35
UNCHAINED
Kairos stalked forward, murderous.
Vaeris tensed. “Aelie, take my hand.”
“You will not touch her.” Kairos’s voice, magnified to a deafening roar, blasted in the room.
I lunged for Kairos, but shadows wrapped around my waist like iron bands, yanking me to Vaeris. I slammed into his chest.
Mist wreathed Kairos’s frame. “Let her go. Now.”
“Or what?” Vaeris dragged me backward. “You’ll kill me? Have at it. The binding rune will tear you apart.”
“Release her.”
“Can’t do that.”
Kairos rammed his fist into the wall, leaving a crater. “Don’t be this fucking stupid. You know what she is.”
“I do. Which is why I need her.”
Kairos prowled closer, every line of his body taut with rage. “I will end you. Binding rune or not.”
“The moment you move, I’ll snap her neck.”
The words didn’t register at first, like they belonged to someone else, and then they hit. Vaeris, the manwho’d preached about ending human suffering and looked at me with those anguished eyes minutes ago—just threatened to murder me. Casually.
What the fuck.
An inhuman snarl tore from Kairos’s throat.
“Human skulls are so fragile. One good slam against that wall”—Vaeris motioned toward the stone—”and it’s over.”
I struggled against the shadows.
“Here’s what’s going to happen,” Vaeris said calmly. “You’ll explain to the others that we came to an agreement, and I will take her home.”
Kairos’s face contorted.
I thrashed against Vaeris, scratching his forearm. “Let me go!”
Kairos took a half-step forward, then stopped. I twisted, trying to sink my teeth into Vaeris’s arm, but his hand clamped over my mouth.
“Stop fighting, damn it.”
I shook my head, still struggling, and stomped down hard to crush his foot. That’s when I saw it—his sleeve had ridden up slightly, exposing the edge of a rune on his skin. The faerie deal.
If I break it, Rheya and I are free.
I clasped his arm, sliding my fingers over the rune.
Vaeris hauled me to the exit, his attention fixed on Kairos.
I closed my eyes, sinking into the painful threads. They didn’t feel like magic at all. They pulsed and breathed. They slithered over Vaeris’s heart. His lungs. Coiled through his bones like parasitic vines. They wrapped around mine, too.
The deal had grown into both of us. Flesh to flesh. I hooked one threadand pulled.
