When my name left his lips, it sounded so broken, so desperate that I looked over my shoulder again.
Xavier was on his knees, his fists clenched at his sides. His chest heaved, his eyes swimming with torment as he desperately searched for a way past the ward.
He met my gaze once more, and I felt his unspoken plea through our bond.
Come back to me.
But there was nothing left of me to save.
Chapter 9
Xavier
My palm scraped against the rough wood as I slammed the heavy library doors open with an echoing crash. Gunnar and Julian, who had been at the center of the room, startled, sending books tumbling to the floor and loose papers flying into the air.
“Fates Xavier!” Gunnar boomed, clutching his chest with one hand, the other firm on the table. “I’m too old to be startled like that.”
Gunnar was wearing some sort of sleepwear, though it looked rather outdated. The long gray robe cascaded to the obsidian floor, its center adorned with striking, large yellowish suns embroidered in a line down his chest.
Guilt stirred in my chest, but I ignored their glares as I continued to stride toward them.
“I think I know how to take down their wards.”
The pair of them looked wide eyed in my direction, their brows going into their hairlines.
It was nearing midnight, having flown all day to and from Territan. My mind was still racing from my interaction with Zara and my power stirred under my skin at the thought of her.
The vines on my arm slithered across my skin and coiled around my forearm. It was something they did when I felt powerful emotions. I had barely glimpsed her from the sky, and my entire being had screamed for me to go to her, to claim her, to take her.
The breath had disappeared from my lungs despite my anger. I watched her from above, her chestnut waves swaying in the light breeze. They caught the light in a way that had been both hypnotic and cruel.
Tight leather hugged her thighs and it was a sweet kind of torture. Visions of me tearing them off of her played in my mind, and they were so vivid I practically felt them ripping under my grasp. It had stirred a deep primal ache inside me, wanting nothing but heat and ruin between us.
Her ocean-blue eyes had been the same, yet so different. Gone was their former curiosity and gentleness, now replaced by a dim, cold gaze rimmed with loathing. She had bared sharp fangs, as if daring me to see them, to be repulsed by them.
I wasn’t.
Zara seemed stronger, more muscular, and a fiery rage still burned within me at the extent of the manipulation inflicted upon her body, her mind, her soul.
The flight home had, if only slightly, cooled my rage. The summer air and night sky soothed me, allowing me to gather my thoughts and think clearly for the first time in three weeks. I replayed my interaction with Zara over and over again, and my mind kept snagging on one detail.
“Do we need to learn how to read your mind now, too?” Julian quipped after I had been quiet a beat too long. He was still in the same attire I had seen him in this morning, and I furrowed my brows at them in concern. Had they eaten today? Bathed? Slept?
Pushing my concern aside, I stopped in front of them and cleared my throat.
“Blood.”
Gunnar looked down in thought, and Julian scrunched his nose. “Blood?” he asked wearily, and I nodded. Magic was in our blood, tied to it. The witches fed on blood to amplify their magic, but what else could blood do?
The ward around Territan recognized Zara. I saw it. I knew my mother had created it, but Zara and her magic were connected. From the sky, I watched her reach out and touch it. I saw it ripple, react. It was as if it recognized her, greeted her.
When we wielded magic, it left behind traces—fragments of ourselves tied to each spell, like a signature. I'd always been able to feel the traces of my magic; it was like a faint hum, a quiet pulse of recognition that it was mine. I knew others could feel the traces of theirs as well.
And then there was something Lana had said, something that had stuck in the back of my mind, quietly gnawing at me. When I asked her how she’d escaped the dungeons, my wards, she mentioned a loophole. A loophole that ordinary Fae would never consider because they didn’t need it, didn’t rely on it. I didn’t know for certain, but I felt it was connected.
“Our magic is connected to our blood, in it. Morgana created the ward, but I saw it respond to Zara. Morgana and Zara’s magic are connected. If we can get her blood, do you think you can use it to take down the ward?”
Gunnar leaned up from the table he had been leaning on and met my eyes.
