The bastardinjectedher with something.
My dragon fully awoke inside of me, clawing its way to the surface. Talons erupted from my hands and shredded the tabletop. Chunks of wood broke off and fell to the ground, and it took every ounce of control I’d learned in my thirty-three years to force my magic to calm.
The vision showed her sucking in a breath, her neck jolting up when she woke. Dirt and smudged kohl lined her pale face. Her bloodshot eyes were wild as she jerked against her restraints, knees dragging the ground until she found her footing.
“Look who’s finally awake,” Scarven’s muffled voice said.
Ashadow appeared in the corner, and Devora’s eyes narrowed in on her assailant as her jaw clenched. A spark of pride bloomed in my chest at the savage look on her face.
“Look who’s finally figured it out,” she snapped back.
There she is.
The shadow stalked forward until the back of Scarven’s head came into view. A snarl of rage ripped from my throat.
“Ah, the little lamb has sharp teeth,” he said. “That was what I liked most about Miss Nyte. Although, I suppose it’s Devora now, isn’t it?”
In a flash, he stood before her, clutching her throat in his hand. The workshop was filled with the sound of her scream. My stomach twisted, and it felt like my chest was caving in as red wrath clouded my vision.
But then something else snagged my attention.
On the wall next to her left arm were rows and rows of small scratches etched into the stone. Jagged lines, one after another after another, all down the side of the cell wall.
I knew those lines.
A memory reared to the forefront of my mind.
I was sixteen again, my back against the stone, sweat plastering my shirt to my body. My arm shook as I raised it, shifted the tip of my finger into a talon, and sank it into the wall, breaths laboring with the energy it took just to scratch the small line.
Footsteps pounded outside the cell door, and a second later, it swung open to reveal two lion-masked guards with rope and a needle. They took one look at my half-shifted hand and launched forward, one of them holding my arms back while the other plunged the needle into my leg.
That image vanished as the one of Devora wavered. The flames coming from the herbs began to dissipate.
“It won’t last much longer,” Silas warned.
“I know where she is,” I said, my voice barely more than a growl. “He’s holding her in the south tunnels beneath the servants’ quarters.”
“How do you know?”
I straightened my spine, my eyes never leaving Devora’s face. “It’s the same place I was kept.”
Heknew. Scarven knew she was working with me. He was sending me a message, keeping her in the same cell I spent years of my life in.
And he knew I would come for her.
It was an obvious trap—another one of Scarven’s mind games, him laying the chessboard and letting me take my turn right into his hand.
“He’s baiting you, Nox,” Silas warned. “Are you sure you want to do this?”
I didn’t care. There was nothing in this world that would stop me.
“Wake the others,” I said, already charging out of the workshop. “We leave in half an hour.”
I’m coming, darling.
46
Devora
