Chapter 2

A face swims into view. Male. Fae. Shockingly handsome, sharp-featured and vulpine, with long purple hair—the hair doesn't seem dyed, to me. He has small gold hoops in his ears, running from the tip of his pointed ears down to his lobes.

"By the Blood! It's her ! It's the WorldBreaker!" The fae's voice is shocked, fearful.

The what?

I scramble to my feet, refusing to tug on the hem of the T-shirt that is my only clothing—I faced an entire army of immortals in the nude, so I can handle this.

Whatever this is.

"You lie, Cobalt." This comes from a female voice—deep, mellifluous. She's a shifter, built long and lean, with blond hair and amber eyes with slitted feline pupils.

The owner of the voice pushes through the crowd surrounding me—dozens of immortals, fae, shifters, and vampires, warriors in full armor, others wearing mechanic's coveralls, others casually dressed in loose light cloth pants and form-fitting tunics that hang to the knee. These outfits seem to be standard issue, dove gray, with a wide leather belt at the waist hung with pouches; I spy cell phones and walkie-talkies and tools and knives and water bottles and all sorts of items.

They're all staring at me.

The first speaker, the fae male, glares at the shifter female. "Say that to my face, Hannah." He says it HAH-nah rather than the more American and nasally version, Haaa-nah . "I was present when Commander Callistae passed out her file. I tell you, this is she, the WorldBreaker."

"You do not rank highly enough to merit a look at that file, Cobalt," Hannah says, smirking. "And I'll say it to your face. You lie . What will you do, Fae? Put sparkles in my hair? You have no battle magic."

Cobalt snarls—he's in the tunic-and-trousers outfit, his belt revealing nothing of his job. "Perhaps, but I have access to your meal account. I can make sure you're served nothing but potatoes for a month."

Hannah wears black cargo pants, a sleeveless black T-shirt, and a bulletproof vest, and carries a handgun and a short sword on a black tactical belt. Her eyes flare amber and a feline snarl rips out of her. "And I could rip out your throat where you stand."

"Um. Excuse me, but…what do you mean, WorldBreaker?" I glance at Cobalt as I ask this.

"You. You are the WorldBreaker."

"Yeah, I got that, I just don't know what that means. I'm not a WorldBreaker. I'm Maeve Sparrow."

Cobalt whirls on Hannah, triumphant. "See! Maeve Sparrow. The WorldBreaker."

"See, you're still not explaining why you're calling me that," I say.

Cobalt frowns in my direction. "But…it's you. It's who you are— what you are."

" MAKE WAY! STAND ASIDE !" A powerful, booming voice shivers my bones, and a male shifter pushes through the crowd.

Or rather, the crowd parts for him, and I see why. He's over seven feet tall and wider than two of me, with brown hair in a military crew cut and brown eyes and tanned skin. He's garbed like Hannah, in black paramilitary gear, with a sheathed short sword and holstered handgun, and a shockstick in one hand, the end crackling and spitting with electricity. He'll shift into a bear, if appearances are any indication.

He stops and towers over me. His glare is cold and unfeeling. "You. WorldBreaker. Move. This way."

He gestures with the shockstick back the way he came, stepping aside.

Around me, whispers kick up. And then questions are shouted.

"WorldBreaker! What are your powers?"

"Why did you do it, WorldBreaker?"

"Did you really bloodmate with a vampire?"

"I heard you killed four squads at once—how did you do it?"

"Where is your mate, WorldBreaker?"

The gargantuan shifter guard snags my arm and shoves me into motion, none too gently. "Speak not, Vaer."

WorldBreaker. What the hell does that mean?

I take a moment to look around me: the ceiling soars well over two hundred feet above my head, bare rock in a natural domed ceiling, hung with massive banks of LED lights, and HVAC piping running beside the lighting, and here and there massive fans with fifty-foot blades spin lazily, casting a constant breeze. There are rows of black SUVs parked cheek by jowl, mirrors folded in, as well as rows of compact pickups and low, sleek pursuit cars. There are huge black armored personnel carriers, tracked transports, trucks, tanks, and helicopters. On the far side of the yawning, echoing space there's a motor pool where various vehicles are being serviced, hoods up or perched on lifts. Opposite, nearer me, there are lockers lining the bare rock wall, with a catwalk above providing access for a second row.

The hangar, or staging area, or whatever this place is, narrows opposite the massive doors, the ceiling descending to a mere fifty feet high and terminating at another, smaller door.

This door is more prosaic—solid steel, with a spoked wheel, like a bank's vault. It stands open, showing it to be at least four feet thick.

"Cease gawping, WorldBreaker. Move." The huge guard shoves me again, and I trip forward into a trot.

I stop and whirl on him, my ever-simmering rage flaring. "Hey, jackass, quit shoving me. I know how to walk."

He crosses arms the size of my waist over his cliff-like chest. "You are in no position to speak so to me."

Rage is stronger than sense, clearly, because my mouth decides to bait him. "Yet I just did. What you going to do, big man, poke me with your sparky stick?"

"Yes."

And he does. He jabs the four-inch-long prongs into my thigh—they spear through my skin and into muscle, but I have no time to register that before I'm hit by a freight train of raw, undiluted pain, excruciating and paralyzing.

Calliope's fire hurt worse. I soak up the pain, let it flow through me. Accept it. Grit my teeth and hold his eyes, even as I wobble on my feet, paralyzed by the voltage searing through my body.

He yanks the prongs away, and the agony subsides, leaving behind it a bone-deep ache, stomach twisting and flipping.

I taste blood—I bit my tongue. I spit it onto his boot. I shouldn't have—I need every drop of blood. I can smell his blood, starlight and berries and fur. It sings to me. Calls to me.

He lifts his chin. "That was the lowest setting. Move."

I wince as I turn away from him and head for the steel blast door. Stepping through it, the ceiling lowers to less than fifteen feet, and now we could be in any modern office building. The walls are drywall, smooth, featureless, and off-white. The ceiling is more bare rock, more LEDs, and more HVAC. The floor is tiled concrete. The hallway extends in an unbroken line as far as I can see, and out of sight. The guard puts a serving platter-sized palm on my back and pushes, more gently this time.

We follow the hallway for at least fifteen minutes without turning, although we pass at least six different intersections, the cross-halls dotted with doors, some open, some closed; black-clad security guards stand at each corner of every intersection, armed with a short sword and handgun. None of them speak, but they all follow me with their eyes, and I see shock and fear in each face. Immortals pass us coming and going, in pairs, trios, quartets, and the occasional lone person—most of them are dressed in the gray tunic-and-trousers outfit, with the occasional warrior or security guard.

Eventually, we come to the end of the corridor; another door. This one is human-sized, and my guard has to duck to go through it. On the other side is a stairwell leading down. My thigh aches, but considering how close I am to being unblooded, it could be worse. I limp downward…

It spirals down and down and down. After several minutes of downward limping, I stop and peer over the edge, and cannot make out the bottom.

"Don't you have an elevator?" I ask.

"No."

"Do you have a name?" I ask.

"Yes."

"And it is…?"

"None of your business, WorldBreaker. Walk."

"Will someone explain the WorldBreaker business? Please?"

"Someone. Not me."

The shockstick crackles behind me, a warning. I have no desire to repeat that fun little experiment, so I limp downward. My vampiric healing seems to be on full blast because within a few minutes, the ache is gone…and my bloodlust is worse than ever. I feel my canines lengthening, sharpening, until they poke my lips.

"How much farther?" I ask, hearing the darkness in my voice, the cold and the hunger.

I feel a sharp point needle poke my back between my shoulder blades. "Come for my blood and I will run you through and drag your bloodless carcass the rest of the way."

"Tempting," I whisper. "Would mean less walking."

The point digs in. "Do not try me."

I'm pregnant. It hits me all over again…I wonder if everything I've gone through has hurt the little seed of life inside me.

I walk downward and turn my mental attention inward. My vampire nature is a cloak of shadows surrounding a dull, dim spark of light—my magic. My vitality. I want it. With it, maybe I could get out of here. Go back to Caspian.

I feel for it. Reach for it. The shadows rebuff me, my mental grasp clutching at nothing and getting it. The spark of light remains shrouded in shadows, no matter how I reach for it.

Abandoning the attempt for now, I look inward. I hear my heartbeat, slow, sporadic— THRUMTHRUM…THRUMTHRUM…THRUM…THRUM…THRUM…

There…not a spark, not yet a heartbeat. Something. Heat. Presence. Not yet a mind, but…life.

It's there. My child. Caspian's gift to me. My gift to immortal kind.

I nearly sob with relief, even though I'd all but forgotten about the fact of my pregnancy, what with Calliope, the army of immortals, Caspian being shot by a hastaxi, and then Caleb.

I've been a little busy, you might say.

We descend for another ten minutes, and I'm more grateful than ever for my vampire nature—fatigue is not a thing, anymore, or at least not when lacking in blood.

When the stairs finally bottom out, I find myself in another dizzyingly huge space—a cavern several football fields across in every direction. It's bathed in natural light—as we enter the space, I look up: a thousand feet up, at least, is a glass skylight, huge even from this distance. Clouds scud beyond the glass, the sun gleaming in at an oblique angle.

Immortals fill the open space—picnic tables dot the area, with couches and chairs in little seating clusters. At one table, a pair of vampires, both male, sip blood from fancy goblets, laughing. At another table, three fae females pick at salads, giggling together. Another table features a lone male shifter, bent over a plate, scarfing down food like it's about to run away.

My taciturn guard taps me on the right hip with the shockstick, guiding me to the left across the very edge of the courtyard. Again, everyone stops what they're doing and stares. A few whisper together, pointing.

"WorldBreaker." I hear it whispered, again and again. They look at cell phones, and then at me.

Did I miss something? I must have.

We come to a door in the rock; this one has a keycard scanner that glows red; my guard produces a black card and places it on the scanner; the light flashes green. He opens the door and holds it.

"Thank you," I say, out of habit.

"Welcome." He points with the shockstick. "This way."

There's only one way to go—down the hallway—so I do. Here, the walls are close and the ceiling low. Instead of LED lights, there are openings in the ceiling through which sunlight shines; I look up at one, but only get an eyeful of light that makes my head throb so badly I get dizzy and stumble.

"Direct sunlight, and you're unblooded," my guard says as if speaking to an idiot. "Don't look at it."

"I haven't been immortal very long," I mumble. "Not used to it." I glance at him and point at the skylights. "How?"

"Mirrors."

I feel like there's more to it, but I get the general idea.

The hallway continues unbroken, with no doors or cross-halls, for what feels like half a mile. At the end, another door and another keycard scanner.

On the other side of the door is a ten-by-ten room of bare rock walls and ceiling. It's only lit by the ambient light from the open door, which reveals a single metal table bolted to the floor and a two-inch thick ring in the center of the table. There's a single metal chair on both sides of the table.

My guard points at one of the chairs. I sit. A long, thick chain is hooked to the ring, hanging over the side of the table—he connects the chain to the mage-cuffs.

There's another door, on the other side of the room, opposite the one we came through.

My guard stares down at me. For a moment, I see…something in his eyes. Respect? Fear? Curiosity? I can't tell, and it's there and gone so fast I almost doubt I saw it.

He nods once, and then leaves.

The door clicks closed softly, and I'm alone in the dark.