“What?”

“Nothing.” He cleared his throat and the cocky grin returned. “Until later. Your power is up. Calix and I will see you soon.” His gaze was intent as he stared at her. “Really soon.”

“Great.” She refused to let him see the dread that swept over her. Her body was weak, and her spirit was faltering. She didn’t know how many of those draining sessions she could take.

She listened as Ashe shut the door behind him and two locks clicked into place.

Once she was sure he was far enough away, she lay down. The effort of eating had exhausted her. Something cold and hard dug into her hip and she shifted away from it. Her cot wasn’t made for enjoyment, and it was getting harder and harder to get comfortable. That and the cold made sleeping increasingly difficult.

The hard thing dug into her butt, and she reached down and pulled it out.

A key.

She stared at the metal object in her hand as her sluggish brain tried to make sense of what she was seeing. It was a key. It must have fallen from the bunch Ashe kept on a belt around his waist.

The lights flickered, and her cell was plunged into darkness.

It had been so long since she’d been in total dark that her eyes took long, agonizing moments to adjust. Even when she slept, they only dimmed the lights but never turned them off completely.

A plaintive, eerie howl penetrated the Stygian dark. It made the hair on her entire body stand on end. The power within her surged as if in answer to the howl. Was there another Nephilim here? She couldn’t answer that. Shade, Wrath, and Sophia had told her she was the only living one of her kind. “Ugh.” Her voice sounded unnaturally loud in the dark. She knew so little about her own power that she had no way of knowing what that surge truly meant.

The key pressed solid and cold into her hand.

It couldn’t be the key to her cell door. Ashe would never have made that mistake.

Sounds came from outside her cell. With the light going, whatever had kept her in perpetual silence also seemed to have stopped. Raised voices, footsteps running past, and again, that soul searing howl that made her power leap.

Barely daring to breathe, she stumbled for the door. Her hands shook so badly, she had trouble getting the key into the lock. It fit.

Eddie suppressed a desperate sob. She couldn’t believe. If it wasn’t true, the dashed hope would kill her faster than the systematic draining of her power. It took all her strength to do it, but with a metallic snick, the lock opened.

It was too much to hope that the key would open a second look.

But it did.

And before she could process the fact, Eddie was staring into the deathly dark on the other side of her cell.

Noise buffeted her. Voices raised and shouting. And that howling. Over and over again, it echoed down the empty corridor.

Ashe’s voice penetrated her fog. “Get those fucking lights on, and do it now.”

“I don’t know what happened,” someone wailed.

“Are you going to explain to him how this happened?” Ashe asked. “He’ll have your fucking guts for this. Get those fucking lights on so we can see where the prisoners are.”

Prisoners, not prisoner.

“One of the prisoners’ doors is open,” the other yelled.

And Eddie moved into the corridor. Back against the wall, she edged away from the sound of Ashe and the other one arguing.

“Check him first,” Ashe snarled.

“What about the girl?”

“Jesus! You want to tackle him or the girl?” Ashe’s voice moved closer.

Eddie broke into a run. Her legs were lethargic, and it felt like wading through mud, but she forced them into action. Her breath sawed through her lungs, and she had to keep her hand on the wall to steady herself, but she shambled forward as fast as she could. With no idea where she was going, she focused on forward. One foot in front of the other and away from the voices.

“Mistress?” So faint that Eddie barely registered it in the escalating turmoil around her. Her head felt fuzzy and churned slowly.

She put everything she had into her reply. “Xerxes?”

“Keep thinking.” Cronus came slightly stronger. “Think about what you’re seeing, just keep your mind open.”

Her pace quickened, her feet freezing against the rough floor. She snagged her toes on something, dodged and kept going, all the time keeping up a mental dialogue of whatever she saw or perceived, pure nonsense babble, but it kept the connection alive.

The hounds’ voices seemed to grow stronger, or maybe she wished it so badly that it was all her imagination. Whatever it was, the hope kept her moving.

The wall beneath her questing palm changed, and she identified the outline of another door.

“There’s a door. I don’t know where it leads. I’m going to try the handle.”

Something slammed into the door and rattled it in its jamb. A guttural snarl followed, and her power leapt. Eddie abandoned the idea of opening the door and pushed on.

“Follow our voices,” Xerxes said. “Keep following our voices.”

The lights flickered on, momentarily blinding her, and Eddie staggered but kept her forward momentum.

A metal spiral staircase appeared to her right, leading up.

“There she is.”

She recognized Calix’s nasal voice and took the stairs. She didn’t know where they led, but as long as she was running she was still free.

Her breath labored through her burning lungs, and her legs threatened to collapse, but she kept climbing, one stair after another.

Footsteps clanged on the staircase behind her.

“Get her,” Ashe bellowed. “If she gets out, Asmodeus will find her.”

She was heading out. She had to be.

“Keep going,” Xerxes said. “We are close.”

A rough hand fastened around her ankle and sent her thumping into the metal staircase. Pain exploded from her knees as she hit the stairs.

“Got you,” Calix snarled.