At a weak stirring inside him, his heart nearly crashed through his ribs. Letting the faint tug draw him, he glided toward it in his molecular state.
Immensely grateful for Echo’s help, he perused the embankment along the river…the Hudson River? Houses sporadically dotted the area.
He coasted closer, scanning the first two buildings…just humans relaxing and watching television. As he approached another, all appeared quiet. But the tug on his soul continued. He took form and jogged around the sprawling manor. Empty. The windows were shut. With just mere minutes left of the godsdamn hour he’d been given, his stomach roiled.
Darci?He reached out through his mind-link again. Nothing. Dammit! He slammed his palm against the building wall in frustration, and a buzz spasmed through his hand like electricity. He yanked back, fingers clenching, and glanced up at the house. An unearthly energy lightly brushed his senses. Some kind of spell shielded this place.
And then he knew.
She was here.
The damn fucker! Keeping his anger shored, so he wouldn’t go on a rampage and destroy everything around him, not with Darci trapped inside, he spun around. A sharp, crackling hiss reverberated. A whip lashed out, coiling around his arms and body. Pain erupted, the immense power in the braided leather almost electrocuting him. Blaéz stumbled, shaking his head to clear it of the dizziness assaulting him as something hard smashed into his skull, flinging him into darkness.
* * *
Blaéz groaned, opening his eyes. His head hurt like he’d smashed it repeatedly against granite, and a vile taste coated his tongue. Cold seeped through his clothes, but the blistering pain from earlier had faded. He cast his fuzzy gaze around.
Dank concrete walls surrounded him, along with a mish-mash of old furniture and cobwebs. Small, high windows with dull panes broke up the drab cellar.
As his unfocused vision cleared, everything that had happened crashed through him like an avalanche.Darci!He shot to his feet and tripped.
“AGuardian? Indeed.” At the derisive tone, Blaéz’s head snapped up to find his twin standing several feet away from him. “So easy to capture you.”
“Where is she?” Blaéz forced out through gritted teeth.
“Safe…for now.”
At the threat, Blaéz leaped for the bastard, except something tightened around his wrists, yanking him back, burning into his flesh. He froze, terror flooding him in a massive wave, dragging him back to a past he’d never wanted to revisit in any way. A time of dank cells and a fiery whip slashing and burning his back, trapped with that sick, sadistic son-of-a-bitch demon, Maloch—memories that still caused him to go a little crazy—nightmares that refused to leave. Blaéz struggled to fight through the darkness threatening to pull him under.
“You are nothing but the weakling spawnMáthairpicked up from the gutters.”
The vindictive words reacted like a life preserver, shattering through the red fog of clouding his mind like nothing else could. Blaéz desperately clung to it. Breathing hard, he forced his mind to focus on Finnén’s irate expression. Panic eased, and the past gradually faded. Moments like these had snuck up on him since getting his emotions back, along with sporadic nightmares, but Darci had been there to calm him down.
“Did the cat snatch your tongue, servant?” Finnén’s eyebrows lifted to his hairline. “You’ve gone all silent.”
Grateful for life’s twisted sense of humor that his irrational twin would drag him out of his horrendous memories, and had no idea of his nightmarish past, Blaéz reiterated, “Where is my mate?”
“Quite close, actually.” Finnén smirked. “And anxiously waiting for me.”
Growling, Blaéz shoved into the bastard’s mind, wanting to end him—to explode his skull into smithereens—but his head throbbed like a godsdamn motherfucker of a tanker had fallen on him. He ground his teeth in frustration.
If he couldn’t use his abilities…he summoned his mystical sword. The weapon stirred then fell as silent as a fucking ordinary tattoo.
Finnén chuckled. “You can’t kill me, servant. I took care of that with a spelled potion I poured down your throat to dampen your powers. Demons can be quite useful with blood-promises from a god—the fools! As if I’d ever tie myself to those lowly creatures…” He paced near Blaéz, an inch past the chain’s length and safely out of reach and cut him a sideways glance. “Nor can you escape those restraints. They’re spelled.”
Unable to focus, his mind held in a helpless loop at what could have happened to his precious heart, he snarled, “You’re going to wish for death after I’m done with you—”
“You are the one shackled, not me.” Finnén cut him off with a dismissive wave of his hand. “As much as you pretend to hate us, you still want The Morrigan’s acceptance.”
Perhaps as the naïve, young boy he’d once been who didn’t know better. Now, he didn’t give two fucks that theirmotherhad left him in the gutters as a babe, or more precisely, the servant’s quarters before he’d barely taken his first breath—to alter his destiny of death, which would have followed him into childhood—or so she claimed.
Inhaling deeply, Blaéz shut off his raging emotions. His dear brother had no idea what lengths he’d go to with his mate threatened.
“So,myexistence is an issue then?” he drawled, folding his arms and feeling the rips in his sweater where the whip had sliced through. “Heractions made it clear whom she favors these days. After all, it wasn’tmeThe Morrigan sent off with his tail tucked between his arse back at the castle several months ago—”
A snarl ricocheted off the walls. Finnén flew at him, his fist connecting with Blaéz’s jaw. His head snapped back, pain exploding inside his skull. Blaéz dove for him, but the damn cables hauled him back.
“You’re going to regret that!” Finnén’s eyes burned with malevolence, his pale skin mottled with rage. “I’m nowhere near done with you. I want you to hurt so badly, that before this night is over, you’ll curse the fates for ever putting me in your path. Oh, on the off chance your friends think of coming to your rescue, this entire place is shielded.”
