“After everything…” he panted, “…you chose the monster?”
Red-uniformed soldiers crashed into him and he shouted in pain. They grabbed him by the arms and legs as he fought them off. They stripped him of his shield and spear and dragged him into the keep, but his furious eyes stayed on me.
“Mine,” Alastar growled in my mind.
“Serafina!” Riyan called. He ran over and grabbed my hand. “What did he do to you? I don’t care what I promised, I’ll break him into pieces!”
My lip trembled. The call of the bargain pulled within my blood. I could not keep it from him any longer. “Riyan…I have to go to him.”
He gripped my hand and held the back of my head with the other. “What are you talking about? He is mad—!”
“Riyan, my bargain was to take Fraleigh’s place as the Duke’s slave.” The words tasted bitter, but a weight lifted off my chest.
I tried to pull away, but Riyan held me in an iron grip. “The hell you are! I will destroy him. Raze his palace to the ground. Slice the neck of every soldier—”
I took the embroidered flowers out of my pocket and slipped them into his hand. “Find your flowers, Riyan.” His blood lit up on my command and I raised onto my toes. “You will be deathless when you wake.”
I kissed him, enchanting him with the loving touch of my lips to dream. He closed his eyes and his knees buckled as he fell into the grass. My chest shook with a sob.
As much as it hurt to leave him behind, I had to fulfill my bargain.
A life for a life exchanged in love. Nothing could ever break it. Nothing could ever save me.
Riyan was lying on his stomach in the middle of the fortress courtyard, but his blood pulsed as he fought my enchantment to keep him asleep. I closed my eyes and focused as I tried to keep him under.
I was trying to give him mercy. He could not stop my bargain, so I was not going to force him to watch as I became the Hytons’ eternal slave.
Mint and fresh smoke filled my nose. A warm hand laced with mine. “Come on, Sera. I am right beside you.”
Charcoal and tea leaves followed. “As am I.”
I cried as Erik and Endre led me up the steps. The keep’s doors creaked open. The warmth of Bloodstone Fortress filled my nose, likely for the final time.
Daigen’s voice filled my ears. “Let us take it from here, Reavers.”
Us?
Erik and Endre released my arms. Two slender yet sharp hands took mine.
“Everything will be all right,” Fraleigh whispered.
Daigen had taken her from the battlefield. I should have known he would not need sorcery to perform his tricks.
Her magic gently knocked against the door into my mind and I slowly let her in, ready to accept her power before I completed the terms of my bargain.
Warmth flooded my body. Gentle green and gold fire crawled up from my palms and into my heart. Ganora’s blue flame of icy rage danced with Fraleigh’s golden flame of loving heat. All of the flames swirled together around my heart until a rainbow of light burst through my chest.
I took in a breath, feeling every sparkle of magic in the air enter my lungs.
Daigen’s muscled arm looped around my right arm and Fraleigh’s thin arm linked with my left. They led me forward, but each step I took felt heavier and heavier. I squeezed my eyes shut tighter as Riyan fought harder against my magical veil that kept him asleep.
“It doesn’t hurt,” Fraleigh said in my left ear as we walked. “I promise, it doesn’t hurt.”
I counted my pounding heartbeats as I blindly followed Daigen and Fraleigh’s lead. The sound of splintering wood and slamming iron echoed through a door.
“He’s not taking captivity well,” a soldier said.
“Let the immortal go first, then,” Daigen said, “lest the mad Duke crack one of our skulls open.”
