“Stop!” she screams into Eraldon’s chest.
“What have you done to her?” I yell at him.
“I’ve made her whole.” Eraldon sneers. “Something you never could’ve done. And now that you’re here, I’ll mate her and make her my queen.”
“I’ll kill you.” I launch myself at him, a dagger in my hand and aimed for his throat.
In a flash of night, Emma appears in front of me, blocking my strike.
“No!” I yell as I feel my blade enter her shoulder.
She hisses at me, then reaches for the blade and pulls it free. “You will not touch my mate.”
“Emma, you’re under his thrall. You’re—” I jolt as she buries the dagger in my gut.
“You have no power over me, king of lies.” She twists the blade.
Eraldon’s laugh echoes through the trees as his seekers descend on me.
“Come, my pet. We have a ceremony to prepare for. Take him.” He jerks his chin at me, and seekers swarm, each of them trying to pull me down.
Despite the burning agony in my heart and my gut, I fight. “Emma!”
A million claws rake across my skin, but still I fight as Emma and Eraldon turn their backs on me and walk away. I punch and eviscerate, break necks, and rip seeker after seeker apart as I follow her.
“Emma!” My feral’s voice joins with mine as I roar my pain through the dark trees. Again and again I call her name as more seekers pile onto me, until they blot out the trees and glittering sky. Still I yell for my mate, my heart and my soul reverberating her name like a prayer to the Ancestors.
Again.
Again.
Until I can no longer yell, can no longer feel anything except the choking weight of hundreds of seekers.
She never answers me.
20
Emma
“Did he ply you with lies?” Eraldon glides to the balcony on the king’s quarters at the Nightkeep. He flew with me in his arms, his grip sure and tight as so many unwanted thoughts and memories flooded my mind. False, all of them. They have to be.
He sits on his bed, cradling me still. “He tried to poison your mind, did he?”
“I don’t know.” The ache in my ribs has intensified tenfold, and I can’t seem to catch my breath. “I don’t know what’s happening.”
“I know.” He yanks up his sleeve and tears a rough gash through his wrist with his fangs. “I know what you need, my pet.” He presses his wrist to my lips. “Drink. It’s the only way to ease you.”
I taste him and pull a few draws of his dark blood. They settle in my stomach, and I shake my head. “No more.”
“More.” He urges his wrist to my mouth again.
I want to refuse him, but I don’t. I can’t. He’s my king. So I drink and drink until the thoughts of Solano are once again clad in nothing but hate.
“Better.” He presses his cold lips to my forehead and wipes the errant blood from my chin.
When I look up at him, I see clearly again. “He spoke to me like he knew me.” I rest my head in the crook of his neck.
“Of course he did. You were his consort, the one he enjoyed torturing. I suppose he didn’t mention all that, did he?”
