Within seconds, it comes to a jarring halt.
I’m facing a different door this time, not the brilliant blue one that presented itself to me earlier today, but a deep violet one, the color of my hair. It’s strangely disproportioned—as wide as three doors but half the height of a single door.
Jumping off the beam, I land at a crouch, searching for the handle. The surface is smooth, and even when I press my palm on it, trying to use the resistance to push or slide it open, it doesn’t budge.
Temple and Ace growl on either side of me and I suddenly realize that the door is the perfect size for three wolves walking side-by-side.
Taking a chance, I shift into my wolf form but hold on to my merged senses, keeping my demon sight honed so that it meshes with my wolf’s heightened sense of sight and smell, and her ability to suppress my rising anxiety.
The door immediately slides open and the back of my neck prickles.
Once again, the prison is luring me inside.
CHAPTERFORTY-THREE
Leaping through the door before it can close, I stare at the bleak environment surrounding me.
The walls are gray and bare, the floor a rough stone beneath my paws.
Laughter and conversation from the room on my left draw my attention—Taniya’s voice, Malia’s laugh, and a male voice I don’t recognize.
I burst into the room, Temple and Ace flanking me, and pause at the same bare walls, the empty floor. There’s nobody in here. It’s nothing more than a prison cell. And it’s a dead end.
I spin as the voices reach me again—this time from the room I left behind. What’s more, the door I leaped through is about to shut me in.
The prison is trying to trap me, but I’m in no mood for that shit. Ace is already launching himself through the closing gap, his ferocious yips urging me to hurry. I leap forward, Temple on my heels, both of us making it through just in time before the door slams shut behind us.
The room we’re standing in now is different yet again, a long hallway that stretches into the distance. It’s as if the prison is reconfiguring itself every few minutes, faster than it did this afternoon.
My senses flare as we head off down the hallway. The energy flowing around me is the same as what I felt earlier this afternoon, biting at me like electricity and growing stronger the closer we get to the end of the corridor. Beneath the tingles of energy is the same heavy feeling—anger, frustration—but it eases slowly until it feels like… breathing in. Waiting to exhale.
When we reach the end of the hallway, I hear my sisters’ voices again, and I prepare myself for more tricks as I peer around the opening, taking care not to step inside this time until I know for sure what lies beyond.
It’s the den, with cozy couches and pizza boxes already open on a small coffee table. The smell is delicious. My sisters sit side by side, facing the wall to my right, happily munching on slices.
Now that I’m in my wolf form, I can see that the food is an illusion, a shell of energy that will be keeping them alive but is as empty of proper nutrition as it tasted earlier today. My sisters’ appearances are different, too. Both have lost weight, their skin taut over their cheekbones. Taniya was always strong and muscled, but now she appears smaller, her body frail in a way that will devastate her once she comes out of this fantasy.
The prison has weakened them and the true impact was hidden from me before.
Regret is like a dagger in my heart. I thought I was keeping them safe here while I took the time I needed to grow stronger and understand my power. In some ways, I was keeping them in safety, but the consequences are worse than I expected.
I bare my teeth with resolve. Their imprisonment ends tonight.
Neither of them looks up as I prowl into the room with Temple and Ace at my side.
My sisters’ conversation continues without a pause, but as I wait for them to see me, what really confuses me is the way they stop and listen every few seconds, both of them focusing on the same spot on the wall opposite them, as if there’s a third person taking part in their conversation. Someone I can’t see.
The male voice I heard earlier, maybe?
I don’t hear it now, and I won’t allow myself to be distracted. Shifting back into my human form and using my clothing rune to instantly return the jeans and shirt that I changed into after the afterparty, I kneel on the rug in front of them and reach for their hands.
“Malia? Taniya? I love you both very much,” I whisper, holding their hands with all of my might. “I’m sorry for any pain that taking you away from this is going to cause you, but I promise, the truth is always better than an illusion.”
I wait another beat for them to acknowledge me, but they don’t. Malia’s free hand traces the air and I watch her make the shape of the royal rune, cutting through it like she did earlier.
I grip their hands harder. “Malia! Taniya!”
My ears are buzzing and the hairs on my arms suddenly shoot up. My shout echoes back at me, joining with Ace’s and Temple’s snarls as they stare at the bare wall behind me.
