Her eyes were trained on Sera as the door opened, and she failed to notice the two guards who stepped through. When they reached for her, it was too late to run.
Her training kicked in, and she fought, fending them off the best she could, but two-on-one was difficult. Sera stood with her arms crossed and a bored look on her face. Her betrayal ran deep.
How could she do this? She fooled them all.
Rory kicked one guard in the chin, and his head snapped back. She didn’t have time to watch him fall to the ground as she fought the other. Her nose was bleeding, and one of her ribs was broken, but she fought through the pain. Hers and Caius’ lives depended on her getting away.
She didn’t notice the other guard get up; she thought she’d knocked him out, but her assumption was a fatal mistake.
He grabbed her arms from behind, pulling them behind her hard enough to rip something in her shoulder. She screamed, and the other guard punched her, hard. The pain shooting through her shoulder made it near impossible to break free.
Sera walked toward her with a satisfied smirk, and Rory glared at her with as much hatred as she could muster. “How could you?”her voice was weak from exhaustion and filled with hurt. “We trusted you! I saved your fucking life, and this is how you repay me?”
Sera threw her head back with a loud laugh, and Rory’s stomach turned as Sera’s body shifted into a spitting image of Caius.Gedeon.
The brothers were mirror images of each other, but there was no mistaking who he was. The way the Lux King carried himself and the pure malice in his eyes screamed evil.
She was stunned into silence, staring at the one she’d hated for the last eleven years, the one who put her mate away for a crime he didn’t commit, and the one who tricked her like the fool she was.
She gasped, recalling her mother’s prophecy.“Don’t let him fool you.”
“What’s the matter?” Gedeon pouted. “Are you not happy to see me? We were to be brother and sister, were we not?”
He grabbed her chin, and she tried to yank it away, but his grip was firm enough to bruise. “Twice over. Wouldn’t that be something? Brothers marrying sisters.” His face inched closer to hers, tracing her features with his golden eyes. “It seems I got the pretty twin. Too bad she couldn’t stick around.”
Rory thrashed against the guard’s hold again, ignoring the pain, and Gedeon stepped back as he laughed.
“I will fucking rip your head from your body,” she vowed.
His head cocked to the side mechanically. “No, you won’t.”
There was one small solace in seeing him before her. Sera hadn’t betrayed them.Sera. “Where is Sera?” she demanded.
Grinning widely, he sauntered toward her again. “That girl is feistier than you are.”
Numbness spread through Rory’s body, and she could barely speak past the implication of his words. “Did you kill her?”
Gedeon sighed dramatically and waved her off. “Unfortunately, I couldn’t. I cannot shift into someone unless they’re still alive.” When he saw Rory’s face contort into shock, he winked. “As I’m sure you know by now,Royalstake on a twisted version of theirAeternum’sabilities.”
Caius sensed black souls without touching them.
“As it turns out, theSeraphimblessed me with being able to shift into people instead of one animal.” His body transformed into Rory’s own, and she jerked back, horrified. Gedeon examined himself. “Unsettling, isn’t it?”
It was her voice she heard, and another fear struck her. What if he went to Vincula disguised as her and hurt Caius? “No,” she whispered before screaming, “No!”
He spun around slowly with his arms out, and when he faced her, he bowed. “Yes.”
The smirk on his face was replaced with something akin to curiosity when he shifted back and moved closer to her. He ran a finger over her face, and she pulled away. “Don’t fucking touch me.”
“It’s impossible,” he murmured as he moved to the side and flipped over her right hand.
She had immortal healing now.
Rory realized her shoulder no longer hurt, nor did her ribs. She’d been so caught up in Gedeon’s display that she never noticed her pain fading. The split skin on her face must have healed, too.
“You married him?” Gedeon’s eyes blazed with anger, and his body sparked as bolts of light covered his skin. She tried to push away from him, but the guard held her steady.
The light faded as he calmed down, and a sinister smile slid into place. “This might be better. Do you know the things I can do to you that would kill a lesser mystic? But not you. You’ll heal.”
