Beserkir’s smile widened. “Oh, bravo. I had hoped you two were close. I was rather depending on it actually, so thank you for confirming my suspicions. We know she was there, there’s no point in lying. What we didn’t know, is what she was.” Beserkir tilted his head, searching Keeran’s face. “Do you?”
Keeran couldn’t help the muscle that twitched in his jaw. It was all he could do to stop from ripping free of the manacles and tearing Beserkir’s head right off his smarmy body—but he had to play along to give Aelia time to escape. For the hundredth time, he strained into the space where the pair bond sometimes was, but he was met with nothing but silence.
Beserkir laughed and Keeran’s lip curled as the sound scraped down his spine. “Maybe you do, but from what I saw earlier, I suspect she doesn’t. Am I right?” Beserkir opened his hands expectantly, before grinning at whatever truth he read in Keeran’s expression. “I thought as much. The trouble I have now is that my friends in the North, the ones who are so very grateful for our two-legged contributions, would pay more than you could possibly comprehend to get their hands on her.
“Now, catching you is still a win. You are the lesser prize, admittedly, but you did still murder my men, and that can’t go unpunished. Usually, such a crime would warrant a public execution, which our prisoners usually end up begging for after a little time with some of our more creative prison guards, buttoday I am feeling unusually magnanimous. I will offer you your freedom, right here, right now. All you need to do is tell me where the girl is.”
The beast inside him crouched low, seething quietly with a predator’s patience, a spring coiled and ready for the moment it was safe to pounce. A slow smile revealed the sharp points of Keeran’s canines as he relinquished a little control, letting a hint of the beast show. The Dog beside Beserkir whined softly and backed up a step, leaving its master to face the brunt of Keeran’s focus.
“If you touch her, I’ll finish what she started and crush every bone in your body. One at a time.” The calm in his voice was laced with violence, every word spoken by that darkest part of him.
“Oh, I plan to do far more than touch her. Revenge is a dish best served in many courses, and I have had plenty of time to plan all the ways I’ll make her suffer.” A little colour had drained from Beserkir’s face as Keeran had spoken, but otherwise his cockiness remained unscathed. He waved at someone behind Keeran, and he heard the door open once more. Three more Guard Dogs entered the room.
“Her scent has already been found in the Outer City, and I have no doubt that my most experienced…”
Beserkir was cut off as one of the Dogs, one with grey around its muzzle, Shifted the moment it reached his side.
“Sir.” The guard jerked his head, requesting a private audience. Beserkir leant closer to hear the whispered message, clearly unimpressed at the interruption. Keeran strained to hear, every sinew in him ready to react at the slightest provocation.
Beserkir was still for a few long moments after the guard pulled back, his face tilted away from Keeran, but when he turned, that smile was back in place.
“Well, get out and see to that at once. Now.” Beserkir shooed the four Guard Dogs out with bored impatience. Only when the door swung shut behind them did he allow his eyes to settle back onto Keeran. He sighed, a slow, exaggerated thing.
“It appears I won’t be making it to my function after all.” He turned and bowled his way to a cabinet on the far side of the room. Crouching low, he rummaged in its depths before standing once more, whatever he was doing concealed by his broad back. “I think I will risk having a drink with you. Perhaps it’ll soften that temper of yours.”
“You know as well as I do I won’t be drinking that.” Keeran raised an eyebrow at Beserkir as he crossed the room with a crystal glass in each hand.
“Oh, my friend, what would be the sense in poisoning you? You have information I need.” Beserkir didn’t hesitate as he came within arm’s reach of Keeran, a glass held out for him to take. Keeran didn’t so much as glance at it.
Beserkir stared at him expectantly, so close that he could see a droplet of blood at the edge of one of the deeper cuts on Beserkir’s forehead, so close that Keeran only just had time to block the glass that came flying at his head. The guards were on him a fraction of a second later, pinning him as Beserkir’s sleeve covered his mouth.
Keeran roared and flung himself backwards, loosening the guard's grip enough for him to send his chained fists up into Beserkir’s abdomen.
The Elder grunted but held his ground, keeping his sleeve firmly pressed over Keeran’s mouth.
The room started to spin, colours leaking where they shouldn’t as lines blurred in and out of focus.
“Besides, I don’t need you to drink anything for me to drug you,” Beserkir managed to say as Keeran flung one last blow his way. He couldn’t tell if it made contact, he couldn’t tell ifhis arms even moved. He fought whatever drug was coursing through his system, fought it with everything he had.
He was unconscious before he even hit the floor.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Aelia waited in the garden as the baying of the Guard Dogs drew close again. They’d been circling the area relentlessly and it was only a matter of time until they found her, but she had no idea how to escape with them so close. The buildings that backed onto the garden were all secure, and she wasn’t a capable enough climber to shimmy up the narrow windowsills and drainpipes that led to the roof.
She was trapped. Panic gave way to despair as she whipped her gaze around the small garden, desperately looking for a way out. She reached to touch her fingers to the bark of a nearby tree and tears welled in her eyes, spilling before she could stop them. She collapsed against the tree, pressing her forehead into the trunk and closing her eyes. She envisioned herself back in Callodosis, Otis in their treehouse, Fenrir and Mirra safe and bickering somewhere nearby. She breathed in the scent of the bark, knowing it was likely the closest to seeing her home again she would ever get.
She shouldn’t have left, she shouldn’t have tried to save Fenrir. All she’d done was make things worse. If she’d just stayed home, Fenrir would still be alive, and Keeran wouldn’t have a target on his back.
Keeran. He’d saved her, again. Shame squeezed more tears from her eyes, her mouth hanging open with her silent cries as she banged her head against the bark. This was all her fault.
He’d been right about her. She was stubborn and selfish and wouldn’t listen, insisting on doing this on her own. If he’d have been there, he could probably have saved Fenrir, but she’d been too fucking stuck up to hear him out.
How dare she judge him, when she was ten times the monster he was? How many had she killed back there? How many artemian prisoners had she seen lying mangled and broken after her outburst? She had no idea what had happened, what kind of magic that had been, but right then, she loathed herself too much to care. She guessed it was part of the pair bond, just another surreal twist of magic that she didn’t understand. Like how he’d spoken to her in her mind, how she kept feeling these uncontrollable flashes of him, like how his blood healed her. She huffed a humourless laugh. At least she knew what was in the suspiciously pink poultice now. And the tea.
“I know Callodosis is full of tree huggers, but I think you might be taking it a bit far.”
Aelia spun to face the low voice, blinking through her tears at the tall figure lurking in the darkness. At first, she didn’t believe what she was seeing. He was a ghost from her past, someone she thought she’d never see again. She’d thought she’d never see anyone from home again. Her eyes lingered on the uniform, the armour, the red royal insignia on his breastplate, and her lips pressed into a hard line.
