Students, based on their uniforms. Three from Oberon, two teenagers from the local prep school in Aster, near the academy. Children basically. And they all had bags over their heads. The two teens couldn’t have been much older than Eloise.
Anger rose within me, the shift barely controllable now. The students were placed across from Jay and the other agents, but we walked out of sight before I could see what was being done to them.
Ivy’s breaths came harder, and I could feel the familiar swell of panic rising within her. The emotion was so strong it battled against our blocked bond, and yet she somehow remained in control. Her gaze shifted to Xerxes’s back and remained locked on him as she got her breathing under control.
Good girl,I wanted to say, but squeezed her hand again just in case.
Dante had kidnapped them to make her yield. He would use them against her, because he knew she would put herself in front of innocents before anything else. Especially kids.
We descended two more floors before we hit the courtyard. The hall we’d once walked when Ivy first arrived was almost unrecognisable now; the paintings and art were shredded, sculptures smashed. The floor was cracked in some places, the ceiling plants long dead.
Waiting for us in the courtyard, Dante clutched an unfamiliar object between his hands.
I didn’t need to be told what I was looking at. Not when the bone was marked with the same purple light that appeared on Ivy’s skin when she used her magic, and especially not based on the power that rolled over my skin from its appearance.
Nyx’s skull.
95
Ivy
My bones ached with the way my magic built within me. It wanted so badly to get out—to escape. Especially at the sight of Nyx’s skull.
It was exactly as I remembered, decorated in the same flowery pattern as the manifestation of my magic.
Between his hands, it lookedwrong, though.
“Thank you,” Dante said, his voice even. “No need to use your mates as a shield anymore, Ivy. You can step forward.”
Elias’s hand tightened in mine, the grip both comforting and making the fear worse. None of my mates moved, and I didn’t blame them. They had no intention of giving me to him.
And as if sensing that, Dante sighed. “Kill the youngest.”
My gaze snapped to the space where they held the students. Soldiers surrounded the small group, guns pointed at them. The younger kids were whimpering. The older ones were trying to break free of their binds. A soldier clicked off the safety and aimed the nozzle at a girl in a knee-length plaid skirt.
“No!” I shouted, tearing my hand from Elias’s and stepping forward. “Fucking hell, Dante. Is this really necessary?”
The male grinned, eyes shining with malice. “Of course, it is. Now, come here.”
I gritted my teeth, breathing hard. “No.”
Dante raised a brow. “They die.”
“No,” I repeated stronger this time. “You really think if you actually survive this, you’ll last as king?”
“It won’t matter becauseI’llhave all the power,” he seethed, holding the skull up and glancing at the moon. I followed his stare, noticing the way the surface shifted from grey to red.
I was out of time. “You don’t think they’ll realise how expendable they are to you?” I asked, desperate, heart pounding. “They all know exactly how to steal the power from you. How can you be so sure they won’t turn on you once I’m dead? How do you know they won’t see right through you asKingand realise they can do better?”
Dante stiffened. “If they even tried to defy me, they would die,” he said, so easily it should have made me flinch.
It had the required effect on the male from the cages, the one who threatened the shifters with punishments meant for me. He looked at Dante like he was seeing his great king for the first time, finally noticing his descent into madness.
But his realisation was too late, anyway.
“Now, come here,” Dante said, as if he hadn’t just exposed himself to his own people. Desperately, he waved me towards him, unseeing eyes darting to the moon, then to the skull. “We have minutes before the blood moon disappears, and you need the collar off.”
He needed to take the collar off. He probably had no idea my bonds were completed.
