Love Me to Death (Underveil, #1)(84)

“What’s in it for us?” a guy in the cell behind Elena asked. She spun to come face-to-face with a wood elf.

“I’ll tell ya,” Claude shouted. “Fydor has a mass public execution planned for day after tomorrow. One of every creature of the Underveil will be burned alive in a show of power intended to secure his place as ruler of the Underveil. The inhabitants of this dungeon are the lucky representatives chosen for sacrifice.”

Elena placed the candle on the floor and then raised her arm to make the light from her palm spread farther into the back of the cell next to the wood elf. Crouched in the corner was the most delicate, beautiful creature she had ever seen. Dainty and feminine, its white-blonde hair was matted and its clothes torn and filthy.

“What are you?” she asked.

The creature only stared with enormous, dark eyes.

“She’s a light elf,” Aleksi said. “Fee, the Alchemist, sister of Aksel the Forger. The shackles dampen her light and render her mute.”

“Unlock her,” Elena ordered the guard.

Claude unlocked the door and flung it open with a bang. The tiny elf flinched and shuddered. “I only have a key to the cell, not the shackles. Fydor keeps the only key,” he said.

The heavy bands around the creature’s tiny limbs had a keyhole on top that looked exactly like the ones on the bands Fydor had used to restrain Aleksi. Elena reached between her breasts and pulled out the key she’d taken from Aleksi’s room, unable to contain her grin.

This time she sang out loud to keep the vampire out of her head. “R-e-s-p-e-c-t. Find out what it means to me.” She inserted the key into the keyhole on an ankle band and laughed out loud when it popped open.

She unlocked the band on the other ankle. So, I hold the only key to your freedom. What do you think of me now, *? she taunted in her head.

“I think I love you,” the vampire called from his cell.

She laughed and hummed another chorus as she unlocked the elf’s wrists. The minute the last shackle dropped, the creature glowed brighter than her hand on high-power mode. No need for glowy palm anymore. Elena concentrated on sucking the power back into her body from her hand, and it dimmed to appear normal.

She passed the key to the guard. “Unlock all who you think will be loyal. Do not free the wood elf or the vampire.”

The vampire laughed and her skin prickled.

The glowing elf reached out with a slender finger and traced the glyphs on Elena’s chest. Then, she touched her under the collarbone in the same way as the elf in the woods. Her voice was beautiful. So entrancing, in fact, Elena stopped humming to listen. “Drink me.”

“Don’t do it. She’s toxic,” the wood elf in the cell next door warned.

“Not to you,” the light elf said in a high voice, barely above a whisper. “You have blood of a vampire, human, seer, and Slayer in you. You need an elf.”

No seer. Only vampire and Slayer…well, and human if her mom counted.

“She lies,” the wood elf shouted.

“Focus, Dhampir,” the vampire said. “Trust your instincts; they never lie.”

She hummed out loud. Her instincts may not lie, but they also didn’t have a basis in real life. Everything was new. Everything was scary and threatening.

A cell opened down the hall as Claude set about unlocking another prisoner under Aleksandra’s watchful eye. “Stand against the bars,” she ordered whatever creature they had released. “Move and you’re dead.”

The elf came even closer to her, way inside her personal space bubble and tilted her head. She was so bright it hurt to look at her. Then, she rubbed her tiny, glowing fingers over the hilt of Elena’s sword. “My brother made this. My people make beautiful things. We do not destroy. I am not toxic.”

“Her people are murdering butchers,” the wood elf yelled.

“Shut up, bark boy, or I’m going to use you for kindling,” Elena shouted back.

The vampire chuckled.

The fact that he could be so cool and amused when he was scheduled to be the main event a barbeque soon made no sense at all. She stormed out of the light elf’s cell and stood outside the vampire’s bars.

“Let me out of here! My people are harmless,” the wood elf shouted.

Harmless? She’d seen his people behead an unsuspecting old man. Elena shot a bolt of energy at him, knocking him completely unconscious. Then she turned back to the vampire in the end cell. “Okay, Mr. Badass. What’s your story?”

His voice was infuriatingly nonchalant. “I’ve been alive thousands of years. I don’t think you have time to hear my story. Besides, Fydor just discovered the lovely Lady Aleksandra is missing.”

“That’s bullshit. Vampires can’t read Slayers.”

He leaned forward. “Where did you learn that?”

She rubbed her burning palm on the front of her pants. “From a friend.”

“Ah, the vampire you drank from. Did he taste good?”

Ricardo’s blood had tasted metallic and powerful, not…good. Not like Nik’s.

“Ah. It was Ricardo. Good choice. Not as good as me, though.” He winked—a particularly unnerving act with those red eyes. “And you are correct; I can’t hear Fydor, but I can hear the bear shifter who is with him.”