At first, I thought it might be magic holding him in place, but as my eyes adjusted to the near total darkness, I realized his wings were nailed to the stone.
Sharp rowan stakes tipped with iron were driven through the rock. Dark blood dripped from the puncture marks, the wounds red and angry looking.
Fury unlike I’d ever known coursed through me at thesight. Rowan wood was toxic to demons and obstructed their natural healing capabilities. While his injuries wouldn’t kill him, he had to be in unbearable pain.
“Kaden,” I whispered, reaching out to brush my fingers along his jaw, which was shadowed in a thick scruff.
He jerked awake, his hand shooting out to capture my wrist in an iron grip.
I winced. It wasn’t gentle. But that wasn’t what made my chest seize with panic. It was his eyes.
Gone were the stormy gray irises that I’d come to adore. His eyes were pure, glistening black, like two drops of oil.
Demon eyes.
“Come back for more?” he rasped, his voice low and menacing.
His fingers clenched my arm so hard I thought he might break my wrist.
“Kaden. It’sme,” I choked, gritting my teeth against the pain.
“Get out of my head,” he snarled, his other hand striking out to capture my throat.
The move was so fast, so unexpected, that I had no time to react.
His fingers pressed in hard, cutting off my air supply and causing my head to swim. I dug my fingernails into his hand, trying to pry him off my throat. But even injured, Kaden’s strength was immense.
Then Adriel’s fist swung out, knocking Kaden’s head to the side. Blood sprayed from his mouth, and the change in position revealed a mottled yellow pattern of bruises that had begun to fade.
The shock of Adriel’s strike loosened Kaden’s grip onmy neck, and I peeled myself away from him, clutching my windpipe.
Gasping for air, I studied him anew. It wasn’t just Kaden’s face and wings that were battered. Every inch of him was covered in burns, fading bruises, and angry lacerations.
It was a mark of how much the rowan stakes were affecting him that his body could not heal, and it sickened me to imagine what they had put him through.
But those eyes. They burned with a monstrous hatred that chilled my very blood. I’d never seen him like this before, and my body hummed with rage.
“What’s happened to him?” I murmured, glancing at the royal guard.
Adriel’s jaw flexed, eyes blazing with a fury that nearly matched my own. “Fleshtalker. He’s been messing with his mind.”
“For how long?” I hissed, nodding at Kaden. “It’s only been three days, but he looks like . . .”
I couldn’t bring myself to finish the thought. Kaden looked as though he’d been here for weeks.
“Time passes differently in the in-between,” the royal guard muttered. “To us, it was only a few hours that we were there, but here it could have been days . . .”
“Well, well,” came a simpering female voice.
I whipped around to find a dark-haired demon standing just behind Sorsha. The cell door remained closed, and I hadn’t heard her climb through the hole, which meant she had materialized inside this room.
She was dressed in a set of black fighting leathers that accentuated her voluptuous curves. Long ebony hair spilleddown her back, and her pale fingers were tipped in sharp silver talons that clicked as she regarded me.
“It appears the bait has hooked a fish,” she said, her unsettling onyx eyes narrowing to slits as a cruel smile split her face.
Blood pounded in my ears, my fury burning away any fear.
The female’s gaze lingered on my face before drifting down my body to the knife clasped in my hand. “You must be the huntress.” She made a soft note of appraisal. “I can see the appeal, I suppose. Though why the demon prince would be mated to one so . . .underwhelming, I cannot say.”
