“Would you like to see her?” he asks, causing me to arch a brow. “Our sister, I mean. She’s quite the attraction around here.”
My stomach clenches, my heart suddenly in my throat.Nikiski is here.
This is part of the visions that Ashlyn saw—the cave, my sister, the candles.
But not my brother.
What the fuck is going on?I want to demand, but I refuse to play into whatever game Spruce is trying to initiate.
Instead, I calmly ask, “Do you want me to see her?” I infuse my words with boredom, the skill one I mastered with Cael as a best friend.
He’s the stronger political player in the field.
But there’s a reason he assigned me the title of Second-in-Command.
“What I want is my new toy,” Spruce says, then takes a drink from his glass, his russet brown eyes—the same as our father’s—closing in momentary bliss. “But you left her to the outlaws, I see.”
My calm mask nearly slips.
Because I really don’t like what he’s saying or what I think he’s implying.
“Which is fine, I guess,” he goes on. “They’ll break her in for me. Make it easier to tame her once she’s mine.”
Ashlyn,I think.No. He can’t be talking about her. How would he even know about her?
“Nikiski has struggled with that little brat for eons,” he continues. “Having to implant images, then change things around once thwarted.” He swirls his drink, then takes another sip. “The pretty seer has been so fucking elusive. I honestly can’t wait to choke her with my knot down her throat, make her pay for all the effort.”
I swallow, my beast growling inside.
I don’t understand what he means about implanting images, butpretty seersounds too much like Ashlyn.My little riddler.
“Anyway,” he says, taking a step back. “If you’ll come with me, I’ll show you to Nikiski. Let you say hi for old time’s sake. Just know that she can’t say much back.”
My heart skips a beat. I want to ask what he means. I want to ask how he forced me to shadow here. I want to ask how he’s disconnected his soul from our twin-bond. I want to ask what really happened to our sister that night.
Because everything I’ve researched, everything I thought I knew, is clearly wrong.
Nikiski isn’t in the Omega slave-trade at all. She’shere. In this cavern. In Kodiak Sector.
Fuck.
He’s waiting for me to walk with him, so I slide my hands into my pockets and feign a confidence I don’t feel.
I have no weapons.
Barely any clothes.
And my powers have been thwarted by some magical barrier that I can’t see.
What I do have is my mind. My fists.And motivation.
But I can’t exactly use any of those items until I know what I’m up against.
So I do the only thing I can do—I obey my brother’s request and follow him…into hell.
14
ASHLYN
