The Last Warrior (Shifters Unbound #13) - Jennifer Ashley Page 0,2

of light to keep her company. She’d extinguished it after about two seconds because the filth of the grisly dungeon, not to mention the skeletal remains chained up opposite her, had been truly horrifying.

“Three. All right, I warned you.”

No response.

Rhianne growled in exasperation. This was going to hurt, but she couldn’t stay in this dungeon any longer. She had things to do, papers to write, celestial charts to draw.

She closed her eyes—not that it wasn’t already pitch dark—and honed her concentration on a spot about a foot in front of her head. A glow began within her, giving her a modicum of comfort. Sometimes the glow didn’t appear when she called for it, which meant she needed to recharge, preferably in her mountain observatory or taking walks along cliff paths above the sea, which she’d been doing when Walther and his men had captured her.

The chains needed to go first. Rhianne’s arms had been pinned over her head, just enough to make them ache. That soreness would gradually grow into deep pain, which had been Walther’s plan, the prick.

Rhianne whispered a word of power, infusing it with all her strength. The cold metal of the chains warmed, as though touched by sunshine. Then they became hotter, the cuffs around her wrists heating with them.

Rhianne gritted her teeth, bearing the pain the best she could. Shutting down her power because it hurt would leave her sitting here like a lump, still bound, when Walther finally came to fetch and then seduce her.

Yuck. He’d send a lackey to fetch her, because Walther wouldn’t soil his boots in this place. Rhianne wondered if he’d have the lackey do the seducing too. She wouldn’t put it past him.

The metal began to sear, and Rhianne sucked in a sharp breath. The chains had been spelled—Walther wasn’t foolish enough to put anyone from Faerie down here without magic infusing the bonds—but they were ordinary hoch alfar spells. To wield against a Tuil Erdannan, one needed much stronger stuff, which Walther did not have.

Or did he? That thought had bothered Rhianne since she’d woken up here. Walther’s men shouldn’t have been able to capture her at all. Not with even the small amount of magic Rhianne had inside her, which should have bested hoch alfar magic any day.

Tears wet Rhianne’s cheeks as the metal scorched her skin. The cuffs became hotter and hotter, as though she plunged her wrists into fire. She had to stop—she couldn’t take it anymore.

Just as Rhianne opened her mouth to shut off the magic, the chains disintegrated in a flash of fire, and her cuffs fell away.

In relief, Rhianne rolled to her hands and knees, her aching arms and burned wrists bringing a groan. The stone beneath her was damp, even squishy. She didn’t want to think about what she knelt in, which motivated her to climb to her feet.

The cell’s absurdly low ceiling ensured she couldn’t stand all the way up. The grate, the only entrance, loomed above her, designed to make it easier for guards to drop in food and water, or whatever noxious substance they wished, without having to enter the cell.

Rhianne examined the lock above her. She’d have to open it with a lock pick because her word of power had been spent on the chains and had to renew itself. Walther’s guards had taken everything from her but her clothes, including the pins that held up her long hair, which now dragged in the filth. She had the feeling these locks wouldn’t be that easy to pick anyway.

She put her hands on the lock, closed her eyes, and tried to call up her fleeting magic.

Boom!

The walls shuddered. What the hell? A shower of rubble rained down on Rhianne, and she coughed.

Brilliant light suddenly filled the tunnel above her, and another boom sounded. The light cut out immediately, but Rhianne’s pulse leapt in hope and excitement. Had her mother found her? Walther would pay dearly if so. Rhianne hoped she could watch.

“Hey!” she shouted. “I’m down here!” Rhianne yelled in her own language, then switched to hoch alfar, then, more shakily, to a human language. Who knew what rescuer her mother would send?

The shouts of hoch alfar filled the distance. Guards bellowed orders, cursing at each other, the words who the hell let them in? streaming down to her.

The next flash showed a pair of giant hands gripping the grate of her cell, hands belonging to a bizarre-shaped creature of impossible size. Rhianne cried out, then pitch darkness