I grimaced as I sat up. My vision turned hazy for a moment, swimming from the movement, but cleared after a few deep breaths. What did he do to me? I tried to recall anything after passing out, but unsurprisingly, I remembered nothing. Whatever they’d used had me out cold. How much time had passed? I hadn’t been taken to the safety of my dreamscape, but there hadn’t been any nightmares, either.
Unless Dante finally figured out how to fuck with my mind.
I touched my temple lightly. How would I even know if he did? No one else had. And Adrian…
Just the thought of him made me close my eyes. Whatever Dante did, he’d claimed it was because of Adrian. But what? A new kind of fear shuddered through me, coiling tight around my abdomen and squeezing my heart.
I forced my eyes open and searched my cell for any sign of…I wasn’t sure what. There was nothing different about the space; it was still the same dark stone cell I’d been in before the trip to the bitchy doctor. At least, it didn’tfeelany different. I still couldn’t sense the magic of the runes. And I still couldn’t reach my own magic.
My hands went to my throat, to the collar still wrapped around my neck. I was used to the weight of it now, the pressure of it on my shoulders.
I didn’t bother trying to stand and instead took stock of myself. Other than the weird nightgown I now wore, I had no other clear sign of injuries. No broken feet or legs. No weird puncture wounds in my arms. I ran my hands all over my body, searching foranythingthat might explain what they’d done to me in that room but came up empty.
I doubted they just wanted to get me undressed. I couldn’t even make myself feel gross about it. I was more unsettled by the whole ordeal.
What the fuck did Dante want?
I leaned my head back against the cool stone wall and closed my eyes. My mind wandered back to the moments before the female drugged me. To Dante’s words about Adrian. What the hell had that meant? The only thing I could think of was that he’d knocked me out to enter my mind, but cutting me off from my magic should have lowered all my blocks…or at least, that’s what I suspected.
He wanted something else, I thought. And it had to do with Adrian.
Panic swelled within me at the idea that maybe he’d usedme to get through to Adrian again. To break into his mind. If my prince was smart, he’d have found a way to get Blythe to reinforce his blocks—to put blocks on everyone.
Goddess above, I still didn’t know enough about this world to know if that was even possible. Could Dante use me to get through to him? Use our bond to break into Adrian’s mind?
I rubbed a hand over my face. The quiet of the cell settled in around me, the silence so thick it pressed down on me. If Dante didn’t send me crazy with his secrets, then this place would.
Part of me wanted to escape into the dreamscape again and find Orion. To spend what time I had left with him; to pretend I wasn’t locked away in some secret compound in the Luna Court. But the essence of the dreamscape evaded me. My mind was awake, and it wanted my body to remain vigilant.
Like it wanted to do something about this.
But I’m stuck in chains in a cell locked with runes designed to weaken me.
I wasn’t getting out of this without help.
Help from my mates, who had no idea where I was, with a timeline none of us knew about.
The lunar eclipse. I wasn’t even sure when it happened in the Luna Court—hell, I never even knew they were that frequent here. Even worse, I had no idea how much time had passed since Dante knocked me out. It could have been hours, or it could have been days, pushing me closer to the moment he intended to steal my power and destroy Nyx’s realms.
A shiver rolled down my spine, forcing me to open my eyes, a strange kind of awareness washing over me. Like I was being watched. The feeling had the hairs on my arms prickling, my skin suddenly chilled. I planted my hands on the cement ground, which turned almost icy.
Slowly, I released a breath that turned to fog before me. Another shiver rushed through me, this one more violent.
Maybe this was why he’d taken the gear and put me in a nightgown.
Because he wanted me to freeze to death?
The vision where the air mage stole the air from my lungs hit me, the words of the female like a bucket of ice water.He doesn’t want it dead, she’d said. We thoughtithad been me.
But what if it was something else?
And that something else no longer mattered to Dante?
Surely, he wouldn’t kill me before taking my power. Wouldn’t it just move on to another potential Daughter? The cycle happened every five hundred years, but maybe Nyx had a plan for this. And that plan included letting me die, so another could take my place.
The cold settled in further, forcing me to wrap my arms around myself. Maybe that wouldn’t be a terrible sacrifice, dying so another could rise in my place. It would suck, but then at least my mates would have nearly twenty-three years to find a way to stop Dante and protect the next Queen of Nyx. It would just mean there would be instability for as long as Dante remained in a position of power.
Shivers wracked my body, the cold curling around my lungs with each breath I took. It became almost painful to breathe, burning my throat and lungs. And yet, I couldn’t bring myself to feel fear. Was that what Dante wanted? My tears? To hear me beg for my life?
