“Yeah, I am,” Ty said, handing off the reins to the man.
“Do you— I mean, how was the hunting trip?” Myka asked, seeming nervous.
“It was fine. Took significantly longer than I would have liked to track down the game, but we got it in the end.”
Myka nodded at him, his eyes darting to the side.
“Myka, what’s going on? Has something happened to you?”
“To me? No, no,” the man rushed to say. “It’s just… I heard about something, a day or two ago. About your…witch-slave, and I just wondered if you’d heard yet.”
Ty’s insides locked up. It took everything in him to control the chaos that descended over his mind.Keep calm. Don’t overreact.She was just supposed to be his witch-slave—nothing to him. He needed to act accordingly and keep his composure.
“And what’s that?” he asked, forming the words deliberately slowly.
“It was Cole. He…” Myka’s words drifted off. The man was fearful for some reason, but Ty’s patience for this was absolutely at an end.
“Myka,” Ty gritted out. “Tell me now. What happened?”
“He wanted to send a message,” the man finished in a rush, his voice guilty, as if he didn’t know if he should be the one revealing this.
A message.
A chill went through him, and he needed no further explanation. He knew firsthand what messages from his uncle were like.
He turned on his heel immediately and left, rushing through the passageways, his mind in a blind panic.
He had to get to Ena. Had to see her. What had Cole done to her? Was she alive?
He barely even registered his own body moving as he ran through the Underworld.
Finally, he arrived at his door and threw it open.
Turner, Steig, and Lara stood in the room, surrounding his bed. They turned to him as he burst in, shock in their eyes.
Then his eyes fell to his bed, and he saw Ena.
Dark purple and yellow bruises covered the entire right side of her face, mottling her normally perfect skin, which was even paler than normal. That side of her face was so swollen, he could barely see her right eye, but he could see that the other one was closed.
Iblis, no—was she…?
As he rushed toward the bed, he saw her chest rise and fall, and he nearly collapsed with relief.
She was alive—asleep, but alive.
His eyes traced over the deep bruises that rung around her neck before landing on her arm. It lay delicately above the fur blankets, her left wrist wrapped in bandages as if the bone was broken.
Ty felt his heart shatter into pieces as he collapsed to his knees next to the bed. Her dark-brown hair was tangled and strewn across the pillow. She looked so small, so vulnerable, and he felt a grief so profound well up inside him.
He hadn’t cried in years—not since his dad had died. He didn’t even know if he remembered how, and maybe he should. Maybecrying would be a better reaction, but instead, his body flooded with adrenaline, blinding him in an all-consuming rage.
He looked up to his left to find Steig standing next to him. “What happened?” he asked, his voice shaking with the barely restrained emotions he was feeling.
Steig looked at him with steel and caution in his eyes. “Cole,” he said simply. “He had Gunnar and Chans do most of the dirty work, but that’s all I know. Turner was the one who found her.” Steig looked over at the man in question, who nodded in corroboration.
“It was thanks to Nial, actually,” Turner explained. “He came to get me. Told me that they’d taken her from the Archives and that something didn’t feel right about it.” Turner looked away from him, his eyes looking haunted as they landed on Ena instead. “They left her in an alcove in the Great Antre while they had their Convening,” he said, an uncharacteristic anger in his voice. “And I’m just so—” Turner’s voice broke with emotion, making him pause before he could continue. “I’m so sorry I didn’t get there sooner.”
Ty couldn’t look at him anymore. He couldn’t look at any of them. He just stared at Ena where she lay on the bed.
