Domingo and Jensen threw her into a small room in the basement. There was a tiny metal bed with a thin mattress and a bucket in the corner. Great, the dungeon. This had been where her father had kept human blood prisoners in the deep past. Now she had the honor of getting to stay here.

“You know how to treat a girl, Domingo,” she said, as he pushed her into the room. Jensen closed the door behind them. A dim, naked bulb swung above them, casting moving shadows across the barren room.

“You are being punished, Isabella. This can end right now. Agree to be my wife, carry my children, and we can be done with it.”

“Um. No,” she said, crossing her arms. “I’m not going to marry a guy who throws me in a dungeon. I have higher standards than that. This whole rapey, serial killer thing you have going on, just doesn’t do it for me.” He slapped her across the face; it threw her head back and made her jaw crack and throb.

“Hitting me won’t make me change my mind,” she spat out. Blood spattered from her broken lip and wounded mouth. Great. This was going to swell up and look godawful later.

Her thoughts went to Ashton and the night they’d spent together. What she wouldn’t give to be back with him now. She’d thought shifters to be brutes, but her own kind were proving to be much worse. This was exactly the reason she’d avoided her father for the last twenty years. He was such an asshole.

“Fuck you, Domingo. You and my father can both suck it,” she said, laughing.

“Watch your words, Isabella. You may just get what you ask for,” he wiped a drop of her blood from his face and turned to go, slamming the door and locking it behind him.

Isabella sighed and slumped down on the bed. She wouldn’t marry that douchebag voluntarily. If her father thought he could convince her this way, he was sorely mistaken. If they wanted to make her marry him, they would have to force her, and what would that accomplish? She’d just leave the first chance she got. They couldn’t possibly think this would end the way they wanted.

She stared up at the tiny window above her room, the moonlight glowed down through the night and she could see shadows play in the darkness. She opened her vampire senses to take in the night, feel the wind, and smell the blooming jasmine.

Ashton’s scent tingled in the background, behind the smell of vampires. She could hear his gentle footfalls somewhere in the castle. He’d come after her. She smiled then frowned. Surely if she could sense him the others could too. He wasn’t safe here. They’d kill him for trespassing as soon as they saw him.

Her heart bashed against her chest at the thought of her father and his goons finding her lover. Damn it. She didn’t want him involved in this. She’d never forgive herself if they killed him. She barely knew the lion shifter, but she didn’t want him harmed. She liked him.

She liked everything about him––his sense of humor, his artwork, his big, commanding hands. She loved how he held her and made love to her. Ashton was a wizard in the bedroom and the perfect man in her opinion. Even if he was a shifter and she barely knew him. She wanted to get to know him better. She didn’t want him sucked dry by a bunch of bloodthirsty vampires.

She had to get out of this dungeon and warn him to get the hell away. This was her problem, not his. Even if she never saw him again, at least she would know he was safe. She picked up the bucket in the corner and hurled it at the tiny window. It clanged to the ground, but she could see the hairline crack in the glass.

She picked up the bucket again and hurled it at the window a second time. When the bucket smashed to the floor, the door opened and Domingo stood before her, anger flaring in his eyes.

“What are you doing?” he demanded.

“I’m trying to break out of here, you idiot. You do realize that the first second I can, I’m gone. Why even bother trying to force me to do this?”

“Santiago will hunt you to the ends of the Earth. You are his daughter and his heir. He will compel you to his will.”

“And exactly how is he going to do that? His vampire mind control doesn’t work on me. I’m not fully human. I’m not that weak.” She laughed and leaned against the stone wall, crossing her arms.

Domingo flew across the room as if weightless and was on top of her in an instant. He pressed his body against hers, his teeth piercing the skin of her neck. He licked the blood that flowed over his tongue and then looked up at her.

“I will have you. You will have my child. If I have to take you by force to put it in you, so be it.”

“I’ll never stay.”

“You’ll stay after I change you. You’ll understand once the human taint is gone from your body. We can’t change you yet. We need your human womb. But after my child is born, you will become a full vampire.”