Lore?
He’s talking with Cian about Gods only know what since it isn’t Lucin they speak.
Lore!
I try to move toward him, but however hard I try, I don’t manage to reach him. Glumly, I realize that I didn’t export my body, only my mind.
Bronwen must finally pick up on my presence because she whispers, “Mórrgaht?” He whips his face toward my aunt just as she adds, “Fallon is watching.”
He strides toward her, dark shadows webbing the unfocused outline of his skin. “Behach Éan?”
Though I know that neither he nor Bronwen can hear me, I whisper, “Yes. Yes, it’s me.”
The gold in his eyes churns. “Mórrígan, I hate that this is our only means of communication. Can you really not see how she’s faring, Bronwen?”
“No. I cannot.”
His chest lifts with tattered breaths. “But she can hear me?”
“She can.”
“Mo khrà, Bronwen said that Justus is aiding you. Please tell that”—he growls a word full of consonants and jagged vowels, which I imagine conveys his impression of the general—“to send us a fucking smoke signal as to where you are. I have Crows circling the entire kingdom.”
Bronwen says, “He’ll reach out when—”
“Fallon’s magic has been released. I want my mate back, and I want her back fucking now!”
“She still needs to kill Dante, Lorcan.”
“What she needs is to come home to me.” Lore’s furious rasp strangles my already sore heart, making it tighten around its beats.
Although I fight to stay with Lore, I slip out of Bronwen’s mind and land back in the obsidian dungeon, knuckles as tense as my jaw.
“Are you all right?” One of Justus’s eyebrows is peaked.
I take it my eyes whitened. “Fine. I’m fine.”
A lie. I won’t be fine until I’m back with Lore.
Justus is still gazing at me oddly, brow ruffled as though it’s the first time he’s witnessed my eyes color-changing.
“Any spells I could use?”
Justus’s eyebrows straighten. “Blood no work on he.”
In other words, I’ll have to rely on my physical and mental aptitudes.
Easy breezy.
Total cakewalk.
Like taking candy from a sprite.
Who am I kidding?
I wipe my clammy palms on my pink slip, wishing I felt brave, wishing Lorcan was at my side. But if he had been, he’d take justice into his own hands. Bronwen’s prophetic words creep into my mind, clear as the morning she spoke them.
Lorcan still believes he will slay Dante and lose his humanity doing so, for that is what will happen if he’s the one to remove your former lover from this world before the obsidian curse is lifted.
