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This would be the end for my uncle They would take us back to the torture chamber and I kneithout any shadow of doubt that one more session in there would drain himent on him and send him down to The Necropolis, but after one more session, I could predict it as surely as the oracle herself

"No!" I bellowed, kicking and flailing in the ghoul’s iron grip

The ghouls began leading us away from the main door, down the corridor I wouldn’t have been surprised if the ghouls had just been on their way to conduct their inspection… and to think that ould’ve justthem to hasten

Theymyself for another round of torture when, to my shock, they stopped abruptly before we reached the end of the tunnel

The ghoul had been carrying us with our backs facing forward, so I couldn’t even see why they had stopped And everything that happened next was a blur I heard the ghouls screahoul’s hold onto the floor, I whirled around to findon the floor, decapitated

Hovering over theers in their hands, tinged with thick, black blood I gaped, both stunned and bewildered by what they’d just done

I’d thought that if we got ourselves caught, our contract would auto to risk houls while in their own caverns spoke of deeper levels of desperation on their part than I’d ever iainst his sash and slid it back into his belt He and his companion quickly scooped up the bodies and opened one of two coffins that rested behind the up their bodies in order totheir shoulder sashes, they soaked up the blood on the ground before chucking them on top of the corpses They closed the lid of the coffin sharply before opening the lid of the second one

Then Sherus set his steely gaze onto the second box "Now"

Luckily we had subtle bodies and all six of us could pile in, our bodiesI shifted around as the fae slahosts sih the s lifted and held slightly vertical so that I could glimpse as in front of us They arrived at theit open and we shot out We flew over the lake, then into the canal before arriving in the vast entrance cavern

It all happened so fast, I barely even believed uards and shot up through the base of the whirlpool As the churning water sloshed against the glass, it was the ht I’d ever seen

We’re out

Ben

We soared out of the vortex of swirling water over an expansive, tree-lined lake, and then the fae tilted the box so that thefaced directly upward to the sun-streaked sky and I couldn’t glih I was curious to observe the location of this place--where the heck the portal to that ghastly hole existed on Earth--I could hardly coht I’d appreciate the sun as much as I did now All those months as a vampire, it had been the bane ofeach other in the cramped coffin, the six of us were all still too stunned to say anything We just lay as ere, blinking, shocked at everything that had transpired

I wondered whatI wouldn’t be surprised if a part of him believed that this was all just another vision ihouls, one that would soon turn and twist into a torturous nightmare But it wouldn’t This was real The fae had helped us to escape

We zooh, the coffin was lowered to the ground The lid clicked open I drifted out first to find un

The fae stood barely three feet fro in the full glory of our snow-clad, earthly surroundings After I’d been held captive in the dead realhtened and hosts followed me, and Lucas was the last to drift out of the coffin He ca next to me even as he looked around Froht that he’d just landed on another planet I guessed it really was like another planet He had suffered in The Underworld for almost two decades It blew my mind to think what a shock this must be for him Not to have seen sunshine for all that tione insane I was actually surprised that he hadn’t gone more insane than he was Then I reminded myself for a second time that he was, after all, a Novak

We were all still too taken by the euphoria of our surroundings to pay attention to our rescuers, even as they stood, surveying us intensely Finally I forced my attention to Sherus… and now that I did, the bitter reality of our escape returned to otten out But now I had to ensure that we stayed out

I clearedhim and his companion tentatively I noticed for the first tihouls’ corpses wasthe way