Jeaniene Frost

My grip didn’t loosen. “Take me there.”
She couldn’t have looked more shocked if I’d stabbed her. “I can’t. It’s forbidden!”
“Rules are made to be broken,” I insisted. “Come on.”
She screamed. Now I had the attention of everyone around us, too. I smiled through gritted teeth.
“Just a dispute between friends, people. Carry on.”
“Help me, she’s insane!” the woman shouted.
“I’m not. I just need to see the challenger—”
“Veritas.”
I whirled at my name. Ashael was several meters behind me, half hidden behind a thick stone pillar with a mural of Zeus painted on it.
I released her with a muttered, “Apologies,” before I strode over to my half brother.
“Take me to Ian,” I said as soon as I reached him. “I need to stop this. Do you know what will happen if he loses?”
“Yes,” Ashael said, yanking me behind the pillar. “And if I couldn’t talk him out of this, you won’t. Besides, if you’re caught interfering, it’ll be considered as cheating, and his life as well as yours will be forfeit.”
Anger and anxiety exploded in me. “Then why did you bring him here, let alone tell him how to issue a non-retractable, lethal challenge? I had the situation with Phanes

vampire holding cell. Its door was the length of my forearm in thickness, and it had no windows. It should have been more than enough to hold Ereshki, but the chair that was bolted into the floor was empty of everything except heavy chains.
Ian bent near the chair, then straightened so abruptly, he nearly ripped it free from its welds. “What is this?”
The room’s two bloody guards gave a guilty glance at each other before the black-haired one replied, “Pen and paper.”
The look Ian gave them should have sent them to their knees begging for mercy. “Why did you give her that?”
“She was crying about how she wanted to write a good-bye note,” the other guard said, hunching as if feeling the blows that were certain to come. “We only loosened one wrist. Her arms and legs were still chained. What could a human do with only one wrist, some paper and a pen?” he added defensively.
I closed my eyes. Ian heard my heartbeat, Cat had said about their first fight. And like all vampires, the sound lulled him into believing I was far more fragile than I