"Your sister, Nyssari," Aja said. "She's being held captive at one of the settlements our new friends have begun building. My brothers are keeping a close watch on her.”
Blood pounded in Dorian's ears.
His vision clouded.
He dizzied on the spot.
Captive.
His knees buckled, but Corbin caught his arms.
"Your sister knows what she's doing," he hissed in Dorian's ear.
But Dorian couldn't breathe.
Anger surged through him. His form rose on his shaking body, but his fire contained inside. Dorian snatched his arms away from Corbin and towered over the Infi.
"You give me your army," Dorian seethed. "You give me your army and your loyalty. You bow tome, and you can have whatever's left of that pearly fucking kingdom once this is over."
The right corner of the Infi's lips twisted. "A crown for our new King, then," he cooed.
"Dorian—“
But Dorian pulsed a flamed fist up, and Corbin took a step back.
"The deal...my King," Aja drawled.
All Dorian could see as the Infi extended his hand was Nyssa’s face. The thought of her chained up in some stranger's hold. Tortured. Imprisoned.
Silenced.
Dorian took the Infi's hand.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
HEAT SURGED FROM the Infi's palm and into his. Pain as though his hand had been struck by lightning seared up his arm. Dorian's knees buckled with the outcry that escaped his lips.
The ground shook.
Snake-like smoke wrapped around their joined hands, and before Dorian could ask what was happening, a laugh escaped the Infi's lips. The kind of laugh that chilled him to his bones. The kind of laugh that made his stomach turn, and he nearly hurled all over the floor.
Black ooze trickled out of the nerve-like cuts running up his hand and forearm. Matching lines on Aja's. Dorian struggled to let him go as one streak continued up his arm. Up his bicep. Cutting the side of his throat. Until it ripped into his jaw and up his cheek to his eye.
Dorian cried out.
Fire trickled onto Dorian's skin. His form rose to protect him. It hardly phased the Infi. The black ooze from his wounds dropped to the ground, and even in Dorian's vibrating possession, he could see as it began to stack onto itself.
He fell to his knees beneath the weight of Aja's grasp and his own form.
Slowly, the ooze morphed. Snow falling around it and freezing it in place. Warping and curling just as the lines were doing on his forearm. Finally, its figure rose as jagged obsidian peaks. As shards of ice and glass in a circular shape.
A crown.
Fire exploded onto the surface of his body.
He screamed with the pain of it around him. Burning and cursing his muscles. Shredding his entire being, the only thing keeping him from writhing on the ground was his hand still wrapped into the Infi's.
"Dorian!"
