What if I burn the entire fucking castle down?
Let me out,I growl at my beast.
He growls mindlessly back. I fight against him with all I have, panic taking over as I once again realize just how helpless I am like this. If I stop fighting him for a moment, I’ll disappear into my own head and never be found again.
I’m trying like hell to break free before my inner dragon hurts Lillian, but then the taste of blood fills my mouth. I can tell my dragon is biting hard, ripping at something, and then?—
Ouch.
The vague nothingness I’m stuck in disappears as pain cuts through the dragon’s hold. I startle and blink back to myself when I realize that I was just flung back into one of the stonewalls by a violent blast of bright red magic. Silas is in this Everbound hallway now, gingerly helping Lillian get to her feet.
She’s bleeding profusely from one of her shoulders since I apparently bit it repeatedly like some deranged, feral animal.
Maybe because I basically am one.
Godsfucking damn it.
I spit out the taste of her blood as my head pounds, my dragon throwing a world-class fit about the pain keeping him from being in control.
“I—I’m so fucking sorry, Lillian,” I manage to say.
Even though she’s putting pressure on her shoulder with strain on her face, she’s quick to smile reassuringly at me. “You didn’t mean to. And luckily, Asher is extremely gifted with healing. He’s been resting in the apartment he claimed since you all returned last night, so I’ll just swing by and ask for his help.”
“We’ll take you there,” Silas offers.
I’m not surprised he doesn’t offer to heal her himself. He’s been finicky about using his magic, what with the voices in his head and seeing things and shit. Grimacing through more splitting pain in my head, I wipe blood off my chin and fall into step on Lillian’s other side as we walk her to wherever Asher Douglas has been staying in Everbound.
“Sorry,” I mutter again.
“I’m more upset about the spilled hot chocolate,” she teases brightly.
Feeling like a piece of shit for hurting such a nice human, I glance over her head at where Silas stares straight ahead with shadows under his eyes. The fae looks like he didn’t sleep a wink after his insanity drove him out of all the fun with our keeper last night.
“You could’ve asked Crypt for help sleeping,” I point out. “Or better yet, you could’ve asked Maven to ask him. He would never say no to her.”
“I would’ve, but the dyspeptic unicorns wouldn’t let me leave my old dorm room.”
“Oh, right,” I laugh. “Forgot all about those pesky, deceptive unicorns.”
“Dyspeptic,” Silas corrects, likethat’sthe real problem here. He swats at something beside his head and glances down at Lillian as we turn another corner in this freezing castle. “I need to ask you for a favor you may not agree with.”
“Why wouldn’t I agree with it?” She stops in front of a dorm room door, knocking quietly with her uninjured arm.
“We need you to spend time with Maven while we…retrieve something.”
Lillian looks between us as she puts what we’re asking for together, and then she laughs. “I’m sorry, but you want me todistractMaven? Surely you boys know your keeper better than to think that will work with her. She’ll figure out something is up immediately.”
Silas and I exchange a glance. Lillian is right that Maven is sharp as hell—but we’re going to get her heart back from Dagon, and there is no motherfucking way that necromantic creep is getting anywhere near our keeper again.
Leaving my mate for even a few hours is going to suck ass, but she’s safer here at Everbound than anywhere else right now. Which is why we’ll need help keeping her here, just for a while.
The door finally opens, and I snort at the sight of a sleep-rumpled, yawning Asher Douglas. “You look like shit.”
His attention skips to Lillian’s bloody shoulder and back to me. “You look like the feral dickhead who just took a bite out of a defenseless human. Come in and sit down, Lillian.”
She slips into his room and perches on a small wooden chair near the fireplace, checking the bites on her shoulder. Silas and I follow her inside, and I quickly examine the tidy space. It’s so clean that you’d barely suspect anyone was living in this dorm,except for the fire in the hearth and a gun being cleaned on the table.
Douglas’s eyes glow green as he begins healing Lillian’s shoulder, rolling one of his own after a second and shooting me a glare. After a second, Lillian relaxes with a soft sigh, tipping her head to smile at him.
