A Turn of Tides (A Shade of Vampire #13)(45)

A prison, I soon realized as one of the warlocks dressed in black pushed open a gate and threw Patricia and me inside.

I threw myself at the gate, but not fast enough.

It clicked shut and no matter how much I tried to rip open or bend the bars, they wouldn’t budge.

Clearly bewitched to withstand the strength of a vampire.

I clutched Patricia’s shoulders.

“Try to get us out of here.” She raised her palms toward the gate.

Nothing happened.

Her shoulders sagged.

“They’ve removed my powers.” “No!” I yelled, slamming my fists against the wall.

I looked up and down the corridor outside.

The guards had disappeared from sight already.

My eyes travelled around the cells surrounding us.

After a brief glance, they all seemed to be empty… except the one about four doors along.

A red-headed man sat up against the bars, gazing across at me.

Efren.

I recognized him instantly.

How could I not? He’d once almost killed me.

He looked just as shocked to see me as I was to see him.

He was a black witch.

I had no idea how he could have gotten here in The Sanctuary.

“What are you doing here?” he spat.

I ignored the bastard and turned back to Patricia.

She was staring through the bars, to a cell five doors to our left.

“Corrine?” she whispered.

I let out a gasp.

She was right.

I’d looked around too quickly to notice before, but now I could see, right at the back of the cell, both Corrine and Ibrahim leaning against the wall—apparently unconscious.

“Corrine!” “She won’t be waking up any time soon.” Efren chuckled.

“What happened?” Patricia asked, clutching the bars so hard her knuckles had turned white.

“They were causing trouble, from what I overheard one of the guards saying,” he said.

“Weren’t settling into the new life the Adriuses wanted them to adopt.

So they put them to sleep.” Patricia looked at me, horrified.

“They must have been caught… That means all this time, nobody has been looking for Rose.” Before I could respond, a witch with flowing light blonde hair appeared directly in front of our cell, accompanied by one of the guards who’d placed us in here.

She raised her brows as she looked us over.

“Brisalia,” Patricia gasped.

So this is the bitch.

“Do we know how they got in?” Brisalia asked the guard in a low voice, ignoring Patricia.

The warlock shook his head.

“Not yet.” “Hm.” She approached closer, her cool eyes traveling from mine to Patricia’s face, before turning back to the guard again.

“Well, we can’t keep them here.” “What do you propose?” “We need to get rid of them.” She was speaking as though we weren’t even present in the room.

“Banish them from the island?” “Oh, no,” she said.

There was a pause as the warlock stared at her.

“Now that they’ve found their way in once, we can’t risk it happening again.

You know the consequences if Mona ever found out.

We’ll need to find a more… permanent solution.” “What?” She looked thoughtfully at the warlock before replying, “Send them down to Hagatha.

It’s about time she had some visitors…”

Chapter 29: Abby

Each time a witch passed us along the corridor, I kept fearing that Patricia’s invisibility spell would lift.

But thankfully, it was still upon us.

Sitting on the floor began to grow uncomfortable after a few hours.

Neither Erik nor I had spoken much during this time.

We’d just been listening, hoping to hear any sign of Mona leaving the apartment.

But we had yet to hear it.

“Erik,” I whispered, standing up.

“I need to stretch my legs.” “Me too.” He stood up with me, and I felt him reaching for my hand once again.

“We can’t afford to lose each other.” “And we shouldn’t go too far either,” I said.

We began walking slowly along the seemingly endless corridor.

Something about the way we were walking together reminded me of my walks with Ben.

Ben.

I hoped that he’d be all right.

It had been frightening to see how much his transformation had consumed him.

Since Derek and Sofia hadn’t wanted anybody else visiting him until they understood what was wrong with him, the last time I’d seen him was when he’d escaped from the apartment and dove into the sea.

The way he’d looked at me… it was as though he hardly recognized me.

Kiev didn’t know that the main reason I’d wanted to come on this mission to The Sanctuary was to distract myself from what was happening to Ben.

I thought back to the last encounter I’d had with him before he turned into a vampire.

We’d been taking our usual walk with Shadow.

I wasn’t sure why, but with his turning looming so close, something had made me want to finally admit my feelings toward him.

Perhaps I’d sensed he might be different after his turning and I just wanted to get them off my chest while he was still the Ben I knew.