The information registered dimly through the haze of pain. Two days. Two days of thirst and hunger and Shadera’s muffled cries from the next cell.
Shadera.
His head turned toward the wall that separated their cells, straining to hear any sound from her. Nothing. The silence from her side was more terrifying than any cry could have been.
“Get her out,” he croaked, taking a stumbling step toward the door. The officer’s hand tightened on his arm, holding him back. “Now.”
Mikel nodded to the remaining officers, who disappeared from view, heading toward Shadera’s cell. Greyson heard the beep of the access code, the hiss of the door. Then silence again.
When they reappeared, two officers supporting a figure between them, Greyson’s world contracted to a single point of horror.
Shadera hung between the officers, barely conscious, her feet dragging on the concrete floor. Her face—her beautiful, defiant face—was swollen beyond recognition, one eye completely closed, the other a slit in the purple black mess of bruising. Blood had dried in her hair, matting it to her scalp in dark clumps. Her lip was split in multiple places, chin crusted with blood both fresh and old.
But it was her body that made Greyson’s knees nearly give out. Her shirt was torn, revealing glimpses of skin that was no longer skin—just a map of bruises, blacks and greens and blues and sickly yellows at the edges. She held herself as if her ribs were broken, each breath a shallow, pained affair. Her hands were a ruin, fingers swollen, knuckles split, nails torn and bloody.
Greyson’s vision blurred. The rage that exploded in his chest was unlike anything he’d felt before—hotter, sharper, more all-consuming than any fury he’d experienced in his violent life. It filled his lungs like acid, burned behind his eyes like molten metal. This was what they haddone to her while he sat in his cell, nursing his anger, refusing to speak to her. This was what she’d endured while he wallowed in his own pain.
They’d barely touched him. A few bruises, the cuts from the cords, the discomfort of thirst and hunger. Nothing compared to what they had done to her.
And he had left her alone with it. Had refused her when she’d reached out to him in her suffering.
“Shadera,” he whispered, the word breaking in his throat.
Her good eye flickered at the sound of his voice, focusing on him for a brief moment before sliding away. The deliberate avoidance sent a spike of pain through his chest, sharpening by the second.
“She needs water,” Mikel said, his voice neutral but something unreadable flowing beneath the current. “Both of you do.”
He snapped his fingers, and another officer appeared with two bottles of water. Mikel took them, dismissing the officer with a nod, then handed one to Greyson. He approached Shadera carefully, as one might a wounded animal, and held the bottle to her swollen lips.
“Drink,” he said, his tone softer than before.
Shadera’s throat worked convulsively as she gulped the water, some of it spilling down her chin and onto her ruined shirt. Greyson watched, his own thirst momentarily forgotten as he witnessed her desperation. When Mikel finally pulled the bottle away, nearly empty, Shadera sagged further between the officers supporting her.
Greyson raised his own bottle to his lips, the cool water a shock to his system after so long without. He drank greedily, some distant part of his mind warning him to slow down, that too much too quickly would make him sick. But his body’s demands overrode caution and he drained the bottle in seconds.
“We need to go,” Mikel said, checking his watch. “The Vow begins soon.”
Greyson’s rage surged again at the mention of the ceremony. He wanted to lash out, to smash his fist into Mikel’s face, into the faces of every Veyra officer who’d watched Shadera be brutalized. But he couldn’t. Not when she was in this state, not when the threat of the rings’ destruction hung over them.
“Can you walk?” Mikel asked him.
Greyson nodded once, sharply. His legs were unsteady, but functioning. More than could be said for Shadera, who remained suspended between her guards, head hanging forward.
“Then let’s go.”
Greyson fixed his gaze on Shadera’s back as they left the private prison, watching for any sign that she might collapse entirely. Each step she managed, however halting, however supported by the officers, was a testament to a strength he couldn’t begin to comprehend.
They emerged into his father’s residence, the opulence of it an obscene contrast to the cells they’d left behind. Thick carpets, elegant furniture, art that cost more than most Boundary residents would see in a lifetime.
It felt like an eternity before they made it to the elevator, before they made it to his floor. Mikel slid a key card into the locks that were unfamiliar to Greyson, new, high tech. He stepped in first and held the door open for his men.
The officers deposited Shadera onto the sofa, her body folding into it like a discarded doll. Greyson stood in the center of the room, unsure where to go, what to do, how to help her.
Mikel scanned the apartment before turning to Greyson, but said nothing.
Silence stretched between them, uncomfortable and heavy.
“Is there anything I can do for you?” Greyson finally asked, the words sounding strange to his own ears—formal, distant, nothing like the screaming rage inside him.
