Releasing his hand, Lord Death’s mate went to the nearby table laid out with the torturer’s implements. She took a pair of stubby metal clippers the torture masters used to cut through fingers and toes and began snipping away the sel’dor hoops piercing her ears. Metal clinked against stone as she pulled each hoop free and tossed it to the ground.

“Well? Will you honor your promise?” Melliandra insisted.

“I honor all my oaths.” Lord Death knelt beside one of the fallen guards and laid a hand on his leather armor. Green light began to glow around his hands and spun out to encompass the fallen guard. The guard’s armor disappeared and re-formed on Lord Death’s body as sleek, dark leather the color of spilled blood. He spoke a word and the swords she’d left hidden in that empty room materialized in their sheaths. His crystal gleamed like a dark prism on his chest. He rose to his full height—looking every bit the deadly Fey warrior of legend—and went to his mate, who had finished with the hoops at her ears and was slowly peeling back the metal bands around her upper arms, freeing herself from the hundreds of sharp, needlelike teeth sunk into her flesh. His hands gripped her bare shoulders, and he touched his mouth to her temple. Her eyes closed, and she leaned back against him but only for a moment. When her eyes opened again, her expression was as cold and resolute as his.

“Vadim Maur has our daughter,” Lord Death said. He met Melliandra’s eyes. “He dies today, or we do.”

When Ellysetta woke again, she was lying on a stone floor. Her head was pounding, and just opening her eyes seemed too monumental a task. She shifted, trying to lift a hand to her head. Chains rattled and dragged across stone.

“That did not go at all the way you dreamed, did it?”

Despite the effort involved, Ellysetta forced her eyes open. She was lying in a dark room. A single lamp, suspended over her head, cast a circle of light around her. Vadim Maur sat on a stool at the perimeter of the light’s circle, watching her with his cold silver eyes.

“It seemed like such a perfect plan. The dream was so vivid and you feared it so greatly, I thought you actually might succumb.” He shook his head. “This next part, however, might still do the trick. Lorelle, my pet, give us a little light, will you? “

“What?” Ellysetta sat up straight.

Confusion and dawning horror her as a sweet, voice replied, “Yes, Master Maur,” and a flicker of Fire lit a pair of candle lamps held in the hands of Lillis and Lorelle.

The twins stood behind Vadim Maur, dressed neatly in black velvet gowns, their curls brushed and tied back in black bows. Their eyes were pure black to match, and sparkling with dark red lights.

“Nei,” Ellysetta choked. Oh, gods! Not this. Not her sweet, beautiful, innocent sisters. “Lillis. Lorelle. Nei.”

“You know,” the Mage said conversationally, “it came as quite a surprise to discover that your Celierian sisters both possess strong magical gifts, including quite a significant talent in Azrahn. It certainly made them easier to claim—once my new torture master persuaded them to accept the first Mark. Of course, their magic doesn’t hold a candle to yours, but they’ll be quite useful, nonetheless.” His cold silver eyes watched her closely. “Gifted female breeders are not as easy to come by as you might think.”

She lunged for him, teeth bared, no thought in her mind but to rip him into bloody bits with her bare hands. Her chains were no longer held by guards. They were bolted to the stone floor, with no give. The collar around her throat ran out of slack first. Momentum made her fly off her feet. She landed hard on her back, choking for breath and tugging to loosen the collar around her neck that threatened to strangle her.

“There isn’t a Hell hot enough for you,” she snarled when she could speak. “You’d best kill me now, because if you don’t, I swear by all the gods you will die by my hand.”

He laughed with genuine humor. “I worked centuries creating you and expended countless resources getting you back. Are you really so foolish as to think I would throw all that away by killing you?” He shook his head. “No, I won’t kill you, Ellysetta.” He gestured to the guard behind her, who immediately grabbed her head in a viselike grip. The Mage stepped closer, ran a hand down one side of her face in a disturbingly gentle caress. “You know what I want. You can surrender now, without pain, or you and everyone you love will suffer until you do. And when I say suffer, I mean you and your loved ones will crawl on your knees and beg me for death. But I won’t give it to you, Ellysetta. I intend to keep you alive for a very, very long time.”

She jerked her head back to avoid the poison of his touch and tried to snap at him with her teeth, but the guards held her too tight. In the end, words were her only weapon. “My parents survived a thousand years of your torture. All I have to do is to survive long enough for you to make a mistake. And when you do, I will destroy you.”

“You forget one thing, my dear.” He ran a thumb across her lower lip. “For every one of those thousand years, your parents had each other. You, however, are all alone. Or soon will be.” On that cryptic note, he turned, and said politely, “Lorelle, my sweet, give us more light.”

Lorelle’s Fire magic spun out, and half a dozen sconces along the walls flared to light.

Ellysetta’s heart slammed against her chest.

On the other side of the room, his naked body heavily manacled and chained to the wall, was Rain. A stocky brute of a fellow stood beside him, next to a table loaded with torturers’ implements, and as the brute stepped into the light, Ellysetta’s jaw dropped.