My handler appeared with a familiar look of boredom and said nothing as he pushed past several gathered soldiers. I knew already to follow without question, and so I did.
“How many did he injure last night?” one soldier asked, arms crossed, head lowered. There was a nasty, fresh scar running down his face, slicing through his nose and upper lip.
“I think last count was fifteen before he was knocked out and taken back to the cages,” a female replied with a flip of her hair. “It’s a wonder he didn’t kill anyone.”
“Can’t believe no one slaughtered the beast,” a third muttered, his eyes finding mine as I passed. “What are you looking at, freak?”
I blinked and looked away. They snickered something else behind me, but I paid them no attention. If they thought words would get under my skin, then they would need to try harder.
If there was anything I’d learned during my time in the compound thus far, it was how strange the soldiers were. They were immature, arrogant, too confident. It was why they believed themselves infallible like their false king. It both made them dangerous and pathetic, a combination hard to read.
Or they were weak-minded and under Dante’s control, forced into a prison of their own. There were many trapped by the false king’s power, without access to their own mind—their own bodies. Many likely had no idea they were even soldiers inhisarmy.
We passed several of them, their eyes unseeing as they guarded the metal cage of the elevator.
Handler hit a button, going up. “Our objective today is to assess weaknesses within the compound,” he stated, barely looking at me as the doors opened. “You’re observing. So, keep your mouth shut.”
I pressed my lips together to keep from reacting. To them, I was just like the weak-minded guards under his control. But as I drew in a deep breath, I caught familiar scents. The spiced aroma of the winged male from my fated’s mate circle and the bloodied, rotten smell of his vampire handler. Along with other guards I’d had the displeasure of meeting over the last several days, including the demon who brought me to the false king.
And hidden, barely perceptible, was the traitor himself.
The elevator opened to the medical floor. Here, the walls were a bright white, almost shiny. The doors all remained locked to maintain a sense of privacy, but I could scent despair and fear in the air. The hint of blood from wounds caused by stupidity. The harsh reminder that those dragged here weren’t just locked away to be healed.
Handler moved to a wall and pressed a rune, starting his sweep of the magical wards, but my mind wandered back to the ship I’d been transported to after I’d attacked the bear. Those moments were ingrained in my mind, forever imprinted on my memory. I would never forget her scream of anguish. The rush of her magic as it swept over me and the landscape.The storm that’d wrecked my world in response to her suffering.
“Still no word from Hyperion?” The King didn’t bother looking at us as he addressed the Fae male. The light from the hatch went away, flooding the room with a familiar darkness once more.
The Fae male shook his head. “None yet.”
“He wasn’t meant to kill the boy,” Dante murmured, more to himself than his followers. “Now, it might all have been for nothing. We need her ready for the blood moon, but if she doesn’t have her bonds, then we are no closer to Emris’s power.”
“Primal.” A hand shook my shoulder, drawing me out of my thoughts. My handler stared at me with irritation, eyes dark with emotion. It was one of the few he showed regularly. “You still with me?”
I blinked, nodding once. “Yes.”
The male made a sound in the back of his throat as he slammed his hand into the rune, making it disappear. “Move. Sweep the hall.”
Swallowing hard, I nodded again and turned towards the corridor. As I did, I felt a twinge of my magic, the remnants of my connection to the earth. It was almost like a whisper of what I knew I needed. What I had to remember.
And it was that here, I was alone, but I was not powerless.
I would find my mate, free her and the others, and then I would save my world from the bloodied hands of the false king.
11
Ivy
The taste of ash filled my mouth, my eyelids heavy as awareness came back to me in pieces. Like fog settling over a hill, rolling down the green landscape to never really cover it.
Here, in the fog, I felt weightless. Nothing. I knew I had to be somewhere, but I couldn’t quite rememberwhere.
Until it all came crashing back, like the quick disappearance of mist once the sun rose.
I sucked in a sharp breath and peeled my eyes open. I wasn’t in the infirmary—or wherever Dante had taken me after knocking me out. Instead, I was in my cell again.
Only this time, I wasn’t in my gear.
The long night gown looked like it’d come from Thea’s grandmother’s closet. It was frumpy in a way old lady—and well, plus size—clothing was. Had Dante put me in this to embarrass me?
