This knowledge might have slanted the actions of the fruit twins in a new light, breaking in to save all the marked – except I knew they hadn’t just done it to save them. They’d also been looking for Mischa and me. Selfish actions to free a megalomaniac king.

I remained on high alert as we wound along the corridor of prisoners, forcing myself not to watch the bleak faces behind the magic glass. I closed my ears to the rambling mutterings, the screams, the animal-like noises. Nothing I could do to help them. I wondered if Jonathon knew how harsh this prison was. Surely there had to be some sort of regulations on treatment of prisoners. It would be better to kill them than continue a lifetime of torture. Supernaturals lived for a very long time.

We encountered three more barred gates, but each time there was at least one male on guard, and they were more than helpful to the twins. I’d thought they were so badass when I’d first heard that two females were breaking out the dragon marked, but they were pretty much escorted right in and out. No risk. No badassery required. Posers.

The worst of all was the fact that so many supes had a weak enough mind that they could be influenced, although I knew it was harder to fight when taken unawares. And the twins were old and powerful. But still.

The cold was increasing as we traversed further into the mountain, and the path seemed to be tilted downwards, heading straight into the basement of this damned place, which gave me a very uneasy feeling. So much stone surrounded us now.

My wolf and dragon both started to growl and I had to cut off that line of thought to calm them down. And myself. Mostly myself, because I was starting to get a claustrophobic freak-out feeling.

“How much further?” I finally snarled, unable to stand the silent walking any longer.

Lemon graced me with a smirk. “Almost there, wolf. The weapon is in the very lowest dungeon of this prison. Where the oldest, most powerful and most evil prisoners rest.”

Awesome. And if we were truly lucky, these prisoners would all escape just before we got down there. You know, just for kicks.

With a sigh I settled in for the rest of the long walk. Eventually, we reached a sort of t-section and the twins chose to go left, the path started descending quite steeply. I was still trying to build an image of Krakov in my head. This place reminded me of underground images of ant hills, or the chambers below the pyramids in Egypt. The only light in this section was from small crystals embedded high in the stone walls.

“What was down the other path?” I asked, finding the t-section odd.