arturo?

No reply, of course. He’d never been able to hear her thoughts. And all she heard in return was her stomach growling with hunger.

Tipping her head back, she railed at her sorcerer’s power to be of some use, dammit.

Suddenly, she heard something. The creak of hinges nearby.

She went still, her pulse accelerating. At the sound of footsteps, her mind sighed with relief even as her muscles tensed, and her heart began to race.

A shadow appeared on the ground outside her cage, and grew, followed closely by the appearance of a man—a big, heavily muscled, and thoroughly naked man with broad shoulders, a bushy mop of light brown hair, and a beard to match. Though incredibly well built, he was not a particularly good-looking male, his mouth too narrow, his eyes the color of cement and just as hard.

He wasn’t alone. Two other naked males followed behind him, neither quite as big, or hairy, but both as well built. Werewolves, no doubt. One, a young man with peach fuzz across his upper lip, came to stand beside the bearded were, but the other, a bald male, hung back.

“Find the key,” the bearded one said. He eyed her with excitement and a hunger that made her flesh want to crawl right off her bones. And suddenly Quinn thought she understood the reason for the redundancy in her imprisonment. Her chains were to keep her and her magic in. The cage was to keep the werewolves out.

Quinn felt the power buzz beneath her flesh. Finally.

Peach Fuzz began searching.

“Gunroth . . .” the bald man said disapprovingly. “You’ll be banished for this.”

“Who cares? We’ll be stronger than all of them put together. And when the city’s magic fails, we alone will be safe. We’ll be free.”

“It’s not here,” Peach Fuzz grumbled.

Gunroth’s mouth turned as hard as his eyes. “The alpha must have it. We’ll just have to find another way in.” He pushed out of the doorway, rooting around in what sounded like a metal box or locker, then returned with what looked like . . . lock picks.

Hell. Come on, power.

The bald one threw a look of disgust ceilingward and walked away.

“Are we going to f**k her before we eat her?” Peach Fuzz asked far too eagerly.