“The king?” The warlord’s rigid jaw became granite. “You found him…on my lands?”
Aerén shook his head, forcing the words through a throat numbed with grief and agony. “No. I have to find Leya.”
“Where is she?” Taegér demanded.
“I don’t know. Do you have a dead volcano here, hidden by magic?” he asked, anguish squeezing his chest like a tightening vise. “I have to find her! She’s injured and trapped in one.”
Sebris frowned. “There are no hidden volcanoes here. The place is a wasteland, as you can see. Dregarus’ volcanoes are on the other side of the country.”
Dammit, no!Aerén refused to accept he couldn’t get to her. He glanced up to the calm but overcast sky, where the swirling vortex had spewed him out and was no more, and his heart shuddered. “I was flung out through a portal from up there.”
Taegér dematerialized.
“Let’s get your sire to the fortress, then go and find her,” Sebris said.
“No. I have to get back to Cidéra. There’s a portal to the damn volcano there, in the ocean.” He flashed to the Gray Seas in Dregarus and the soft spot there.
Sebris appeared at his side. He lifted his hands, and a portal split open.
Aerén glanced at his sire lying so still in his arms. The black patches on his sire’s skin started to increase. “What’s happening to him?”
Sebris stepped closer. “I think the spell is tightening around him.”
“What?”
A dagger appeared in Sebris’s hands. He sliced his wrist, grasped Aerén’s sire’s chin, and dripped his blood into hispateri’smouth.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Aerén snarled.
“Saving him.” Cool. Calm. “Only an Original’s blood will do. Ask him about it when he awakens. Though he might not thank you for lettingmesave him.”
The air flickered, and Taegér reappeared. “I scanned the entire place up there.” He nodded skyward. “Found nothing.” His eyebrows drew into a V. “Is this about what Leya felt when she dreamed about snow and someone trapped in a volcano, when you came here the last time?”
“Yes.” Pain ripped through Aerén. Now she was trapped in the same fucking place. “After she had the same dream again, she asked me to take her out to sea, where the pull led her. But I was shot with the cursed arrows, and we went under—shit!”
“A portal in the ocean,” Sebris said.
His expression tight, Aerén nodded. “To a pocket realm connected to ours. It’s the only thing that makes sense. It felt different because of all the damn darkness and evil there. I have to go.”
“I will help you,” Taegér said.
Aerén shook his head. “I have my people.”
“This affects all of us.” Sebris pointed out. “Taegér has abilities that can aid you while you search for your mate.”
Aerén didn’t even hesitate, not when it came to Leya. “Let’s go.”
His sire in his arms, Aerén stepped through the portal onto the familiar shores of Cidéra, into sheer silence and an overcast day. No signs of the rustling rain he’d left behind.
His heart splintered with unbearable agony. He’d found his sire but at what cost?
“Come on,” Aerén said to Taegér.
He shot up the cliff and to the castle. Relief filled him that he did this so much more easily. The spell was wearing off. But he still believed Leya’s blood had somehow aided him in the damn volcano.
As they stepped onto the back terrace, his enforcers took form. They all eyed the Darkrean like they would skewer Taegér in a heartbeat.
“Sire, what happened?” Thiorr hurried forward. “We lost track of you when you fell into the ocean two days ago—” His jaw dropped. “Theelyon? You found him?”
