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59. Veyka

The castle was certainly warded to protect from intruders, but that had not stopped me from moving through the void and landing on the battlements. I hoped that reasoning would hold within the castle itself. I had not yet encountered any ward or room that could hold me. Only Arran.

He could pull me back if he tried hard enough—had done, and saved my life, when I'd first fallen through the realms uncontrollably after our Joining.

But I doubted he could do it now. I had not even explained the tether of my power to our mating bond.

Arran had loved me at our Joining. I'd loved him, even if I'd been unable to admit it.

Now…

I did not want to test it.

After what happened… No. I would not allow myself to regret it.

I had been unable to stop myself. Together in that bed, even if he'd asked me to stop, I would not have. Could not have. The mating bond demanded. And I did not try to argue.

But afterward I felt… hollow.

Anytime our bodies came together, it was wild and eviscerating and earth-shaking. It had been all of that.

But it had also been empty.

A mockery of what should have been between us, of the way we had consummated our bond in the faerie pools. Even in those earliest days in Baylaur, the anger and hate between us… that had felt like more. Something so solid I could almost wrap my hands around and hold it.

But this ephemeral echo of love… it was going to tear me apart.

So, naturally, I needed to tear something else apart.

I pulled us from the void and into a darkness that felt oppressive, rather than freeing.

Arran immediately released my hand, drawing the battle axe from his belt. I could not blame him; the black stones around us reeked of blood and decay. But I still wondered if the Arran before the Battle of Avalon would have kept hold.

We stood just inside a thick wooden door studded with metal reinforcements. One torch was pinned to the wall beside the door, casting the ground in front of us in flickering light. My stomach tightened at the sight. These might have once been the same black stones that built the rest of the Castle Chariot, but they were so crusted with dirt and gore that they were unrecognizable.

"I aimed for where the dungeons ought to be," I said, nearly choking on the scent of the place. Clearly, I'd found them.

Arran moved on silent feet toward the corner where the wall turned and the light ran out. "Aimed?"

I did not know how else to describe it. Moving through the void was not exact. At least, not for me. Not yet—a voice whispered in my mind. I ignored it.

We moved in silent tandem around the corner, finding a row of empty cells. Empty, because whoever had been held here was dead. A rotting corpse huddled in one corner, covered in its own refuse. In another, there was nothing left but bones. Scattered bones. As if the body been ripped apart before being left to bleed out.

Impressive, in terms of torture techniques.

Concerning, for a king and queen in need of an ally.

Another door, a set of stairs downward. Not a single guard to be seen.

Palomides must consider this place secure enough without them, at least inside the dungeons themselves. Later, we'd see how many guards waited beyond the door where Arran and I had first arrived.

We were halfway down the stairs when the scent hit me.

No.It couldn't be, not here. They can't—we are too late—

"Arran, take one of my rapiers." I kept my voice low. Did they hear? There was still so much we did not know. I shoved the blade into Arran's hand. "You cannot bleed with the scabbard, but they can still injure you—"

"The scabbard?"

Arran's eyes blew wide as the scent accosted him as well. Decay and death, but worse. The smell of darkness. Not the darkness within me, or even within Arran. This was a darkness that took and took until there was nothing left; a darkness from which there was no return.

What is that?

My soul sang in response to his voice inside of me, stroking me through the bond despite the lurking danger.

Answering him was as easy as breathing. You cannot bleed while you wear the scabbard. It protects you. And then, the succubus can kill without drawing blood.

Understanding flashed through the bond, companion to confusion and questions. But I did not have time to answer them. Not now.

I grabbed Arran's arm, letting the warmth of him run through me even as the cold, calm of killing overtook my senses. "I love you."

Maybe it was unfair, to drop those words on him in a moment like this when he could not hope to process them. But I knew what awaited us but a few steps ahead, and I would not go to my death or let him to go to his without the truth between us. No matter what had happened, who Arran was, I loved him.

For a thousand years and a thousand more.

The scent was overwhelming. I could hardly breathe. But killing was natural to me, it was my sustenance. When nothing else in my life made sense, the feel of blood and blade was clear.

I would stand between my mate and death. I would not put him in danger again.

I charged down the stairs, rapier in one hand and dagger in the other.

There were no torches, no light at all. Maybe the succubus did not need it to hunt. My eyes sharpened, pupils widening to let in every bit of life-saving light. But my blade was already swinging outward in a defensive sweep. Arran was behind me. Not Arran—his beast. He'd shifted, and the brush of his thick fur against my midsection as he pushed past bolstered me. We'd face this together. We would survive.

Arran snarled, muscles tensing to leap.

But no attack came.

My hands dropped to my sides, weapons with them, as my eyes fully adjusted and realization took over.

I felt Arran shift beside me, the soft fur replaced by leather and wool.

"Ancestors save us," he breathed.

If I had any faith left in the Ancestors, I might have said the same.

They were behind bars. Caged, like animals.

But so much worse.

Arran gave me a look—do not do anything stupid—before disappearing briefly back up the stairs. He reappeared a minute later with a torch.

I expected to see the face of the hardened battle commander, taking stock of his enemy, studying them for weaknesses. I was wrong.

I should have been flattered. He did not bother to hide his horror from me.

Instead, I felt deflated.

He had believed me, but he hadn't trusted my account. He had not fully understood until this moment, when faced with the reality of it. Another part of my heart fractured at that—a part that could not be healed by any amount of fucking.

The cells stretched beyond the reach of the torchlight in both directions. They did not seem to be purpose-made for the succubus, but the thick metal bars contained them just the same. And the cells were packed. I counted ten in the one directly in front of us.

"Mostly humans," Arran said, stepping closer despite the smell. The noxious black bile of the succubus coated the ground, the bars, the bodies. And yet, some of them were not actively spewing the stuff anymore.

Their souls.

The black bile was their souls, being ejected forcibly from their bodies, until nothing remained but a shell for the succubus to exploit.

My own soul recoiled at the thought, the golden thread of Arran and I's mating bond tightening in my chest, protecting itself.

I had a soul worth protecting. And a kingdom as well.

I had changed. My first instinct was to kill them all—and we would. There was no way I would leave this kind of threat waiting in the dungeons for Palomides to unleash on us or on unsuspecting innocents. But this was also an opportunity.

"I knew that Palomides was hiding something. The duel is a distraction, to keep us from finding this. Or maybe to spring them upon us somehow." The possibilities I'd been sorting through it my mind had narrowed, but had yet to fully solidify.

"A distraction," Arran repeated quietly. "Just like everything you did in the throne room.

Despite what stood in front of us, my gaze was drawn to him. I dipped my chin.

He did not move, and it was hard to read his expression in the faint light. But his voice was raw. "You do not have to hide from me."

An offer. To share myself—my plans, my worries. To let him see me, again.

I did not know if I could do it.

I stepped closer to the cells, refusing to flinch away from the desiccated black hand that reached out for me, fingers rubbed away to bony points. Scratch marks covered the floor. The succubus had sharpened its nails.

"They do not need the light to know we are here," I said.

Arran moved to stand beside me. I wanted to lean into him. But he did not reach for me.

He had done me the courtesy of ignoring my declaration of love. The least I could do was keep my hands to myself.

"And they have no interest in ripping each other apart. Only us," Arran said, raising the torch above his head. The succubus strained toward us, pressing up against the bars. They could have easily taken a bite of each other, but their focus was singular.

Arran took a few steps down the corridor, cold, fetid air taking his place. "Are they sentient?"

I wished I could say no. But the more I looked at them, the more I sorted through my memories…

"A pack of them, dozens, attacked us in the jungle above the faerie caves. It could not have been an accident, not as isolated as we were," I said. Arran did not remember, but I did. "I've never heard one speak, if that is what you're asking."

I felt Arran's grumble of annoyance. A few steps further down the corridor, while I held my place. But the succubus were wholly focused. Even the ones in the cells further down, nearest to Arran, surged all together in one direction.

Mine.

"They want you," Arran breathed.

I swallowed past something in my throat that felt a lot like fear. "So it would seem."

He was back at my side. "Why?"

I did not dare press my eyes closed, not even with the succubus behind thick metal bars. I'd known this moment would come. Arran was much too smart not to work it out. But I hadn't expected it here, now, when I my pussy still ached from the feeling of his cock inside of me and with my words of love hanging heavy in the air around us.

"I am the reason they came to Annwyn again, after all these millennia. My void power opened the pathways that had been closed."

Silence.

The horrible, unearthly sounds of the succubus continued. The gurgling of black bile, the scraping of bones and hiss of death. But I did not hear any of it—not even the pounding of my own heart in my chest. I waited for Arran to speak.

Instead, he took my hand.

I heard my heart now. It was about to explode.

"Wouldn't killing you close those rifts?" he said quietly.

"Or keep them open forever," I whispered.

Arran's hand tightened. "They cannot have you." You are mine.

Fae or beast, male or mate, I felt those words.

I inhaled sharply, regretted it instantly, and was pulled back to the cruel reality around us. "If they are human, he must have brought them here through a rift. There are the official ones, but we discovered months ago that there are others, secret or forgotten. There must be one nearby. Human minds are easier for the succubus to overtake. He may very well have brought them here as human men, and then bided his time. Eventually, without any amorite, the succubus invaded their bodies and turned them into this." I shook my head at all that implied. "Palomides knows what is at stake, and yet still he plays games."

Arran held my gaze for several more seconds. His eyes blazed with black fire that I would gladly have let burn me to nothing.

Then his jaw ticked, his dark brows drew together, and he forced his eyes back to the cells.

"Yes. But to a purpose. He is keeping them here…" Arran paused as if weighing his words. "He knows the amorite protects him and his guards. He is building his own army."

I shivered, unable to repress the chill that slithered down my spine. The betrayals would never cease. First Gawayn, who believed he knew what was best for Annwyn. Roksana, thinking I would be the easier Pendragon sibling to control. My mother and Gorlois, whose plot had been decades in the making so that they might command the kingdom of Annwyn for themselves. And now, another ambitious lord who sought to overthrow my throne.

It should not have been possible.

"How do you know?" I hated how melancholy my voice sounded in that dungeon of death, where strength was required above all else.

"Because it is what I would do, if I wanted what he wants." Arran dragged a hand up through his hair. "Power."

Arran had never wanted power. It had been seeded in him from birth. Thrust upon him by Arthur's death.

I had longed for it. The power to defend myself. To free myself. I claimed those things eventually, and they had nothing to do with magic. The power that flowed through my veins now, ignited by the male at my side, was nothing without the ability to claim it. To master it.

Arran had taught me that.

In the time we'd been apart, when I'd been forced to stand on my own, I had started to learn what that power could truly do.

Before I had been terrified of my power.

But now I had bigger things to fear. And the power to protect those I loved.

Arran was not holding my hand any longer. His fingers stroked over the head of his battle axe, tucked back into his belt. "War is coming."

"I will not let it get to that," I said fiercely.

My fault.

I was the reason the succubus had returned to Annwyn. I had to find a way to defeat them, to push them back before their death and darkness spilled over from the human realm. I would not let it come to all-out war. I couldn't.

I could not send my subjects to die knowing that it was my fault.

That my happiness—my mating bond with Arran—was the cause.

I missed the cold, scowling mask of the Brutal Prince. The pity in his eyes was so much worse. How many legions had Arran led into battle? Even in victory, there had surely been losses on the field.. Once, I would have scoffed at the notion of guilt. Arran was a tool made for death and destruction. I understood because I was his counterpart.

But it was one thing to stab and kill and maim. It was something else entirely to contemplate sending the ones I loved into danger on my behalf.

Stab. Kill. Maim.

Maybe that would dull the edge of my agonizing guilt.

I drew my weapons once more.

Arran's eyes flicked up at the movement, tracking it. I blinked, and his battle axe was in his hand.

"Can you get us into those cells?" he said, tucking the torch into a notch high above the reach of the succubus in their cells.

"Of course." I flashed a wicked smile sharp as the blades in my hands. "It would be my pleasure."

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