“Let it go,” I growled again in a strangled voice, my whole body shaking with emotion.
And then …
Something burst out of me, invisible but immense, like the air itself had been ripped. Power slammed through the tunnel, rattling stone from the ceiling. Theron was thrown back, crashing to the floor, his sigils sputtering under the blow.
Roz shrieked free. The bonds shattered with a sound like splitting ice, and the beast lunged forward, claws gouging the stone as it soared for him.
Theron’s eyes flared. He thrust out his hand again, sigils reigniting in a violent blaze. The air seized. Roz froze mid-pounce, one massive claw suspended an inch from Theron’s face, trembling with the effort to reach him.
I stood rooted, torch shaking in my grip, my breath shuddering in and out. My skin still hummed and my bones ached as though something had ripped its way out from inside me.
Gods.That had come from me.
Dust still spiraled in the air when my gaze locked on him. Theron lay sprawled across the flagstones, bone still in one hand, Roz suspended above him mid-lunge, claws straining for his throat.
His eyes weren’t on the beast though.
They were on me.
For a heartbeat he was bare … shock holding his features still, stripped of the arrogance he wore like armor. Truly unguarded, for the first time since I had met him.
Then it shifted. His mouth edged into a hungry line, his stare no longer startled but consuming, lit with a fire far more dangerous than surprise.
“There it is,” he murmured, his voice a dark caress that slid down my spine.
“There what is?” I whispered shakily back, still trying to grasp that some impossible force had just burst out of me.
His gaze burned hotter.“What I’ve been looking for.”
Chapter60
Ispun and bolted.
“Geluthyma.”
The word slipped from his lips, soft as breath, and every muscle in my body locked. My lungs fought for air, my limbs screaming to move, but I was frozen, caught, pinned by the weight of that single sound.
Prowling footsteps followed, ringing against the tunnel stone until they circled me. I couldn’t see him, but I felt him, each step winding tighter around me like a snare. Then he was there, in front of me, sigils faintly aglow, his gaze laced with amusement and something darker.
“A little piece of advice,” he said as his smile curved into something knowing … and predatory. “You should never give a monster a drop of your blood. You never know what he’ll do with it.”
Horror gripped me. I had done that. Willingly. If he was a monster, then I had handed him the weapon myself.
He plucked the torch from my frozen grip as if taking it from a statue. Flamelight swung with him as he turned, striding deeper into the tunnel as he twirled the bone in his hand like it was some kind of baton. My body betrayed me, every step wrenched forward in his wake as though tethered on an invisible leash. My lungs still worked, ragged and fast, but my limbs obeyed only him.
Somewhere behind me came the rumble of a growl. I couldn’t move my head to look, but I assumed Roz was also being hauled along.
I tried to move—anything. To jerk my arm, to twist a wrist, to turn my head. Nothing. My body remained locked, trapped in invisible chains that weren’t mine to break. Each step answered only to him, dragging me forward like a hound on a leash.
The tunnel sloped until a narrow stone door yawned open ahead. Theron didn’t even touch it; the hinges shuddered as if eager to obey him.
Light spilled through.
In the next breath, we stepped out, rough stone giving way to marble, and I realized where he had brought me.
We were in the throne room, and it was strangely empty for once.
Theron’s torchlight flickered across the gilded pillars, the mosaics, the marble thrones that loomed at the far end. His violet eyes glimmered as he surveyed it all.
