Arran gave me a look—do not do anything stupid—before disappearing briefly back up the stairs. He reappeared a minute later with a torch.
I expected to see the face of the hardened battle commander, taking stock of his enemy, studying them for weaknesses. I was wrong.
I should have been flattered. He did not bother to hide his horror from me.
Instead, I felt deflated.
He had believed me, but he hadn’t trusted my account. He had not fully understood until this moment, when faced with the reality of it. Another part of my heart fractured at that—a part that could not be healed by any amount of fucking.
The cells stretched beyond the reach of the torchlight in both directions. They did not seem to be purpose-made for the succubus, but the thick metal bars contained them just the same. And the cells were packed. I counted ten in the one directly in front of us.
“Mostly humans,” Arran said, stepping closer despite the smell. The noxious black bile of the succubus coated the ground, the bars, the bodies. And yet, some of them were not actively spewing the stuff anymore.
Their souls.
The black bile was their souls, being ejected forcibly from their bodies, until nothing remained but a shell for the succubus to exploit.
My own soul recoiled at the thought, the golden thread of Arran and I’s mating bond tightening in my chest, protecting itself.
I had a soul worth protecting. And a kingdom as well.
I had changed. My first instinct was to kill them all—and we would. There was no way I would leave this kind of threatwaiting in the dungeons for Palomides to unleash on us or on unsuspecting innocents. But this was also an opportunity.
“I knew that Palomides was hiding something. The duel is a distraction, to keep us from finding this. Or maybe to spring them upon us somehow.” The possibilities I’d been sorting through it my mind had narrowed, but had yet to fully solidify.
“A distraction,” Arran repeated quietly. “Just like everything you did in the throne room.
Despite what stood in front of us, my gaze was drawn to him. I dipped my chin.
He did not move, and it was hard to read his expression in the faint light. But his voice was raw. “You do not have to hide from me.”
An offer. To share myself—my plans, my worries. To let him see me, again.
I did not know if I could do it.
I stepped closer to the cells, refusing to flinch away from the desiccated black hand that reached out for me, fingers rubbed away to bony points. Scratch marks covered the floor. The succubus had sharpened its nails.
“They do not need the light to know we are here,” I said.
Arran moved to stand beside me. I wanted to lean into him. But he did not reach for me.
He had done me the courtesy of ignoring my declaration of love. The least I could do was keep my hands to myself.
“And they have no interest in ripping each other apart. Only us,” Arran said, raising the torch above his head. The succubus strained toward us, pressing up against the bars. They could have easily taken a bite of each other, but their focus was singular.
Arran took a few steps down the corridor, cold, fetid air taking his place. “Are they sentient?”
I wished I could say no. But the more I looked at them, the more I sorted through my memories…
“A pack of them, dozens, attacked us in the jungle above the faerie caves. It could not have been an accident, not as isolated as we were,” I said. Arran did not remember, but I did. “I’ve never heard one speak, if that is what you’re asking.”
I felt Arran’s grumble of annoyance. A few steps further down the corridor, while I held my place. But the succubus were wholly focused. Even the ones in the cells further down, nearest to Arran, surged all together in one direction.
Mine.
“They want you,” Arran breathed.
I swallowed past something in my throat that felt a lot like fear. “So it would seem.”
