“Derrick, Brietta is not lying,” I whispered. “I…I lied.”
His brows knitted. “No, Serafina—”
“She wrote the poems.” Tears wet my lashes. “I used her so you would fall in love with me. I used you to get the crown.”
“But I do love you.” He gripped my face and stole the air from my lungs. “And you love me…”
No music entered my mind, but the light between his eyes opened. He was begging,begging,for me to come in. To soothe his inner self. To stitch up his broken mind like I had done so many times.
“And you will not leave me.” His voice shook. “You c-cannot leave me.”
I stood on my toes and placed both my hands on his jaw. The ember in my heart was warm and pulsing. Midnight cried out to me as I made the thin tether between his mind and mine.
I closed my eyes and entered his mind. Midnight stared back at me in the center of the ballroom. All the stitches I had made every night glowed and strained under the widening cracks in the castle walls and floor.
I did not want to hurt him, but the flames around my heart raged with the truth, pushing me to my one true desire.
I needed Riyan to breathe again.
I pushed forward, my lips brushing his. “Sleep, Derrick.”
My Nordingaard crystal warmed against my neck. The white light reflected in Derrick’s wide eyes as I broke his heart.
I held back a sob as I gently quieted Derrick’s mind, putting every bit of him to sleep, and I commanded: “Let him dream.”
But as soon as Midnight accepted the command, the words “I lied” echoed through the starlit ballroom. The glowing white threads disappeared. The cracks in his mind split wider. The castle foundation crumbled. Alastar’s prison vanished.
With a low growl, Alastar slowly climbed out of the pit. Midnight only had enough time to look over his shoulder before the monster unhinged its wide jaw.
And Alastar ate him.
The twelfth Duke of Lycaster laid at my feet on the floor of his study.
I shut my eyes and used every bit of my concentration to keep Derrick asleep, but the monster in his mind was running free.
Alastar rammed his horns into the magical barrier of dreams I placed in Derrick’s mind. My tether over him shook.
“Brietta,” I bit out as I struggled to keep my hold over Derrick’s mind. “There is a portrait of three pink roses on the far wall…that is our way out.”
Brietta’s footsteps pattered to the wall then hinges creaked.
“How long will he be asleep?” she asked.
My muscles ached as my power drained little by little, but I gritted my teeth and held on. “Not long. We have to get Anna.”
She quickly grabbed my hands and guided me through the portrait hole into the inner walls of the palace. I could only focus on maintaining the fading light of my magical tether as Alastar rammed into my magic over and over.
We hadminutesbefore I lost control.
Brietta popped open a panel in the wall and low light from sconces filtered through my eyelids. The smell of perfume and old wood of the royal family’s chambers filled my nose. My feet stepped onto the plush carpet as I followed Brietta’s lead.
“Why are you avoiding me?”
My eyes snapped open as soon as Grigory’s voice hit my ears. My white flame roared, filling every inch of my body with a furious heat—enough to incinerate a giant again.
The power was too great to ignore. I had to make a choice.
In a heartbeat, I let Alastar loose and focused on a different monster.
