Claire rolled her eyes. “Gag her, please,” she said to Graham, and he placed tape over Betty’s mouth. She didn’t go down without a fight, though. She nearly bit his finger off as he struggled to restrain her wild mouth.
I took a moment to look around. We were quite obviously in a dungeon. The grime-covered bricks lined every wall, and torches were the only source of light. It was like a crypt.
Drew…where…a-are you…
I could barely make out Diego’s voice in my mind. It was like driving through a tunnel and losing reception. I didn’t understand. “He won’t hear you. Not well, anyway,” Claire said while polishing her nails on her shirt. Betty was gagged and fuming. “We’re deep in the crypts below the compound. Witches spelled it long ago. Not even a fated pair can communicate down here.”
“Why?” I managed to croak out through my gag. Maybe if I could keep her talking long enough, I could come up with a plan to get us out of here. I hoped she would take the bait.
“Why?” Claire laughed. “I am one of the oldest vampires left on this planet. I have centuries of wisdom and experience, but all I will ever be is a council member because I wasn’t born to royalty.” She spat.
I watched her with wide eyes, willing her to keep talking. Betty was thrashing wildly against her restraints and making garbled noises that resembled curse words. I made a mental note to never get in a fight with Betty; she was one scrappy granny.
“Diego isn’t fit to be king. But because he has a penis and the right bloodline, the coven is automatically his. As a feminist, Drew, I would think that you would be inclined to agree with me.”
I cocked my head to the side and considered the words she said. I mean, she wasn’t wrong, I was all for smashing the patriarchy. But seeing as Claire was the one who had me tied up and gagged, I was going to stick with Diego on this one.
“Now, let’s put your fated bond to the test, shall we?”
Graham, who had been oddly quiet throughout this whole ordeal, took that as his cue and handed Claire an ornate dagger. I looked up at him, pleading for him to help me with my eyes. He bent down to meet my gaze and pinched my cheek hard, following the pinch with a stinging slap. “Those puppy dog eyes aren’t going to get you anywhere, Drew.”
I knew there would be payback for bruising his ego, but I never imagined that it would come to this. My cheek throbbed as I watched Claire approach Betty and slash a deep line into her arm. Betty cried out, her scream muffled by the fabric stuffed in her mouth. I struggled hard against my own restraints to no avail. I could tell by the amount of blood that flowed freely from Betty’s wound that it was deep, and it would take some time to heal.
“Yes. I think this is definitely sharp enough,” Claire said before bouncing the dagger in her palm as if to test the weight. What the fuck were we going to do? How was I going to get out of this? “I’ll try to make this as painless as possible, darling. It’s a shame you’re Diego’s mate. I probably would have liked to have you around otherwise.”
Hot tears flowed down my cheeks as I struggled to get free. I’d never felt so helpless. I cried against my gag, pleading with her with muffled words to let me go, but it sounded like pained moans and groans.
Claire crouched lower and looked me in the eye. “You understand, don’t you? Sometimes people must die for the greater good, hon.”
She pressed the blade to my jugular, the sharp tip slicing the skin with ease. What had Diego said about a vampire dying? Beheading? Fuck. What a way to die.
I closed my eyes and imagined Diego. His dark eyes. His playful smile. The confident way he walked. I had a lot of regrets in the last moments of my life, but my biggest one was not jumping in with both feet in our relationship. I should have told him I loved him. I should have given it my all. Now, I’d never get the chance.
Claire grinned as tears sunk down my cheeks. “Stop playing with her, and let’s do this,” Graham argued while licking his fingers. He’d dipped them in