“I’ll inform the director. If he approves it, we’ll have some vampire blood brought to you.”

“Bagged like that won’t work,” I said, thinking fast. “It has to be straight from the vein of a vampire in my undead family tree, or I’ll starve, and Madigan won’t get his precious samples. Luckily for him, he has two vampires that my husband sired right here.”

I didn’t know when Denise would make her move, but if Tate or Juan were out of their cells when she did, so much the better. Now, to hope that Madigan believed my unusual diet requirements.

Dr. Obvious stared at me long enough to make the average person either squirm or blurt out a confession. I did neither. The worst thing in my life had already happened, so aside from grief and murderous rage, the rest of me was numb.

“I’ll let you know what the director says,” she finally replied. Then she disappeared from sight.

I closed my eyes against the glare of the overhead lights. I had nothing to do but wait, but soon, I’d be able to kill.

And once I was done with that, I’d be able to die.

About an hour later, several people came into the room, from the noise and sudden spate of thoughts. Again I tried to crane my neck and only succeeded in cutting the metal strap into my head deeply enough to draw blood. I didn’t have long to wait to find out who my visitors were, though. Two voices cut through the other sounds, both familiar, but only one welcome.

“Cat.”

An anguished gasp from Tate, following by Madigan’s “If this is a trick, you’ll regret it, Crawfield.”

“For the last time, it’s Russell,” I ground out.

Madigan made sure to lean over me so I could see every nuance of his smug expression before he spoke.

“Not anymore, but that’s your fault. You swore on Bones’s life that you’d come alone, and you didn’t.”

I’d heard the saying “to see red” pertaining to a sudden surge of rage, but had never experienced it before. Now I did, because it took several seconds before I looked at Madigan and saw anything except a vision of him covered in blood and dying in extreme pain. Then that faded, and I drew in a deep breath to calm myself, blowing it out slowly.

You’ll get free, and you’ll kill him, I swore. Until then, it would only help if Madigan felt smugly superior. Then he’d be more likely to make a mistake.

“Am I getting fed, or are you fine with not discovering all the new treasures in my blood?” I asked in an even tone.

Madigan moved back, snapping, “Put his wrist against her mouth,” to whichever guards had Tate.