“Certainty,” Eloise declared.
43
Francine
Even if she had not known where the prison was, she could have found it by following the silvery pulse of the mate bond. It was so delicate, so barely a thing that existed—but it led her to her mate.
Too late.
She crept through the darkened passageway and stood in the shadows of the doorway. Dread slunk through her. Julian was slumped between two guards. Two more guards had just stepped back from the column of ice that held the Soul-Eater, pushing aside drilling equipment.
Eloise was stepping forward, triumphant, something gleaming in her hand.
But Julian was alive.
That was all that mattered. And the silvery thread stretching from her heart and almost touching his. And the taste of magic in the air all around them.
God, she hoped this would work.
She straightened, walking into the light.
“Starting the party without me?”
The terror in Julian’s eyes almost killed her. “No,” he burst out. “You can’t be here—”
“I can’t be anywhere else.” She willed him to understand. His face was gray, his eyes hazy. Had Eloise drugged him?
Shit. If her drugs affected this…
“Frankie!” Eloise hid her initial irritation behind sparkling delight. “Another showdown in a cave? You’re getting predictable, bestie.”
“Maybe if I was here for you.” Francine shot her a disdainful look. Eloise still had the shooter of strange liquid in her hand, but that was only part of the reason Francine turned her attention from the lioness shifter to Julian.
Her mate.
“The fortress is collapsing around you, Elly. Are you sure this is where you want to be?”
*I should be asking you that question.*Julian’s voice was painfully crisp in her mind. Not the drug that kept their abilities dormant, then.
*I’d keep giving you the same answer.*
Eloise flipped her hair. She wasn’t even looking at her, but she could still tell. “When the Soul-Eater is returned to us—”
“He’ll die beneath the ice the same as the rest of us when the fortress collapses,” Francine cut in pitilessly.
Eloise tsked. “The shadow dragons’ magic—”
“Allows us to live and breathe within the fortress, while it exists. Think of it like swimming in the ocean. A lifejacket—the dragon scales—keeps you afloat. But if the water disappears, your lifejacket won’t do anything to stop you from plummeting to the ocean floor, miles below. Except you won’t plummet anywhere here. The solid rock will come to you instead.”
“He’ll fix it.” Eloise sounded confident.
Francine raised one eyebrow. “How?”
“Withmagic,” Eloise snarled, and actually stamped her foot. Francine was elated and sickened at the same time.
She remembered what it was like to be on the other side of this conversation.
“You’ll wake him, drug him, free him from that prison, convince him to steal Julian’s soul before anyone else’s, hope the kraken doesn’t get to either of you first—”
