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“I’ll be right outside,” Damon says, eyes locked on mine. “One second away.”

The heavy door snaps shut behind him with a final, echoing click, sealing me inside with Mateo. He’s been strapped to a metal chair in the center of the room. He looks almost unrecognizable–face grotesquely swollen, lips split, one eye completely shut, the other barely open through puffy, bruised flesh. Dried blood crusts his hairline, and a cracked lip oozes a fresh red trail down his neck. He looks like hell.

I walk forward until our toes meet.

His one working eye flutters, struggling to focus. When it finally does, a weak, bloody smirk pulls at his ruined mouth.

“Baroness,” he rasps, voice hoarse and wet. “Is that really you?”

“The one and only.”

“Didn’t think I’d see you down here,” he chuckles, the sound turning into a painful cough. “Or that they’d let you come down here, at least not off the leash.”

I don’t rise to the bait. I just study him, taking in every cut, every bruise, every broken part of him. This man tried to destroy me.

He tilts his head slightly, trying to get a better look at me. “Guess they finally gave up their pathetic attempts to get anything out of me and decided to send you in. Hoping I’d cave to a nice pair of tits and a fuckable ass?” He inhales unevenly through his damaged nose. “Fuck if you don’t smell good, though. Still sweet even down here.”

I feel the old version of me–the fragile, broken girl–flinch somewhere deep inside. But I don’t let her win. Instead, I step closer, voice low and cold. “I do have questions,” I admit, “although I doubt you’ll answer them, but sure, I’ll play, if you will.”

He straightens, as best as he can, but it's obvious he’s in serious pain. He spits a glob of blood onto the floor near my feet and grins with bloody teeth. “Why don’t you come closer and ask me nicely, Baroness? Maybe I’ll whisper it in your ear. Tell you exactly how special you are.”

I ignore the taunts and stand my ground. “I want to know who took me and why. Why did they send Armand after me? Is this related to my uncle? To Mayfield?” My voice is clear and unwavering. “I never did anything to anyone, but I’m still the focus of some lunatic that can’t seem to let me go, and I want to know why.”

Mateo’s body lists to the side, only stopping when his restraints force it. “Baby, you’re focused on all the wrong things,” he says. “This isn’t about that East End pussy hound, Armand. No one was sad to see him taken off the board. And I don’t know what the fuck a Mayfield is. What I do know is your life was over the minute it came out that you were going to marry the Baron King.”

“That’s it?” I ask, trying to wrap my head around the simplicity of it all. “That’s all?”

“Sometimes all you need is an excuse to get a target put on your back.”

My mind spins. The news about me marrying the King wasn’t public knowledge until after I was kidnapped. Was it all just guilt by association? “What about Regina? Was she ever at risk?”

He lifts one shoulder and then slumps back down.

“How long were you working for them, Mateo?”

“I walked into The House of Night already knowing I was part of a greater purpose, just like I knew I was never walking out alive–just like you won’t either. We both have roles to play, you’re just not awakened to it yet. It was always going to end up like this. Sacrifices so the Guardian can emerge whole.”

The threat lands in my spine, dark and foreboding, but I remember what Hunter told me. Manipulation and lies. He’ll do anything to continue to sow chaos. I gesture at his ruined body. “So, it was worth it? To go down like this?”

Mateo laughs again. “Was it worth it when Hunter carved that pentagram in your chest? Or when you came up on that altar, when DK fucked you with the handle of his blade while the whole frat watched? Or during the ceremony when your sexy little body was coated with our cum?”

He makes it sound trite. Like we were playing silly little games and not me baring my soul to the King and my Barons.

“If you really wanted to prove your worth, Arianette, you never would have run away from your fate.” His tongue darts out, tasting the blood. “So was it worth it for me? Dead or alive, I’ll go down as a legend, and you’ll just be the bitch that could’ve been.”

My hands curl into fists at my sides. He’s pushing. Deliberately trying to provoke me, trying to get me to snap so he can die before giving up anything useful. He wants the easy way out. The next sentence out of his mouth proves it.

“Now, be a good girl and go tell your guard dogs outside to come in here and finish what they started. I’m done talking to a dead-girl-walking.”

The rage that surges through me flows like a river, but it doesn’t drown me–it fuels me.

I turn away from him and walk toward the long metal table lined with instruments. My fingers trail over the cold steel until they close around the handle of a sharp, serrated knife. I lift it, feeling the weight in my palm, and turn back to face him.

Mateo’s gaze locks onto the blade. His bloody smile falters for just a fraction of a second.

Good.

“I think you have nothing to say because you know nothing,” I tell him, moving closer. “You’re weak, Mateo. You were weak the first time I saw you at the Fury, high as a fucking kite, unable to fight for your house. The Guardian, Billy, and Liam–they knew this. It’s why they chose you. Because you craved power so much that you were willing to do whatever it took to get a taste of it. But real power isn’t shared. It’s taken. And you’re the one tied to that chair, not me. Billy’s hands are in my freezer, no longer capable of hurting. Liam’s strapped to a bed, one machine malfunction away from his last breath.” I hold the blade up and watch the ripple of fluorescent light shine down the jagged steel. “The Guardian?” I look around, seeing nothing but stained concrete walls. “They’re hiding. They’re scared. And they fucking should be, because if you think taunting me is going to work? You think I’m still that scared little girl you snatched into the tunnels? She died by the water’s edge.”