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He stalks out, and when the door closes, I exhale slowly.
Eagan waits a beat, then steps closer. “We’re not really bringing her back to him to kill, are we?”
“No, but we need to hurry. I want to find her before the sun comes up and traps me here.”
“I’ll find her.” He glances at his watch nervously. “And I’ll keep her safe if needed.”
He already knows the only way to bring a king to his knees is through his mate, and I don’t want her on enemy territory. I need to get her home where I can keep her safe until the bond is complete and the curse is broken.
She is mine.
And I let her go.
Worse—I don’t know who she is or where she ran to.
But I’ll find her.
When I do, no one will keep her from me. Once I’m sure the Lycan King has fully disappeared from the hallway, I snatch up my cloak and pull it on.
“Get our men,” I command, my voice echoing in the narrow corridor as we step outside the room of this castle. “Sweep the city. Start with the blood bank. I want all the names and addresses of every feeder who worked today.”
Eagan falls into step behind me. “Zander will have his dogs on us.”
“Who cares? They want to sniff our asses, let them, as long as they don’t get in our way.”
As we emerge from the guest quarters into the main keep, two lycans are waiting. They are all thick muscles and bristling energy, their demonic eyes tracking my every move with undisguised hostility.
“The king has commanded we escort you,” the one on the right grunts.
“Try to keep up.” I brush past them. Time is not on my side, and once the sun is up, I’m all but useless to my men out there—thanks to this damn curse.
CHAPTER 10
• Alessia •
I DON’T KNOW how long I lay on the pier, but once they tackled me, all the fight drained from my body.
Time has gone fuzzy, the cold has seeped into my bones, and the stolen coins are scattered around me. The salt air burns my lungs. Seagulls scream overhead, fighting over scraps. The wood beneath me is damp, rotting, splintering against my spine.
Somewhere, a ship’s horn blasts—maybe Sable’s ship, already gone. I can taste copper and bile. My cheek presses into the pier’s rough planks, and I don’t have the strength to lift it. The world has narrowed to the smell of tar and fish, the distant sound of waves slapping against pylons, and the hollow where my sister used to be.
I promised Sable I’d come back. I promised my mother I would keep her safe.
I’ve failed them.
Rushed footsteps sound on the pier before strong, warm hands are dragging me to a sitting position. Arlo’s face comes into view, and he gently grips my jaw.
“Alessia?” he stammers, and I blink rapidly. “Where is Sable? Where are the ships?” Arlo searches along the piers, blood staining his neck.
He’s shaking. I realize it slowly—his hands tremble where they touch me, and his breath comes in ragged bursts, like he’s been running for miles. There’s blood on his collar, dark against the gray fabric. More blood on his sleeve. His eyes are wild, scanning the empty docks, and I can see the moment hope dies in them—the way his shoulders slump, just barely, before he catches himself.
My bottom lip trembles. “She’s gone.”
He kneels next to me, swiping hair that is stuck to my tear-streaked face. “I tried to get back as soon as I could. After I took Angie home, none of the other servants had coins to spare, so I went straight to the blood bank. The place was put into lockdown after an incident with the Vampire King, but I got enough to get her back.” He shakes his head. “I’m so sorry, Alessia. I . . . I tried. I thought we had more time.”
There is a specific kind of hollow that opens up when you’ve given everything—when your knees are scraped from begging and your throat is raw from screaming and your hands are empty anyway. It’s not grief. Grief has weight. This is the absence of weight, like someone reached inside and scooped out everything that made you solid. I keep reaching for the feeling of failure, expecting it to crash over me, but there’s nothing there. Just the cold. Just the hollow. Just the certainty that I will never be enough to save anyone. Instead, I gather the coins—what hasn’t fallen into the cracks of the pier—and Arlo drags me to my feet.
My neck is barely crusted over, but the pain is dulled by something worse: the hollow. Arlo notices the trail of dried blood and sweeps my hair back from my neck, inspecting the wound. “Fuck, Alessia. Whoever you got was savage,” he murmurs, and I find myself staring at the two neat, clean bite marks on his neck, then to the bandages on both arms, likely covering needle marks.
