More cages rattled in the background.
“It won’t cost you much,” Chaos said. “I’ll answer any questions you have in exchange for one bite.”
“I thought you couldn’t take off your helm.”
“He’s trying to get us to stay so that his changelings will have prey to chase,” Jacks said.
But Evangeline didn’t need a warning from Jacks to know this was an ill-advised bargain. She might have joked with Jacks once about making a deal with another Fate, but she wouldn’t do it ever again. It was bad enough she still owed Jacks a kiss; she didn’t want to owe this vampire anything. “Thank you for the offer, but I think I’d rather leave before your changelings break free.”
Chaos dropped the medallion and leaned back in the chair. “If you make it out and change your mind, return any time, princess.”
“I—”
Jacks didn’t give her the chance to finish replying before he ushered her out the door.
The halls of Chaos’s underground kingdom were darker than she’d remembered. Half the candles had burned out, covering her and Jacks in shadows and smoke as they hurried down the first corridor.
“Promise me you’ll never let him bite you,” Jacks said.
“I won’t ever need to if you tell me what you want inside the Valory Arch.”
“I thought you wanted this partnership to be about finding Apollo’s killer, not my other goals.” Jacks’s tone hardened as he reached the dining room with all the cages.
Evangeline heard the riot of chains before they stepped inside. She hadn’t forgotten about the cages there, but she hadn’t expected them all to be full of desperate changelings.
Dread clutched at her chest like a hand with claws every time one of them called out.
“I’ll make you immortal if you unlock my cage!”
“I’ll just take one tiny bite,” another promised.
“Some humans like being bitten.”
“Eva … is that you?” The voice had a more soothing timbre than the others, and the familiar sound of it lodged Evangeline’s heart into her throat.
Luc.
She hadn’t heard Luc’s voice in months, but it sounded just like him, if not a little lovelier.
It had to be some sort of vampire trick.
“Don’t stop moving.” Jacks tugged on her hand. But he should have yanked harder. He should have used his Fated strength because although Evangeline’s head agreed with Jacks, her human heart made her stop, pull her hand free of Jacks’s hand, look up at the cage above, and lock eyes with her first love.
42
Something wet dripped down Evangeline’s cheek. She was crying, but she couldn’t have said why. She didn’t know if her emotions were broken and leaking out all over from everything that had happened, or if it was the sight of her once beloved Luc locked in a cage, eyes staring down at her with something like adoration and terror.
“It’s really you,” Luc said. He gripped the bars with two beautiful brown hands, but he didn’t take his eyes off hers. And no power in the world could have forced her to look away from him. It wasn’t vampire allure or the shimmering gold flecks in his irises that she didn’t remember from before. His eyes weren’t exactly the same eyes she knew, but they weren’t entirely different either. They were still the impossibly warm brown that lived in all the memories she’d tried to shove away but had been unable to forget.
“There are so many things I have to tell you, Eva. But I need you to help me out of this cage—if I don’t escape by dawn, they’ll kill me.”
“Why are you even here?” she breathed, heart pounding so fast it was hard to form words. It felt like a twisted answer to a wish. Here’s the boy you’ve spent months pining for, but now he might die, and if you try to help him, you might die.
“Little Fox,” Jacks said. “We need to keep moving. He’ll tell you whatever he needs to get out of that cage and take a bite out of you.”
“No! I would never hurt you.” Luc’s voice was harsher than she remembered, desperate. “Eva, please don’t leave. I know you must be terrified, but I won’t bite you if you let me out—I don’t want to be a vampire. I only came here because I was told that vampire venom was the most powerful healer in the world and it could erase my scars and wounds.”
Every inch of his skin was flawless, more perfect than in all her memories. Too perfect. It was hard to believe there’d ever been any scars. And Evangeline wanted to tell him that she would not have cared if he had scars all over his person—in fact, she’d have preferred them to this overly polished version of him. But Luc went on before she could. “That’s all I wanted, to be healed. I—” His eyes shot around the violent room of cages.