I gasp when he releases my fingers, my gaze hitting Aoife’s immobilized body which Dante’s soldiers are carting down a narrow, torchlit passageway like draft horses.
“Gods, you look like them.” Justus’s blue eyes draw over every millimeter of my face as he wipes his palm along his long velvet jacket that is the color of night—a blue so dark it melts into the abounding obsidian. “How I ever believed you shared my blood is beyond me.”
Same, you monster. Same.
Wait . . .
Did he just say: “Them?” I rasp.
“Your mother and grandmother.” Dante’s mouth is too near my ear for comfort.
“They’re both here?” My voice patters against the tunnel walls, amplified by the stretch of black stone that coverseverysurface.
Justus’s smile chills me to the core. “I see Aurora hasn’t been very forthcoming.”
My heart jounces at Bronwen’s Fae-given name.
“I suppose that female stockpiles her secrets better than my mother hoards her jewels,” Justus adds under his breath.
Is he saying that Bronwen knew where my mother was all this time?
Lore?
Silence.
Lore?
As Dante shoves me forward, I stare over my shoulder at the slab of obsidian we passed through. When Lorcan doesn’t reply, I swallow. Has the tea’s effect taken ahold of me again or is it the stone that silences the bond?
Or did that soldier . . .?
No.
My mate may thirst for vengeance but he cares about his people and would never doom them to save me. Right?
Not to mention—but I will mention it for my sanity’s sake—Bronwen foresaw him becoming a forever-Crowonlyif I died. As long as my heart beats, his human one will, too.
I steel my spine and hike up my chin. “So what’s the plan, Faeries?” I speak the word like one would say ‘ladies,’ with poised contempt.
Throwing me a venomous glower, Justus pounds ahead of us in the tunnel to shout orders at the soldiers.
“The plan is that I’m about to make your dream come true, Fal.” Dante’s unctuous voice slithers against my eardrum.
“You and Justus are going to drop dead at my feet?”
His grip tightens around my throat, and he yanks me backward until my spine is flush with his armor and the lump on my skull throbbing in the crook of his neck. “You, Serpent-charmer, are about to become Queen of Luce.”
Since I doubt he’s offering to let me go wild on his jugular with Justus’s sword, my eyebrows dip. “And you brought me down into this obsidian maze for what reason? To throw me an impromptu gilding revel before my nuptials to Lore?”
His hold grows harsher, along with his timbre. “That animal is no king, only a peasant with feathers. I am the true King of Luce.”
When he runs his nose along my cheek, I growl like a cornered wildcat. “Don’t fucking touch me, Dante.”
His lips curve against my earlobe. “A king has every right to touch his queen.”
“I’m not your queen!”
“Not yet,” he murmurs.
