“Why are you still here, Rossi?”
Justus finally unthaws. “Apologies. I’ve not slept in several days, and I’m afraid that fatigue is catching up with me.”
“Perhaps you should go nap alongside your little witch after you return with what I’ve asked for.”
Although I’ve never considered Justus Rossi a comforting presence, I pray he won’t heed Dante’s suggestion. I may not particularly like the ancient Fae, but he knows my secret, and for reasons that still elude me, he’s keeping it.
“I’ll sleep when Fallon sleeps.” Casting one last glance my way, he lets himself out. Whether or not intentional, he doesn’t quite shut the door.
Dante walks over to it, and for a heartbeat, I think he’ll let himself out, but he does not. Instead, he pushes on the blackened wood until it clicks shut.
“Why won’t you allow me privacy to dress?”
His eyes trace over my bunched dress. “You’re my prisoner. Prisoners don’t get privileges.”
“A Cauldron-given right isn’t a privilege, Dante.”
He hitches a single eyebrow.
“It’s a very small ask, and frankly, the least you can do after you kidnapped me.”
“Spare me the guilt trip. I brought you down here to give you magic and make you Queen of Luce. Neither is harrowing.”
Is he fucking kidding me? “I had no desire to become your queen.”
Although I want to stand my ground, when he begins to step toward me, I fall back. Too soon, my spine meets the stone. And Dante . . . he keeps advancing, irises aglow with undiluted rage.
When he finally reaches me, he wraps his uninjured hand around my neck, then presses his lips to my ear. “Think of Antoni.” His tone is soft, unlike his expression. “Think of what I’ll do to him if you keep disrespecting me, Serpent-charmer.”
He doesn’t press hard, yet I wheeze as though he were crushing my trachea. I hate him. I despise him. I want to draw a noose of blood around his neck, but I know nothing about Shabbin spellcasting.
His rank breath keeps coming hard and fast against my earlobe, accompanying words drowned out by my thundering heartbeats. I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to endure Dante. I don’t want to marry him.
“Let me go,” I croak, shoving against him, but his body is like stone, and mine like water.
His grip tightens on my throat and his body erases every last millimeter of distance that remained between us, imprinting tulle onto my bare skin and disgust onto my heart.
I close my eyes and try to pitch myself out of this obsidian pit, away from this repulsive man. My mind fills with Lore, with his gentle touch, with his sultry voice, with his heady scent. I try to go to him like I’ve gone to him so many times in the past, but the slabs of obsidian surrounding me curtail the reach of my mind.
My wet lashes reel up, and I pour all the vitriol swirling through my heart into my stare. Dante’s eyes narrow and so does the noose of his fingers. He mutters something else to me, but again I don’t hear him.
But not because of my pulse this time.
I don’t hear him because of the loud chatter surrounding me. I blink as the voices become clearer, then blink again when Dante’s face is replaced by that of Cian’s and Giana’s.
What the—
This cannot be a memory because I’ve never sat at Adh’Thábhain with the two of them. I glance down and catch sight of hands. Hands that are somehow attached to my body but which aren’t mine. I jerk my gaze off the thin brown fingers blemished with pink scars.
“It’s done,” Bronwen whispers on a rushed inhale. “Meriam’s unleashed her. It’s done.”
Oh my Gods, I’m in Bronwen’s mind!
Also, Bronwen’s still breathing? Did Lore not find out about her hand in my abduction?
“Get Lorcan.” Her rushed words halt my careening questions, and I hold my breath. I’m going to see Lorcan!
Cian and Giana both blink my way—Bronwen’s way—before Cian lurches off the bench and morphs into his Crow, probably to make use of the link he shares with Lorcan in this form.
