“That went well,” Erista said, following me inside.
“Not the time for jokes,” I muttered, falling into my chair and pulling a book on Artale toward me.
“She’s right,” Mila added, taking the chair beside me. “Tolek and I have both been lost since…” She swallowed, then waved a hand over the table. “At least I know my place here. I think, even if you had to twist some truths, you gave him his.”
Chapter Eighteen
Malakai
My skin was on fire,but there wasn’t a scratch on it.
That was my first thought when I finally fully came to after Echnid tried to wake the seraph that didn’t fucking exist within me. Gods were so entitled, refusing to acknowledge that maybe they were wrong about one damn thing.
I stretched my arm above my head, and the burn sent a shock through my muscles. Like a fire was truly living in my blood, ravaging down to my fucking spirit.
Rolling my head to the side, even the brush of my hair across my forehead was a lick of flame. Every time something so much as touched my skin it ignited another spark.
Ophelia slept across the bed from me, on top of the covers with Lucidius’s fucking dagger clutched in her hand. I almost laughed. As if that would do anything against the Angels or Echnid. Or the cerberus and those women who seemed to want nothing more than to ride Echnid’s godly cock in the presence of us all.
She exhaled, legs moving restlessly against the sheets like she was hurrying to get out of this palace. This city.
As I was passing out the last time, she’d sworn she’d get us out of here—until the stars stopped shining—and the way her voice had cracked broke something in me. She’d been so different recently, contaminated by whatever evil Echnid spewed, but this was her. This was the warrior who wanted to fix everyone’s problems and build a better future for the Mystiques.
She’d asked why I didn’t fight back against Echnid, but I’d thought it was obvious. Ophelia and I were locked in this damn dance of the gods, but no one else had to be. For the same reason she wouldn’t let our friends come find us, I took the blows. As if it was some agreement woven in the broken Bind between us.
I’d fought it, but I’d been certain ever since that siren song called to me in the Gates of Angeldust and I retrieved Xenique’s emblem that we were trapped together. For long before that, if I was honest. I just hadn’t wanted to admit it.
In her sleep, Ophelia shifted, her hand stretching out, and the tattoo inked against the pale skin of her inner elbow was a beacon. Mine heated in response, thudding wildly after all the time we’d spent together these past weeks. Not in a romantic way or even with the strength the soul-bond should have, but with a sense of comfort.
Ophelia and I may be locked here, but if we could distract Echnid, we could keep anyone else from stumbling into the line of fire. No one else would suffer what we were.
Mila.
Mila would not suffer.
My fists clenched at the thought. Fucking Spirits, I needed to see her. Desperation made my chest tight. It shrank the room around me until my breaths were harsh through my throat.
I needed out.
Out of these walls, even if I was trapped in this cage.
Ignoring the fire ripping through me, I grabbed a tunic from the stack I kept in Ophelia’s dressing chamber and quietly left the room. Everywhere in the palace was hot, my skin too tight.
Air. I needed cold air and an open sky, not shadows that resembled locked bars.
I stormed through the palace, not bothering to remain quiet. It was our fucking home before the god’s. Let him see me. Let him try to trap us even further. We were away from everyone we loved, and I’d survived years in chains at the hands of the man who sired me and was supposed to protect me. A god I never trusted wouldn’t sting any more than he did.
I was crossing the corridor that descended down to the kitchens, planning to use the back door into the vegetable gardens, when a flash of light rounding the corner at the other end of the hall caught my attention.
Damien?
The stark gold ether that only he contained spilled across the marble, dancing away as he walked further.
What was the Angel doing down here at this time of night? What was he doing down here at all? As far as I knew, none of them ever came to the lower levels of the palace. All that was down here was the kitchens, the vaults, and?—
The cells.
By the Angels, had they captured someone?
