Cainon fists my sodden hair, wrenching me forward while I split apart from the inside out, my arms and hands scribbled in lines so hot my bones are surely melting.
He pinches my chin, and itchy pops flare across my shoulder as I’m forced to look up. The sky cracks apart again with another fluorescent flash, igniting Cainon’s wide eyes. Igniting my bright reflection blasting off the mirror of his sable stare.
“You— You’re a—”
Snarling, I cast my hands into claws and try to shred his chest. He looks down and gasps. Drops my hair.
Stumbles back.
I blink, trying to clear more blood from my eyes, seeing the grizzly slits in my outstretched hands, up my arms, tapering toward my elbows. Seeing the slither of sizzling darkness just below the surface—a silent promise for a death that won’t come.
It won’t come.
All the color has gone from Cainon’s face as that pressure continues to build, shoving at my weak spots. I look to where Zane was tossed over the edge of the pier …
My fault.
There’s the sound of a blade loosening, and I see the long, golden sword Cainon just pilfered from a corpse while he stashes his dagger in his boot, looking at me like he finally sees the monster I really am.
All I can see is Zane holding up that golden token—begging for his life.
All I can feel is Rhordyn’s warm kiss upon my forehead.
I smile at Cainon as he whips back the sword. Laughing, I tip my head and bare my bound throat—hoping for a clean slice.
Because I’m done.
I’ve got nothing left to give.
I don’t want to be here anymore.
The air becomes so charged I feel it thumping against my skin, like it holds a pulse of its own. The atmosphere splits as a fork of black-veined lightning cleaves down from above and kisses the tip of Cainon’s sword, blazing off in jagged blades. A shrill, strident sound mulches my brain, followed by aboomso loud another scream rips from my throat.
The ground falls away beneath me with a sound akin to shattering glass, and I plummet into an icy sea of churning, tumbling water that claws at my body androarsat me.
My head collides with something hard.
Darkness.
Having spent so many years living in a cell, being stuffed back into one doesn’t jar as it should. I’m not hit with a burst of panic. I don’t claw at the bars with hope in my heart and a wild urge for freedom wrestling beneath my ribs.
There’s no point.
All it does is expel energy I need to breathe, blink, and perform my regular bodily functions that keep me existing. It’s the only reason I survived so long all those years ago when my cell became my cold, stony hug. My shoulder to cry on, break against, lean upon.
My fuckinguniverse.
I gave up hope and forged myself into the sort of creature that thrives in chains.Feedson them. I traded in so much of the important stuff that I was left with this mangled version of myself by the time Rhordyn liberated me.
Not quite sad to be free. Not quite happy about it either.
That’s kind of how I feel right now—not quite happy to be stuffed in this tiny cell that smells like despair and youth with a perfect, disturbing view of the feeding arena.
Not quite sad about it either.
Because if I weren’t here,hewould be alone. Or in the guts of an ocean beast.
I let my gaze drift through the bars to the cell on the opposite side of the hall. To the small person in the corner, huddled beneath a blue velvet cloak.
