Chapter 23

Chapter

Twenty-Three

EINAR

H arper's eyes drifted shut. Blood stopped pumping from her ruined neck. Her body was cold. She was gone. She was fucking gone.

"No!" I cried, my throat aching. I gathered Harper to me, burying my face in her hair. "Gods, no."

The warehouse was still, everyone silent around me. Tears stung my eyes, and pain lodged in my chest. Was this what a broken heart felt like? Wherever Harper was going, I wanted to go too. I'd just found her, and now she'd been ripped away from me.

No. Fuck no. I wouldn't allow it.

I lifted my head. Blinking away tears, I spotted Adina in the crowd.

"Make a potion," I ordered. "You have to save her."

Adina moved forward, her expression stricken. "I know of no such potion, Prince Einar. Harper was bitten by a werewolf. Human females so rarely make the turn. And…Harper is already gone. If there's a potion to bring her back, I've never heard of it."

The ache in my chest intensified. Once again, helplessness gripped me. "What am I going to do?" I asked, unsure if I asked Adina or the crowd in general. Or maybe I asked myself. Not the gods, surely. They'd never answered my pleas before.

No, they'd cursed me. Punished me. Maybe that's what this was. I'd evaded their judgment once, escaping lycan society with my life after I took someone else's. Using my position and my brother's money, I'd fled across the country and built a prison I could tolerate.

And now the gods had caught up to me. They'd given me the perfect woman and then forced me to watch her die.

"Fuck off!" I snarled. Someone in the crowd gasped. They probably thought I was losing my mind for good. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered anymore.

"Sir."

I turned my head. Arlo knelt beside me, his human form bruised and slightly gaunt. That he bore any physical injuries at all meant Armand had hurt him badly. My fault. This was all my fault.

"I think I know a way to save her," Arlo said.

It took a second for his words to sink in. When they did, I latched onto them like a drowning man glimpsing the edge of the shore. "Tell me."

"The book."

My heart skipped a beat. He meant the Book of Crubeus. It would show me whatever knowledge my heart most desired.

Arlo nodded, clearly seeing the understanding in my eyes. "If you want this badly enough—if it's possible to bring her back—the book should show you a way."

My heart pumped faster. "Get it for me. Please." Of anyone alive, he was the most qualified to fetch it.

Arlo reached into the air and grasped the book. Murmurs ran through the crowd, everyone likely seeing the book in a way that most appealed to them.

"You've never looked for this knowledge before," Arlo said, placing the book on the dusty concrete. "You should prepare for a battle."

I settled Harper gently on the ground, my heart catching at the sight of her grayish skin and torn neck. But she was still beautiful. Her strawberry blond hair spread around her, and her thick lashes lay like fans on her cheeks.

Whispers lifted from the book. Around me, the crowd moved forward, drawn to it.

"Stand back," Arlo said, his features sharpening. "This book is a predator, and you're all prey. It takes a great deal of training to resist its power."

A few people grumbled, but the crowd eased back.

I knelt and opened the book. Immediately, light blasted my vision, and words blazed on the page. Spells and incantations. Potions and curses. The lines shifted and rewrote themselves, offering knowledge. But it wasn't the kind I sought.

Harper. I want to save Harper.

The pages flipped, buffeted by an invisible wind. The warehouse fell away. The writing on the page gleamed more brightly. And then images replaced the words. I braced to see Harper.

Instead, I saw myself. Memories flickered before my eyes—each one showing me at various points in my life. Regrets and mistakes filled my vision.

Me as a child, glaring from the sidelines as my father taught Cyrus to hunt.

Me as a teenager, berating a weeping servant because she put too much starch in my shirts.

Me courting a lycan nobleman's daughter, only to break things off when I grew bored. The images flashed more quickly, the woman replaced with another. And another.

The vision changed, and I stood before Cyrus, anger boiling inside me. " Yes, my lord," I said, sweeping a mocking bow before slamming from his office. After I left, my brother stared at the door, sorrow in his eyes. He sat back in his chair and scrubbed a hand over his face. A rough sob leaked around his palm, and his shoulders slumped. The crown weighed on him. I'd never known. I hadn't been there to help him bear the burden. I'd been too consumed with myself—too prideful and arrogant to accept the love he offered.

"Focus," Arlo said from somewhere. "You need to focus on Harper."

The pages flipped, and Harper's life appeared. Her smile flashed as she tore through a newsroom, running past cubicles to reach her father's office. Her girlish pigtails bounced. Reporters leaned in their chairs, fond expressions on their faces as she passed.

The vision changed, and she smiled as she watched her mother interview a chef. Her mother caught Harper's eye and winked.

Another change, and now Harper bent over a spiral notebook, her tongue between her teeth as she scribbled down a story. The clock on the wall behind her showed the time as ten minutes past midnight.

The vision changed again. Harper sat hollow-eyed at her mother's bedside while a nurse moved around the room. Margaret stared straight at Harper and murmured, "Who are you?"

Who are you? The question rippled around me, the words growing louder. Lines of text bled down the book's pages, obscuring the vision of Harper and her mother.

Who are you?

Magic sparked against my skin, stinging as it struck.

I clenched my jaw. The book's pages flipped, and now each page displayed the same three words.

Who are you?

The words glowed. Whispers whipped around me, repeating the question over and over. The magic burned. Its embers sank into my skin. Burrowed into my veins. Burning. The old, familiar fire flared to life.

Who are you?

My beast thrashed inside me. For so long, I'd asked the book to restore me. To do what the gods would not and help me find a way to repair the rent in my soul.

Who are you?

Gritting my teeth, I answered with my gift. "Einar Rothkilde!" But that was my name. Nothing more. Who was I, really? Prince. Lycan. Criminal. Unworthy of forgiveness. I was all of those things.

Harper's face floated before me, her blue eyes shining with love.

Something wet touched my cheeks. I bent my head and let the tears fall faster. "Forgive me."

Words blazed from the page, knowledge hovering underneath them. But I couldn't reach it.

I extended my hand, straining toward the priceless knowledge. A red hand tipped with black claws burst through the center of the page and reached for me. It gripped my palm and tugged hard, dragging me forward. The stench of brimstone invaded my lungs.

Slowly, a potion wrote itself down the page. The words were foreign, but I understood them. Because they were for me. It was the potion to bring Harper back to life.

But the book demanded a price.

Who are you?

The book laughed, and its answer echoed through my head. Einar Rothkilde, you are mine.

Light spread. The hand gripping mine pulled me forward.

Arlo stepped into view, his body haloed by the light. Fully demonic, he hefted a long, black broadsword and bared his fangs. "I am King Crubeus's son and heir," he snarled. "And I command you to release Einar Rothkilde." He swung the sword, severing the clawed hand at the wrist.

I fell backward—and landed on my ass on the warehouse floor. The Book of Crubeus slammed shut, its light winking out.

Arlo stood a few feet away, his chest rising and falling as he caught his breath. The black sword was gone. There was no sign of the clawed hand.

Around us, people stared at Arlo with shocked expressions.

"You saved my life," I told him.

"You saved mine first," he said.

A lump formed in my throat. "I didn't."

One corner of his mouth lifted. "You don't think giving me a place to live and offering me friendship saved me? I assure you, it did." He came to me and put out a hand. When I grabbed it, he tugged me to my feet. "The human world didn't accept me fifty years ago," he said softly. "The demon plane doesn't accept me now. But you do. You always have."

I swallowed the impulse to argue, and I put a hand on his shoulder. "Thank you, old friend. But you didn't have to reveal yourself." Arlo could change his glamour, but his cover was blown. Now everyone knew my steward was the missing King of the Legerdemain.

"I was happy to do it," Arlo said. His shoulder lifted under my palm as he sighed. "I can't hide forever. And…a Scorab was here. It's a long story, but he recognized me."

Worry swirled through me. Arlo's father had been dead for half a century. But the laws of the Legerdemain were clear. Arlo was heir to the throne. While he lived, no one else could rule. His people didn't want him for their king, but they couldn't pick a new one until he was dead. The Legerdemain were unlikely to try killing him outright. But they might send someone from a different demon clan to rid themselves of a king they were too bigoted and narrow-minded to accept.

I looked at the book. "It listened to you." I turned back to Arlo. "That was a ballsy move, stepping into my vision." It went against all the advice Arlo had given me over the years. Demons didn't share their plane with humans, and their world was steeped in magic. Like all demonic artifacts, the book's magic was potent and unpredictable. Arlo had taught me how to resist it over the years. The key was to read in short bursts, like ingesting small sips of poison to build up a tolerance.

A faint smile touched Arlo's lips. "To be honest, I wasn't sure that was going to work. My father created the book. He was the only one capable of defying it. I took a risk that it would listen to me as his heir." He looked at Harper on the ground. "She taught me that some risks are worth taking, no matter how shitty the odds."

I went to Harper and knelt beside her. Then I looked around and caught Adina's eye. "I have the potion in my head. If I tell you the ingredients, can you make it?"

She nodded, and her voice was breathless as she said, "I can try. But I'll need my cauldron."

I looked at Arlo.

He nodded. "I'll get it. And anything else we need."

Adina crossed to me and knelt on Harper's other side. She smoothed a tendril of strawberry blond hair off Harper's forehead. Then she lifted her gaze to mine.

"Tell me the potion, Your Highness. I'll help you bring her back."