Undying Hate~ Book Three

When Sylvie regained consciousness again, she was alone on the floor, and the back of her skull throbbed, a pulsing dull ache plunging through her head into her eyeballs.

“Fucking hell.”

She curled her toes and prodded each leg with her fingers, relieved that the bone had almost completely healed. It must have been a few hours, then.

“You still alive?” The annoying voice spoke again, more awake this time but no less agitating. “The names Magnus.”

Sylvie scoffed, the action morphing the sound into a coughing fit as her ribs squeezed.

Magnus. Stupid name.

The sky outside was still light, and she was grateful there would still be time to escape before nightfall.

“Sounds like you fucked up big time, girl.”

“Don’t call me girl.”

“How old are you?”

She rolled her eyes and sat up, pressing her back into the damp wall. “Twenty-seven.”

“Still a girl then. Species?”

“None of your business.” She closed her eyes as the pain spiked and pressed her forefinger and thumb to the bridge of her nose.

Magnus humphed, a shuffling coming from his cell. Sylvie envisioned a hunched old beggar type with a metre-long grey beard and soulless eyes whenever he spoke. His name didn’t help the thought of him looking like a dusty old wizard either. Although there was a hot wizard called Magnus once in a book, she read as a teen. For some reason, the book’s name eluded her, and she worked her jaw.

Fuck it.

Annoying and rude, Magnus was an old grouch—no doubt about it.

He didn’t speak nor move again for a while, and Sylvie sighed, figuring anything was better than awkward silence in a filthy dungeon. “What time is it?”

“Early afternoon.”

Rubbing her face with her palms, she steeled her resolve before standing slowly and easing her aching body upright. She turned for the window and had to stand on her tiptoes to see anything outside. Vines and flowers obscured some of her views, and she fingered them lightly.

“You’re gonna help me,” she said to them.

“Help you with what?” Magnus asked.

“Not you.”

“Oh wonderful, another batshit prisoner.”

“I am not batshit,” she grumbled, taking one last look at the ground. From the angle, she guessed at least one story from the ground, two at the most. “And if you don’t stop being annoying, I won’t help you either.”

Magnus chuckled, shuffling again. “There’s no helping me, girl. I’ve been here longer than you’ve been alive.”

Her animosity towards him softened as she pressed her palms on the damp walls. A sad old wizard, then.

The cracks forming between each brick would be a perfect passage for the vines. Resting her head on one, she breathed deeply, connecting to the vines, their buds and stems. Then, with extreme focus, she forced them to split and expand before burrowing towards her.

Magnus spoke again as the bricks started to crumble under the vine tendrils. “What are you doing, girl?”

“Getting the fuck out of here,” she grunted, trying to tune him out and focus. Why was it that he always knew exactly what not to do? So... annoying!

“And then what? You’ve got about three hours before the turned wake and tear you apart.”

Each word drilled into her mind, pulling her further from her connection to the vines. Her heart rate picked up, as did the hot flush of frustration as she searched for her goal.

All she was focused on was escaping Hayes. Afterwards, she could worry about the turned ones and returning home.

“What’s it to you?”

A colossal sigh made her jump from her skin, and she whipped her head accusingly at the wall and the man behind it.

“Whatever you are, you’ve sent the false King into a frenzy which means you are useful.”

She momentarily left the vines embedded in the bricks and crossed her arms, unlikely to get enough focus for her plan to work while Magnus rambled. “Useful to you?”

“Perhaps.”

“Why should I care? Who even are you?”

Before he could answer, booming steps echoed from the door, and she spun, checking none of her plant magic was obvious. To her relief, none of the shoots had made it through the bricks yet, and she turned back as the door flew open, with Hayes cradling his signature chalice.

“Awake already and standing. I underestimated you.”

She edged along the wall toward the corner. “That happens a lot.”

He frowned. “What are you?”

“You already know-”

Tsk’ing, he sloshed his chalice before taking a sip. The blood residue on his lower lip matched his eyes, and she clenched her teeth to hide her disgust. She was a really shitty half Vampire, considering even looking at the coagulating crimson on his lip made her empty stomach churn.

“I know that you are a mutt. Definitely Fae, but the other half... is cloaked.”

Sylvie furrowed her brow, but she wasn’t really surprised. Kian was an expert at warding; she only wondered when he had done it. Probably after the wedding...

Her lips parted to respond when Hayes lifted a long finger at her. “If you lie to me, I will know, and I will make sure this torture session isn’t as easy to heal.”

Idiot.

She swallowed her frustration and smugness that her healing didn’t work that way until he locked his gaze on her hand. “Can Fae regrow their fingers?”

The air whooshed from her lips as reality set in. This psycho would stop at nothing to get what he wanted, and she was really fond of her fingers... And she had no clue if they could regrow. Reattach maybe...

God, how she wished she had listened to Kian when he tried to educate her on Fae’s anatomy. She had just assumed it would be redundant, being only half and all.

“It doesn’t matter what species I am.”

“Would you like me to count?”

“Fuck you!”

Shit. “One.”

“It doesn’t matter what species I am-”

“Two.”

Shit. Shit. Shit. “All that matters is Elias is my mate.”

Hayes paused, the number three hovering on his tongue between his teeth.

“What did you say?”

Ah, fuck it. Might as well go the full monty. “And Kian.”

He scoffed, but his brows furrowed as she spoke again.

Just wait for it, buddy. “And Rowan.”

She expected him to call her insane, a liar or both, but he didn’t. Instead, the little colour he had drained from his face.

In a blink, he hovered over her, her back slamming into the concrete wall as he pushed his finger into her collar and yanked downward, revealing her sports bra and half-exposed marks.

She twisted under his scrutinising look, but he held her still with his hand on her throat, the chalice clanking on the cold floor, forgotten.

“They’ll kill you if you touch me,” she choked out as he tugged her bra lower to reveal the entire mark. Fucking pervert.

“Fates,” he whispered harshly before backing away, a look in his eye she had never seen before. Then, without a word, he disappeared from the room and slammed the door behind him.

“What species are you?” Magnus asked as the dungeon space quieted. A weariness in his voice captured Sylvie’s attention, but she had no time to read it, instead turning back to her vines. She had to get out.

“Girl!”

“Shut up for a second!” Seriously!

Closing her eyes, she reconnected herself to the plants and expanded them in the brick cracks, each inhale drawing them towards her and exhale expanding them.

“C’mon, c’mon...”

Magnus’ voice swirled in her subconscious, but she tuned him out using the last of her energy on the walls. Her palms pressed against the stones and pushed, giving the vines assistance. The stone chipped and ground under her hands, the sound making her teeth hurt. She shoved her whole body into the wall, bruising her shoulder and winding her as she did it again and again.

“Girl!”

With one final, teeth-rattling shove, the wall caved, and she fell to the debris-coated earth below. Her body hit the crumbling bricks and plant matter with a heavy thud, her limbs aching and bruising like a rotten apple. Her shirt ripped and hung from her like a scarf, exposing her sports bra and marks. Dammit.

She wheezed and coughed, waving her hand in front of her face to clear the dust plume before dragging herself to her feet. A red pair of eyes watched her from a tiny window next to the massive hole she had just made, and she waved.

Magnus.

There was a familiarity in his gaze, and she swallowed before calling out to him in a harsh whisper. “I’ll come back for you.” At some point. However, she had no idea when. He hadn’t exactly been helpful, and he might’ve been a mass murderer for all she knew.

Even so, she hoped he wouldn’t be too upset with her, but her energy was depleted. She wasn’t even sure she could get out of the city grounds. At least, that’s where she thought she was. That castle section looked different from her last visit, and the lush forest over the castle wall was also unfamiliar.

Magnus’ hand curled around the small bar of his window, and she turned away, hobbling towards the wall and following its path towards the forest. Perhaps she could hide in a tree when night fell. Then the turned ones wouldn’t find her.

She jogged, running her hand along the wall while her head swivelled to her left and behind her. She was alone, for now. She turned her jog into a weak sprint when shouts from behind her echoed and rebounded around.

Ahead, as the wall curved, she spotted a door, and her heart leapt in her chest. Finally, a way out. She dug her feet into the ground, her breath ragged when a hard lump hit her in the back, and she flew the last few feet to the door, nearly knocking her teeth out on the concrete pad in front of it.

“Fuck!”

“Get up slowly, prisoner.” The masculine voice was raspy and tired, and Sylvie immediately felt sorry for its owner. There was no doubt the Vampire realm was dying.

“Hurry up!” Another stronger-sounding feminine voice demanded.

Sylvie pulled her knees under herself until she was on all fours and sat back on her heels, shaking the dizziness from her head.

“We don’t have all day! Get up.” The voice sounded different again. A more melodic timbre to it. How many guards were there?

She stood slowly and turned, expecting the malicious gazes of Haye’s guards but witnessed something else entirely. At first, they sneered, but the instant she turned, their eyes dropped to her chest, and they bowed, kneeling on the ground in front of her. Four of them. Each of them had a unique look, the colours of their skin and hair varying from translucent white to a paler dark brown.

The one who lifted her head first had the darkest skin, her afro close to her scalp, which she touched lightly when she noticed Sylvie’s stare. She looked away quickly, not wanting to offend, but the Vampire only hummed.

“I’m Shan.”

The next woman lifted her head, the tight ringlets falling in her face, hiding her sunken olive cheeks. “Mila.”

The men stood and placed a closed fist over their chests.

The blonde one with prominent blue veins nodded. “Deacon.”

“Brodi,” the last one said.

Sylvie swallowed and nodded at them before shakily returning to the door just behind her. “Well, uh, thanks for the introduction, but I’m gonna go now.”

Shan stepped forward, a long staff in her hand and slammed the end into the ground at Sylvie’s feet.

“We’re coming with you.”

“Wait, no, what?”

“Our Queen.”