Solitary was dark, dank and depressing. The cells were small and each housed a cot and a chair. There were eight of them—four on the left and four on the right. A ten-foot aisle separated the row of cages. I shuddered at the feeling being locked up evoked in my gut, but quickly reminded myself that I was playing a game. Juliette was the only real prisoner inhabiting the bleak accommodations at the moment.

My guards, Gil and Sven, threw me into the cell violently and locked the door without speaking a word. Thankfully Sven’s back was to Juliette because his expression of remorse at having to handle me so harshly would have blown the plan to Hell.

The two men were my good friends. We’d fought side by side through many battles. I’d trained them well. When I’d told them to handle me roughly, they took me at my word—no questions asked.

Juliette said nothing as I climbed painfully to my feet and ran my still bleeding hands over the thick stone wall at the back of the cage. Then I tested the lock chained to the bars of the cell.

“Forget it, Vampyre,” she snapped with a laugh that sent a chill up my spine. “No way out.”

I ignored her as I continued to case the tiny confines. Being nice and chatty wasn’t going to get me anywhere. Juliette had responded to two people as far as I knew—her mother and Vlad. Both of those individuals were cruel and dismissive.

“Are you deaf or just stupid?” she demanded, watching me with interest.

“Shut it,” I snarled. “Don’t believe I asked you for advice.”

“Whatever, bitch.” She muttered a few other rude obscenities under her breath and then sat down on her cot to watch the show.

I could feel her eyes on me as I went over every inch of the cell with meticulous focus. However, it wasn’t until I sat down that she finally spoke again.

“Told you,” she said with a laugh that made me glance up at her.

It sounded a bit like Astrid’s laugh, but she had nothing else of Astrid in her. They might have been born of the same evil woman, but that’s where the similarities ended.

She was blonde where Astrid was a brunette. Juliette was every kind of vile sin personified and Astrid was the embodiment of every kind of goodness and light. The woman in the cell was insane and dangerous. I’d experienced first hand the deadly havoc she could wreak. Many of the Cressida House Vampyres had perished when she’d summoned Wraiths and brought Trolls to our compound. Juliette was batshit crazy and not in the somewhat sweet, politically incorrect way Martha and Jane were.

Martha and Jane—even with insulting afros—were harmless saints compared to the woman staring daggers at me. Juliette was simply horrifying.

“Why are you here?” she demanded.

Again, I ignored her.

She rattled the bars of her cage and hissed at me like an animal. “Fine. Don’t speak, bitch.”

“You. Will. Stop. Talking,” I informed her as my eyes went green and my fangs dropped. “You are giving me a headache. Considering I just got pummeled by six Vamps, that’s quite a feat.”

“Ohhh,” she purred. “I live for compliments.”

“Doesn’t look like you’re living too well then,” I shot back and gingerly set my broken arm. The snap, crackle, pop of the bones as they slid back into alignment was sickeningly satisfying. Even as long as I’d been undead, I was still amazed at my healing capacity.

“I’ll be living large soon,” she informed me snidely. “Too bad you won’t.”

“I call bullshit, Blondie. They’ll probably remove your head along with mine later today. I hear they’re vacating the compound,” I lied going off one of the suggestions Ethan had made in his note.

“Really?” she asked, now rabidly interested. “Today is the day? This is so exciting. I’ve missed my family so. I can’t wait to see my sister.”

She paced her cell in tight small circles, pulling on her hair, and muttering to herself.

“Who’s your sister?” I asked, closing my eyes and laying back on the cot.

“As if you didn’t know…” Her voice was pure venom.

“Can’t say I do,” I replied easily lying through my teeth. I could only pray my indifference would spur her on.

“Astrid,” she hissed and then cackled.

Juliette sounded like a witch from a fairytale nightmare. She really was truly stunning, but her looks belied the rotten core beneath.

“Again, I call bullshit.” I barely glanced up. “If you’re a royal, I’m a Troll.”

“Take that back,” Juliette yelled as she pressed her face against the bars. “You will show me the respect that I’m owed, Vampyre.”

“Sure,” I said with a laugh. “As soon as I take a little nap, I’ll prostrate myself to your pathetic royal ass.”

“You really don’t know who I am?” she asked, clearly appalled.

“Nope. And I really don’t care,” I said, still refusing to acknowledge her with a glance.

“I’m Juliette,” she shouted. “You will get down on your knees and beg my forgiveness, you insolent Vampyre. Now.”

“Dude, dude, dude.” My cavalier tone made her grind her fangs. So far she was quite easy to rile. “Juliette’s dead. Everyone knows that. I don’t know who the hell you are, but you’re not Juliette. From the stories I’ve heard, Juliette was a looker. You? Not so much.”

“I am beautiful,” she growled.

“Yeah right. Why don’t you just be beautiful with your mouth shut? I’d like to look my best when the real royal assholes remove my head in a few hours.”

“I can prove it,” she insisted frantically.

“That you’re cray-cray?” I asked, sitting up and rolling my eyes. “No worries. You’ve already done that.”

“If I wasn’t in this cell, I’d behead you so fast,” she threatened. “Save my brother the trouble.”

“And your brother is?”

“Ethan,” Juliette screamed. “You should know this, Vampyre.”

“Lady, your delusions of grandeur would be amusing if your voice wasn’t wearing on my soon to be ash last nerve. How about this?” I said, letting a wide disrespectful grin pull at my lips. “Just for shits and giggles, I’ll pretend that you’re Juliette and you can regale me with a bunch of lies. Might pass the time while I heal. I plan to take out few Vamps before they turn me to dust.”

“Tell me your name, Vampyre,” she demanded.

“Well, today my name can be… um… Astrid. Since we’re playacting and all. I’ll pick the most despicable of the royal shitshow.”

“You hate them?” she asked, tilting her head and eyeing me with delight.

“About as much as I hate listening to you spout bullshit,” I told her with a shrug of indifference.

She was silent as she digested my smack talk. However, I could see the deranged wheels in her head turning.

“You can’t kill Astrid, she’s unkillable,” she informed me, still pacing like a lunatic. “However, there is a way to get her.”

“You’re almost as stupid as you are annoying.”

“Do you want information or not?” she shrieked. “If you want to destroy the bitch, you’d better listen up, Vampyre.”

Easing myself to a sitting position on the lone chair in my cell, I crossed my arms over my chest and waited. Did Astrid really have a weak spot or was Juliette just completely unbalanced?

“You have my attention,” I said flatly.

“You will address me by my title,” she said, clearly believing she now had the upper hand.

In a way she did, but not like she thought. Watching her shudder with delight as she waited to be addressed as a royal, I felt a fleeting pang of sympathy for her. She’d been hideously abused by both her mother and Vlad for hundreds of years, but the things she had done were so despicable, I was still surprised by my sympathetic reaction to her.

Shaking my head at the reckless direction of my thoughts, I focused on the fact she’d been responsible for turning many I loved to ash. At a certain point in our lives, we have the choice to leg go of wrongs done and take a different path. I had chosen to control my destiny. My tragic past shaped me, but I had opted to lead a mostly good life. It was the only real revenge I had.

Juliette, though, had clearly not taken the same route. She had chosen to let her hate control her.

“Fine,” I said sarcastically. “I’ll give you what you want, but you will tell me everything you know and prove that you own the title… my Princess.”

Her eyes went unfocused and she danced around her cell, tripping over her cot and upending her chair. Landing in an ungraceful lump on the floor, she peered up at me like a lost soul. “Again. Say it again,” she begged on her hands and knees.

“Make me believe you.”

“My mother stole me away after my bastard father refused to turn her. She made a deal with the Demons and the rest is history,” she babbled.

“You could have read that in the history books. I know that,” I replied. “Who is your lover?”

“Vlad,” she purred and ran her hands over her body suggestively. It was all I could do not to look away. “He loves me. He’ll save me from this Hell.”

“Yeah, right,” I muttered and shook my head. “Good luck with that, Princess.”

“He will,” she snarled. “He comes to me in my dreams. He will rescue me and all will die who try and stop him.”

This was certainly unwelcome news. Was Vlad a Dream Walker? As far as I knew, Baby Samuel was the only one of our kind who could do that. It was very dangerous and incredibly rare.

“You are so insane.” I ran my now healed hands through my wild hair and narrowed my eyes at her. “No Vampyre can do that. Try again.”

“He can,” she informed me smugly. “You’ll see.”

“Umm… no, I won’t,” I reminded her. “About to lose my head in a few.”

“Listen to me,” she said, lowering her voice and crawling to the front of her cage. “If you can escape, you can come with me. Vlad will take care of you. Just kill Ethan. That’s Astrid’s weakness. She’ll die without him.”

“Right on, dumbass,” I said with a rude middle finger salute. It was no secret that if a Vampyre mate was killed, the other would follow in death. However, Astrid was a True Immortal and I wasn’t sure that applied to her. I was relieved that Juliette didn’t have something real on Astrid. “Killing a Master Vampyre is a cinch.”

“Vlad will rule the World and will be so grateful to you. We’re systematically killing them off already.” Juliette’s excited laughter was sickening.

“Who?” I asked already knowing the answer.

Holy Hell, was the key to the problem here all along? Did Juliette know how to break the curse?

“My siblings… and we’ll get my father too,” she said with wide and crazed eyes.

“How?”

“A curse,” she replied with a giggle that made me want to beat her senseless. “They’re aging and dying. So simple. So brilliant.”

“You created the curse?” I asked and prayed to God I sounded impressed.

“No, but I know who did.”

So much for hoping she could break it… “Vlad? That dead dude can create curses?”

“Of course not. We caught an Angel not being very angelic and now we own his ass,” Juliette informed me with pride.

“Your imagination is staggering,” I shot back with a grunt of laughter as I moved back to my cot, laid down, and turned my back to her. “You’re losing me here—getting bored with the fantasy land.”

“I can prove it,” she shouted.

“Sure you can,” I muttered, still facing away from her. I wanted her answer more than I wanted to live a second longer.

“Promise not to tell?” she asked.

“Who in the Hell am I going to tell?” I snapped. “If what you’re saying is even remotely true, then I applaud your crazy ass. If it’s a lie, then you’re more deranged than you seem.”

“It’s Rachmiel” she said so quietly that I sat up and faced her.

Was she serious? The Angel of Mercy was behind the curse? I hoped that Ethan and Astrid had heard her. Roberto needed this info immediately. Gareth only had a damn week. If we could get to the Angel, we might not have to go after Vlad at all.

My laughter sounded forced to my own ears, but Juliette bought it hook, line and sinker. What I wanted now was to get the Hell out of the cell and find the traitor Angel, but I was certain I could get more from her. “Oh my God. You’re hilarious. They should keep you alive just for the amusement of your whacked out stories.”

“You think I’m funny?” she asked, delighted. “No one thinks I’m funny. I really am funny. Right?”

“Yes, you’re a laugh freakin’ riot. So let me get this straight. Vlad owns Rachmiel’s ass and he made him put a curse on all the royal jackoffs?”

“Well, we could only get to a few, but he’ll finish the job soon. When they’re all dead I’ll be the only living royal… and then Vlad and I will rule the world. I’d totally give you a post, Vampyre. You think I’m funny.”

“I’d say thanks, but I’ll be pretty dead by the time you’re looking to fill your court.”

“Vlad will be so grateful to you if you eliminate a few for us.”

“It’s all fine and dandy for Dracula to be grateful to me when I’m a pile of ash. If I kill the bastards, it’s going to be for me, not Vlad. Sorry to bust on your lover, but he sounds like a lunatic asshole,” I snapped, pressing my face to the bars and hissing at her. “And if you’re really a royal, I’ll come back and kill you too if I make it out of here alive. The only good royal is a dead one.”

“God, you’re fabulous,” Juliette sang, jumping to her feet and smiling so wide I could see most of the teeth in her mouth. “Where were you when I needed a friend?”

“Pretty sure I just said I was going to kill you,” I stated flatly. “With friends like that who needs enemies?”

“Let’s do girl talk,” she said, righting her chair, and pulling it to the front of her cell.

Again I had to push back my pity. She wanted my friendship because I threatened her life.

Shit. This Vampyre was all kinds of screwed up.

I had about ten more minutes. I probably had all the information I was going to get, but who knew at this point?

“I’ll go first,” she said with her hands clasped tightly. “Vlad is a wonderful lover. Do you have a lover?”

“The reason I’m down here is because I removed the fangs, arms, and legs of my last lover.”

I watched her digest that little nugget. She clapped her hands gleefully and pulled on her hair.

“Did he cheat on you?”

“No, he bored me.”

“Brilliant. Why didn’t you finish the job?” she asked with huge blood-thirsty eyes and a throaty chuckle.

I was starting to feel ill, but it was very possible I could get something on Vlad. Swallowing back the bile in my throat, I continued to lie.

“They stopped me. He was a dignitary from the European Dominion. Total asshole. However, I’m fairly sure several died when they pulled me off of him.”

“Vlad would love you,” she assured me and then shook her head in confusion. “No, Vlad loves me. Right?”

“I have no clue,” I answered her. “Did he tell you that?”

“Not in words,” she whispered in confession. “In actions. He does love me, and if he stops, I’ll kill him. I know his weakness too.”

“He’s a Master Vampyre. They don’t have weaknesses,” I said, hoping she’d bite.

“So little you know.”

“Okay, since I’m about to die, and I have nothing better to do at the moment, I’ll play. What’s Vlad’s weakness?”

If I had breath, I’d be holding it. It shouldn’t be this easy.

“He despises imperfection and he’s allergic to silver.” Her head bobbed up and down with crazed excitement.

Well, so much for getting anything else useful out of the nut job. And as far as hating imperfection, the bastard must loathe himself.

“Umm… all Vampyres are allergic to silver,” I told her. “You have nothing on him, my friend.”

“Say that again,” she insisted, reaching out to me through the bars of her cell.

“What?”

“My friend. Say my friend again.”

Closing my eyes, I let my head fall to my chest. She was so unstable and pathetic.

“My friend,” I said quietly. “Silver is not a secret. It harms us all.”

“This is true, my friend,” she said reverently, with bloody tears in her eyes as she smiled at me. “But you will only get burned if you touch it. He will die if it so much as touches his skin.”

That stunned me to silence. How had the bastard lived for as long as he had? Silver was everywhere.

“Time to die,” Sven growled as he and Gil reentered the chamber.

Unlocking the cell and grabbing me in a chokehold that I’d taught him myself, he punched me in the head so hard I saw stars. I knew we needed it to look realistic, but Sven was going to pay huge when I got out of here.

Juliette hissed and bared her fangs to the guards who studiously ignored her.

“Kill them all,” she screeched as I was dragged down the hallway toward my death. “I will cherish you, my friend. Always.”

God, I felt sick.

Sad and sick.