Only then did he spot Fern hieing away over his brother’s shoulder, her wings a blur behind her, and followed her path to its logical conclusion.
“My guess would be there.” He pointed past her to the hole in the chasm side, his voice little more than a burnt husk.
“We have to go.” Amun hefted a muttering Vann from the ground, then the dazed twins. “Quickly.”
“What’s the fucking rush, Amun? Give a lad a moment to breathe, aye?”
“No. Not aye.” Golden scales rippled to the surface of his skin, eyes shimmering with amber and jade before his irises lengthened vertically.
The Serpent.
Shite. He was pissed if he was losing control of himself.
“Where’s Amal?”
Amun ignored him as he gathered everyone close. A bad sign.
Most didn’t realize that her place as hisajmawasn’t only for his protection—it was to protect othersfromhim, if necessary.
Smoke curled from Amun’s nostrils, lips peeling back as his teeth sharpened to lethal points. “You get us there now, Araxis, or Lunara dies.”
The witchling’s scream echoed across the empty chasm.
Weeping fuck.
When Lunarafinally did hit the dirt, it was on the floor of their cave.
She felt hollowed out as she stumbled her way upright, the place foreign to her now. Their haven had been reduced to a torture chamber. A dungeon for her mate.
Black smudges lined the walls, and torches made of bone flickered with a sinister light. It reeked of the dreadbeasts’ venom and that same hateful, cloying scent of burnt fucking roses.
None of it mattered. Not when she finally spotted Brand, and the rest of the world dropped away.
She misted to the platform, a cry breaking free when she beheld him up close. It was the nightmare from Argoph, every detail exactly the same.
His eyes were closed and swollen. Barbed chains had been wrapped around his beaten body, holding him down. They’d carved through flesh and bone, and rivers of blood had caked over him in layers, seeping from the uneven wounds. One of his hands was almost completely severed, his wrist broken.
It was the tears, though—the ones that had dried along his temples and still dampened his hair—that splintered something deep within her.
“I’m here. I’m here, Brand.”
She was already moving as she sent out a thread of power, her fingers barely brushing over his shoulder when?—
“No.”
His skin was so cold, his heart barely beating. She tried to tell herself his breaths were just slow, her mind playing tricks, but the sound that tore out of her was pure agony.
“Sisters, no.” She scrambled onto the platform. “Please, no!”
She gripped the chains and willed them apart, chucking the shattered pieces to the ground and ignoring the puncturewounds they left behind as she laid her palms to his ravaged chest.
“Please, please, please.” Lunara had no other words as his pain became hers.
She dumped power into him and bore every wretched second of his torture. Gladly. Willingly. Flooded him with everything she had left to give.
Anything. Anything to have him back. He could have all of it.
She never let go of the dying beat as choked, anguished utterances finally pushed themselves past the ache in her throat. “Please, Brand. This heart is mine, remember? You gave it to me right here. You gave it to me again and again.” Agony of a different sort twisted within her. “I was so scared—so hopelessly scared—but I took it anyway. I took it for myself and I never said it could stop. Please, I’m here. I’m here now. Don’t let it stop.”
