Page 7 of Mate of a Monster

Zev heads toward the door, a smile on his face. “Come. Better I show you.”

He leads me through a maze of tunnels carved into black rock. Torchlight flickers against the walls, casting our shadows long and jagged. The sulfur smell thickens the deeper we go.

“When did all this happen?” I keep one hand trailing against the stone, grounding myself. My legs feel weak. Six days without food will do that.

“Literally as soon as you vanished.” Zev glances back at me. “You were gone and he was just…here.”

“He was here,” I repeat as if it’ll make me believe him.

“He just—stopped everything. The wars, the games, the tricks…” he continues, and is that a fucking chirp in his voice?

Ain’t no way.

Not Zev, my chaos master who definitely threw as hard as he could take.

I stumble over a loose stone. Zev catches my elbow, steadying me.

I peer up at him, half annoyed that I know I look as bad as I feel, but more annoyed that I know it doesn’t matter to him the same way it did…

He tossed you away like you were trash. “Witch.”

Shaking my head and scrubbing my thoughts, I whisper. “That’s impossible.” I know this island. I know its people. We don’t stop killing each other because someone asks nicely. “How?”

Zev doesn’t answer. Instead, he stops at a narrow opening in the rock where pale light bleeds through.

“See for yourself.”

I step through the gap and my breath catches.

The cavern stretches wider than any space I’ve seen on Exile. Hundreds of people move below us, organized into groups, working. Some haul stone. Others sort supplies into neat piles. A few tend to what look like crops. Growing under strange glowing orbs mounted to the ceiling.

Just like that first glimpse when I returned, there are no screams to be heard, no fights to bet on.

“This is so fucking weird,” I whisper, mostly insulted because what did this asshole do to my island?

“Told you.” Zev stands beside me, arms crossed, a smug smile on his face. “Everything changed.”

I scan the crowd, searching for the familiar chaos I grew up in, but this is something else entirely.

These people move with purpose. They wear clean clothes. Some of them are talking to one another without weapons drawn.

I turn to Zev, blinking up at his face. A face I can’t really see behind that old rusted mask.

My fingers curl in my palms, leaving crescent indents behind because this motherfucker.

“Where is he?” My tone drops low.

Zev turns to me, his dark eyes searching my face. “You sure you want to know?”

No. I should find Thyrix and fly as far from this new nightmare as the island’s boundaries allow the average exile. But he didn’t die from the Isles Kiss and he handled a forbidden gem like it was nothing more than a random rock. He burned and bruised my body, but there’s no proof of those facts left behind in the form of scars.

Something happened during those six days I can’t remember.

I need answers and I need them now.

“Take me to him.”

Chapter Two