“Do my iron chains not weaken me enough for you to conquer?” I asked, lifting the bowl over my head.
He struck, swinging the hand that held the glass shard toward my face. Bending backward as quickly as I could, I barely managed to escape him taking my eye. I didn’t care to discover if I would regrow such a thing the way the Fae could, but the shard cut a line across my cheek and the bridge of my nose.
“Alive, Ophir,” Mab repeated, staring at the fight. She never bothered to vacate her seat, even with the proximity of our violence, as if the greatest entertainment in her life came from the pain and suffering of the people so close that she could touch them.
My skin burned lightly with the cut, but what shook the ground beneath me was not the pain. It was not enough to bring me to my knees, even as Ophir used my distraction to use his free hand to land a punch against the other side of my head. My head swam as I staggered to the side, and the furious roar of my mate echoed up through the layers of stone separating us.
It struck me deep in the chest, knocking me off-kilter until I had to scramble to get away from Ophir’s next attempt to grab me. Never had I felt such unending rage, such mind-altering anger that stripped away everything humane. For my mate to feel my pain, to know I was in danger, and to be trapped within Mab’s dungeons…
I pitied whoever let him out.
“I think we made him mad,” Malachi said with a chuckle.
I grabbed Mab’s goblet from her hand, hurling it at Malachi’s face and grimacing when I missed only slightly. It crashed against the wall, what remained of her precious wine dripping down the stone.
“I was enjoying that,” she pouted, tapping her nails against the wood of the table as I adjusted to the feel of Caldris’s rage within me.
“Imagine how angry he’ll be when he feels me tear you in two,” Ophir said, stepping toward me slowly. I tried to block it, but the heavy thump of his fist struck me in the stomach. My muscles protested immediately from the force of the blow.
The one that came after nearly took me out. His fist cracked against the underside of my jaw so hard my teeth clacked together, and my skull throbbed. My knees gave out beneath me, sending me crumpling to the floor.
A hand came down upon my back, pushing me to the floor to take what was coming. I gathered what remained of my strength, pushing through the nausea and the spinning room, preparing myself for the only thing I could do to save myself from that fate.
I spun on my knees, getting to my feet as Ophir lowered himself behind me. His weight shifted forward as I spun away from his grip, my body no longer supporting him. I punched the back of both his knees, forcing them to cave in on him so that he dropped down in front of me.
I lifted my hands, the iron chains between my shackles swinging freely. I wrapped my iron chains across the front of his throat, pulling them taut as I placed my hip against his spine and pushed him forward to hold him there as I pulled my hands away.
He sputtered, fighting for breath as his hands rose to those chains. When he couldn’t grasp them, couldn’t seem to get his fingers beneath where the chains dug into his flesh and broke through the skin, he threw his hands into the air and reached behind him to try to grab me instead. All he found were my forearms, his nails shredding the skin there.
Still, I held.
Malachi moved to step forward, the look on his face communicating that they were more than just friends or allies. Their appearance was similar enough that I suspected brothers as I held his gaze, knowing that if he interfered, I wouldn’t be able to do a thing about it.
Mab halted him with a raised hand. If I didn’t already hate her, it might have been a moment of respect. She’d condemned me to this, to this battle and this fate; she would at least let me see it through.
I suspected it was all a test to see what I was capable of. Not my magic, but me as a living being. If I had a line I would not cross; if I would not murder and cause harm to save myself.
She wanted to know if I saw myself as the hero of my story, but I didn’t.
I only saw myself as the villain of hers.
My face twisted as I fought back that beast rising inside of me, the part that came from my mate roaring out his rage in the dungeon. I pulled harder on the chains, my scream bouncing off the walls as I put all the strength I had into pulling on the chains that they’d used to try to contain me.
My arms burned with pain, echoing the fire that erupted up my throat with the hoarse sound. I pulled until I felt the life fade from his body, until the chain popped as if it had split in two. I looked down at the figure kneeling in front of me. Ophir’s head rolled to the side, bouncing off my arm before it fell to the floor beside his still kneeling body.
I didn’t stop to consider the amount of strength I’d possessed within my own body to make such a thing happen. I stared into the mess of flesh within his throat, at the muscles where they constricted and released, as if still trying to breathe. The chain dangling from my wrists was covered in blood and gore. It swung when I lifted my booted foot and kicked his body forward until it sprawled across the stone floor.
Malachi’s eye twitched, and he took a step toward me with his hand on the hilt of his sword. He stopped with a flinch, raising that hand to his heart and digging his fingers into his chest. Looking toward Mab, I watched her outstretched hand squeeze until Malachi took an obedient step back like the pet he was.
Mab turned her attention from Malachi to me, lowering her hand with a smile. That smile raised the hair on my arms, a warning that I’d appealed to all the wrong sides of her.
She tossed her head back, and the Queen of Air and Darkness laughed.
6
Caldris
Heat filled my hands, the iron burned the skin from my body as I gripped the bars and pulled. They didn’t budge, refusing to release me from the cage Mab and her twisted little minion had left me in. There was nothing I could do to reach my mate while her pain flooded the bond, her blood staining my soul.
I felt it drip down her face, felt her need to push it away in order to fight. I felt the lingering terror that she refused to even acknowledge to herself for fear of not defending herself against the threat that was coming for her.
The roar that tore itself from my throat felt more like a cave beast than a man, deep and calling to every wild part of me that existed beneath civility. I was not human, but that didn’t mean I particularly enjoyed the reminder that I was one moment away from becoming more beast than Fae. The loss of my mate would be too much for me to bear, forcing me to descend into the feral madness that came with the loss of the half of my soul that I’d waited centuries to hold in my arms.
“Estrella!” I roared.
The sound echoed through the empty dungeon. Even the shades who had occupied Estrella’s cell shuddered, retreating into the back corner to hide from my wrath. I pulled back from the iron bars, my lungs heaving with the force of my distress as I glared at them. I shifted to the back of my cell, turning my body slightly to the side and vaulting myself forward. I ran with all the speed I could possess in such a limited space, hurling my body at the bars.
They groaned beneath the force of it, the reinforced iron tempted to give way to my strength, but still they held. They kept me caged as they were designed to do, refusing to let me make my way to freedom. I could sense her as clear as day, feel her just a few floors directly above the dungeon. Mab hadn’t chosen that location accidentally, placing Estrella in a place where she would be able to hear my struggles.