Race searched the walls behind the throne for seams, but Vaesarra’s sobs disrupted his focus. Skaldr got her out safely from wherever Malcarion had her trapped, but something scratched the back of his mind—he glanced over at his ex-lover.
She clung to Skaldr, broken.
Race frowned. The faint reek of burned resin and decaying moss clawed at his senses. He had to find Malcarion before he vanished.
He cast a quick look at Ash, making sure she was okay, and found her watching Vaesarra with narrowed eyes as Skaldr ushered his sister out of the throne room.
She is no threat, my heart,Race telepathed.
Oh, I know. She’s about as seductive as a Venus flytrap, isn’t she?
Only his Ash.
A smile started, then he shook his head. Didn’t care. Vaesarra wasn’t his problem.
Race turned back to the ruined wall behind the destroyed thrones and skimmed his palm over the cracked stone. An icy draft wafted through—a breath of air heavy with the stench of gore.
Fuck!
He stepped back. Whatever was behind that wall, he didn’t want Ash caught in its path. The bastard would have traps laid out, and it would likely harm everyone here. While the shifters might survive, his mate was human.
“Attor?” He turned to the one male his sire had trusted, and now did he—the one who always put Lemuria above all else. “She’s yours. Protect her with your life.”
“What? Race, no!” Ash yelled.
He leaped from the dais and, in three strides, reached her. He cupped her face, her striking champagne eyes wide with distress.I need you safe, my heart. You are my life.I fear that if Malcarion so much as scratches you, I will lose my mind. Lemuria might not survive me.
“I will handle this alone,” he said aloud. “Here…” He dragged off Ash’s beanie from his head, his hair spilling loose. For a heartbeat, he let his gaze soften as he put the hat into her hand. “Hold onto this for me.”
Ash took it, her eyes dark.Please, be careful.
Always.Race forced himself to let her go and nodded at Attor.
The male bowed, the motion sharp as a blade. “On my blood, I swear it.” His granite-hewn face gentled for only a breath as his gaze flicked to Ash. “You will carry the realm’s future one day, lass. And I will see you live it.”
“Wait in the lower halls,” Race ordered, crossing back to the dais. “It’s safer there.”
As Attor ushered his reluctant mate from the throne room, Koal strode over, his jaw set in determination. “I’m with you.”
Race inclined his head and strode to the wall behind the thrones again, stopping at the twin pillars on either side of the dais. He scanned the stone surface, searching… Every sense was pulled toward the bottom of the wall, hidden in shadow. Theair there was colder, heavier. He ran his fingers along the base, and his palm brushed a shallow depression in the pillar’s carved support.
Bastard had changed the trigger location.
He pressed it.
Stone ground against stone. A seam split wide, dust sifting down as the wall shuddered open.
The stench hit first—metal, rot, and smoke. Beneath it, something fouler—the tang of dark magic scraped his psychic senses. Sparks hissed along the edges of the passage.
Race’s stomach roiled, the stink familiar, piercing his mind and flaying his psyche like blades. He knew this place from before, dark and endless?—
Chains biting into his wrists, the echo of his own hoarse screams against wet granite?—
No, dammit.Not again.
He shoved it all down.This isn’t Tartarus!
The ache in his temples grew as he stepped into pitch-black darkness, Koal at his side.
