Race remained silent, remembering all too well how this realm repaid loyalty—with iron shackles and over five centuries of agony.
But witnessing Ash’s disappointment, his mouth tightened. She had no idea what he’d endured. He didn’t want to be drawn back to this place of his betrayal.
Skaldr’s fist slammed against the cave wall, stone splintering and dust flying. Race didn’t flinch.
“What do you need—blood? Begging? More children to be sent into the mines to search for his fucking riches?” Skaldr snarled. “Our realm is being burned to the ground, and you’re gonna just vanish again?”
So, Malcarion, the bastard, hadn’t revealed what he’d done. Everyone believed Race a coward who’d fled as his kingdom fell? “Ash, we’re leaving?—”
“Typical,” Skaldr spat, pressing his injured hand to his bandaged wounds. “Lemuria is dying, and he’d rather opt out and take off, too busy playing lone wolf to deal with an actual throne thief.”
Race pivoted toward Skaldr, his talons surging, black and deadly.
“Sire,” Attor cut in, leaping up from the boulder, placing himself between them. “I don’t know what happened to you foryou to lose all empathy, but the world your sire died for still bleeds.”
Fuck, he couldn’t deal with them and worry about Ash, too.
“Let’s go,” he told her.
She frowned at him, her displeasure evident that he refused to help before she pivoted for the cave entrance.
“Leave the bag. You don’t need it.”
“Right. Going home.” She turned and stalked to him. “So that’s it?” she hissed. “You’re just going to leave? Not help them at all?”
His mouth tightened, anger gnawing at him. Without replying, he hauled her close and dematerialized them, their molecules scattering…
The strain of carrying another across so many leagues dragged at him, testing his limits. He kept his magic steady through the void, fighting the natural resistance of traveling so far in one jump.
When they finally coalesced, it was into twilight and suffocating heat. Ash’s grip stayed locked around him, her heartbeat thundering against his chest.
“I feel like jelly,” she whimpered.
“Breathe. It will ease in a minute or so,” he said, though his own legs felt ready to give out. The air reeked of scorched dust and minerals, burning his nose.
With a groan, she slipped from his arms to her knees, wiping the damp strands of hair plastered to her face. Her eyes widened, darting over the massive black crystals surrounding them. “Where—where are we?”
“Heard it’s called Black-Shard Basin now.” His heightened senses caught the march of guards in the distance. He lowered his voice, waiting for them to leave. “Once, it used to be the footprint of an ancient gate volcano.”
The caldera had brimmed with life—lush greenery, a mirror-lake at its heart, and the portal had to be summoned—not with this barrenness.
“Guess we’re leaving, then?” she murmured, wiping her brow with the back of her hand. “Me, packaged for return like a misshipped parcel.”
He kept his gaze fixed on the splintered rocks, knowing if he looked at her, he’d cave. “You don’t belong in this dangerous world?—”
“Yeah. That’s your go-to for pushing me away, isn’t it?”
“Dammit, Ash.” His gaze snapped to hers. “You know that’s?—”
“Not true?” She tipped that little stubborn chin up a notch, her eyes scalding him. “But it’s all you’ve ever done ever since—never mind. Let’s just get this over with, so I can go home and forget this ever happened.”
He opened his mouth, then shut it. She was leaving. Pointless in raking over the same old. Yeah, he was a bastard, not good for any female.
All he had to offer was rage and pain.
Now she knew.
Careful not to disturb the rubble, he stepped closer to the looming rocks and the yawning basin of obsidian surrounded by heated mist, and his fingers dug into the crystal.
