1. An Aching Heart

CHAPTER 1

An Aching Heart

S taring at his broken wife through what he hoped were dispassionate eyes, Ryker attempted to quell the racing of his aching, broken heart. For three weeks, the fae captain had existed in a state of anger and disbelief, unwilling and unable to accept the truth of what had occurred on his wedding night.

His beautiful, intelligent, intriguing vampire had lied to him.

She'd played him for a gods-damned fucking fool.

Ryker knew that was true. He understood it in the same way that someone understood that the sky was blue, flowers bloomed in the spring, and the sun rose in the east every morning.

That understanding did nothing to dispel the absolute agony coursing through him like a raging river during a thunderstorm. It did not heal his brokenness.

Every breath was like inhaling shards of shattered glass. Every pulse of his pulverized heart was like throwing salt in an open wound. Every single second was worse than the last.

Broken.

They were so fucking broken.

Once, they'd been whole. Better than that, they'd been one . But Brynleigh had taken what they'd carefully formed during the Choosing and shattered it.

Ryker didn't know how to fix this. He didn't even know if it could be done. When he surveyed the shattered pieces of his heart, which had been a daily endeavor since their wedding night, all he felt was soul-deep pain and burning anger.

He had no idea how to put his heart back together. Was it even possible to pick up the remnants of his life after the one person he'd mistakenly trusted obliterated it?

Right now, that seemed impossible.

Brynleigh's black eyes were wide, and she was staring at him as though he were a ghost. Her face, pale on a good day, was as white as a fresh snowfall. Her hands trembled against the manacles binding her to the chair, and her chapped lips opened and closed repeatedly.

She rasped, her voice rough and scratchy like she'd been screaming for hours, "You… you're dead."

By the Obsidian Sands, Ryker wished that were the case. Death would have been easier than this.

Agony was a spear lancing through him, stealing his breath, as he truly looked upon the woman he'd married for the first time since entering this gods-forsaken place.

A galaxy of black and blue bruises mottled every exposed inch of Brynleigh's skin. Dried blood crusted her face and arms. One of her eyes was nearly swollen shut. Her hair was matted and greasy, and the once-blonde ends were rusty. Her black, ill-fitting jumpsuit was covered in dirt and other substances.

She looked… bad.

Ryker had been around enough prisoners to know this was normal, but to see the woman he loved like this?—

No .

The prisoner before him wasn't the woman he'd fallen in love with. This wasn't the woman he'd Chosen. That woman, the one he'd spoken with for hours on end and broken rules for, was a different person. One who, apparently, had never existed.

Ryker gritted his teeth. Brynleigh had lied to him, yet no matter how many times he told himself she'd played him, he still couldn't believe this nightmare was real.

How had everything turned out so horribly?

"No, I'm not dead." His voice was a low growl as he answered her previous question. It seemed to echo in the windowless cell.

Ryker had to get a grip. He was a soldier, for the gods' sake. Emotions did not belong in a place like this.

Forcing a mask of composure on his face, he hardened his eyes and steadied his heart. Even though his hands twitched at his sides with the need to rip off the silver shackles, gather Brynleigh in his arms, and take her away, he was a statue.

If Ryker had known Victor Orpheus had been put in charge of the fucking interrogation, he would have stopped it earlier. The sadistic fae couldn't be trusted with anyone, let alone Ryker's… his… Brynleigh.

But Ryker hadn't known. He hadn't wanted to know.

Grief had been an ocean, and he'd been drowning in it for three weeks.

He'd barely breathed, barely slept, barely thought. All he'd done was work, work, work.

Ryker had allowed his soldierly duties to bury him. Better that than to feel his emotions. The anger. The frustration. The grief. They had all battered against him like endless waves until he'd ignored them entirely.

He hadn't even seen his wife until now. He hadn't asked about her, which, in hindsight, was a grave mistake.

Fuck, he hadn't even known she was being held in The Pit.

Like a gods-damned idiot, Ryker had assumed Brynleigh would be incarcerated in either Silver or Black Prison. If that had been the case, he would've come and dealt with her once his anger cooled off. If it had cooled off.

But The Pit?

Gods-damned awful, terrible, nightmarish things happened here. This place was reserved for the worst of the worst.

And his wife was here.

A prisoner who, if the bruises and prohiberis manacles were any indication, was being tortured daily.

His heart twisted into a painful knot as he studied his wife .

His lying, deceitful wife.

Conflicted was too simple of a word to describe how he felt about the hell where he currently resided.

Ryker hadn't known a heart could hurt like this. He hadn't known that in the blink of an eye, love could evolve into a monster hell-bent on destroying him from within.

Brynleigh inhaled sharply, the sound drawing Ryker from his thoughts. She blinked, a trail of crimson running down her leg from where a silver knife was lodged in her thigh.

"H-h-how?"

How indeed.

Stepping back, he forced that steel mask he'd donned earlier to remain in place. He had replayed those moments with horrifying clarity a hundred times since that fateful night.

Still, his next words tasted like ash as he forced them out of his dry mouth. "I wasn't asleep."

Time and again, he'd analyzed that night, but it still felt like the worst kind of nightmare.

The dipping of the mattress drew Ryker out of his slumber. The fae captain cracked open an eye, watching his beautiful vampire strode towards the window with predatory, silent grace. Gods above, she was stunning. His cock hardened as he studied her. He'd had her twice before they fell asleep a few hours ago, but he still wanted her. He suspected he'd always want her.

She was his.

Brynleigh drew the curtain shut and turned towards the bed. Instead of coming back, she froze. Her back straightened, and she inhaled sharply.

The air in the room shifted; a too-quiet calm before a storm.

Ryker opened both eyes and followed Brynleigh's gaze. A frown tugged at his lips. A cat was in the room. Strange. He blinked, wondering if he was dreaming, but the feline was still there when he looked again .

His magic swirled in his veins. A warning. A harbinger. A premonition of what was to come.

It was too little, too late.

Before Ryker could act, a flash of white light erupted from the cat-that-wasn't-a-cat.

In a heartbeat, Ryker's world turned upside down once again.

This was the moment he couldn't stop thinking about, the one that had haunted his nightmares, the one that had him questioning every single thing Brynleigh had ever told him.

A redheaded man stood a few feet away from Brynleigh, and she… wasn't screaming. Why the fuck wasn't she screaming?

Ryker's heart thundered like a bear banging against the bars of its cage. He recognized the newcomer from the Masked Ball as the man who'd danced with Brynleigh.

Danger, danger, danger .

A roaring filled his ears.

Shocked, he listened as Brynleigh conversed with the shifter. As if she wasn't surprised by his arrival.

As if she had… expected him.

Icy horror coursed through Ryker's veins, freezing him in place and forcing him to watch as his new wife of less than twenty-four hours betrayed him. The one person he thought he could trust, the one person to whom he'd given his heart, took it and ripped it to shreds.

He couldn't move, couldn't think, couldn't do anything at all except listen.

"Love makes us do stupid things," the shifter said. "I should know."

What did that mean?

Brynleigh reached out a hand towards the shifter as if in protest. "What? Don't?—"

"I'm sorry, B." The man's voice hardened, the promise of violence clear in his voice.

Danger, danger, danger .

The fae captain gave up pretending to be asleep and threw off the blanket.

He was too late.

Brynleigh shouted, " No?—"

A flash of silver filled the space, and then something popped.

Brynleigh screamed, the high-pitched sound forever ingraining itself in Ryker's memory. She fell to the ground with a loud thud, her limp body covered in blood. The life-giving substance streamed endlessly from her chest. He'd always remember that, too.

How could he forget the worst moments of his life?

The next few minutes were a blur.

Ryker formed ice daggers, one in each hand. He leaped out of bed, and instincts took over his movements.

The shifter came at him, his murderous intent clear.

Ryker didn't even remember fighting the other man. All he knew, all he cared about, was that he won.

The shifter was still alive when Ryker was done with him, but he would probably wish for death soon enough.

After Ryker knocked the shifter out and tied him up, he called for backup. He managed to get the request out without his voice shaking, which was a gods-damned miracle.

And then he went to Brynleigh's side.

Crimson rivers flowed from her chest, staining everything in sight. There was so much fucking blood.

Ryker didn't stop to think about what he was doing as he fell to his knees. He didn't think about her betrayal because if he did, he might break.

His military training had him reaching inside her chest and pulling out the prohiberis bullet. He didn't think the magic-blocking metal could kill a vampire, but he didn't want to find out.

Even now, after everything, she was still… his.

Ryker chucked the bloody bullet across the room. It clinked, colliding with the wall. He didn't bother to see where it landed.

He gathered Brynleigh in his arms, her blood coating them both as the wound in her stomach slowly stitched itself together.

They had one, maybe two minutes before the others arrived.

Pressure built behind Ryker's eyes, and he finally allowed the full weight of what happened to hit him. The shifter came to kill him, and Brynleigh knew.

She knew .

He stared at his vampire through a watery curtain, brushing back her hair with a trembling finger. "How could you do this to us?"

He thought he knew her. He thought he loved her. He thought she was his.

Wrong. He'd been fucking wrong.

There was no response. She just lay in his arms, looking far too broken for someone who had caused him so much pain.

With every beat of Ryker's heart, an ache expanded in his chest. It started small but yawned until it was the size of a canyon.

A tear fell on Brynleigh's cheek, and Ryker whispered, "How could you break us?"

Thick, unnatural silence covered them.

She didn't answer him, and he didn't ask again. He just… held her close.

One last time. One last hug. And then, he would let her go. He had to. She'd betrayed him. He'd already deduced that much from her earlier conversation.

How much worse could things get? Her deception was already a bitter river flowing through his veins.

A minute passed, but it could have been a lifetime. The door swung open. Reinforcements were here.

A buzzing filled Ryker's mind. He was present, but not. When arms reached down to pull Brynleigh out of Ryker's embrace, he didn't fight them. He didn't even say goodbye.

Ryker watched as the Chancellor's military police took his vampire and the murderous shifter into custody. He didn't attempt to stop them as they assessed the scene, took pictures, and spoke among themselves.

He pulled on a pair of sweatpants, answered their questions—there were so many fucking questions—and promised to come down to the station later.

Eventually, the reinforcements left.

The door closed behind the last officer, and Ryker was alone. Yesterday had been the happiest day of his life, and now…

Crimson covered everything in sight. The floor. The bed. His hands.

Ryker lifted his fingers, staring at them until red was the only thing he could see.

Then he felt it.

Anguish wormed its way into the depth of his being. At first, it was just a crack, distant and barely there.

Then, he drew in a pained breath.

The crack exploded. Like ice breaking in the middle of a frozen lake, it rippled, fissured, and shattered.

He shattered.

Devastating, world-ending, soul-crushing heartbreak consumed him.

It was like he was made of sand, and his heartbreak was the water crashing into him again and again and again. The waves kept going until he was completely, utterly destroyed.

Falling to his knees on the bloody carpet, Ryker lifted his head to the heavens and roared .

"Oh," Brynleigh breathed, her voice pulling Ryker back to the present. "Then, you… saw." She swallowed, and her black eyes dimmed. "You heard?"

A lump formed in his throat, and the pain in her eyes caused his heart to twist. That was a gods-damned emotion that he had no business feeling.

Not here. Not now. Not with her .

Red tinged his vision, and his nostrils flared. Every beat of his heart sang the same horrible song.

Betrayed, betrayed, betrayed .

His heartbeat was a booming drum. Even his body refused to let him forget that he'd made a monumentally bad Choice.

Part of Ryker knew that Brynleigh belonged in The Pit. Although this place was horrible, she'd been planning on killing him.

Not only that, but ties had been uncovered linking Jelisette de la Point, Brynleigh's Maker, to the Black Night. The rebel group was responsible for the bombing at the Masked Ball, as well as several other incidents that had taken place over the decades.

Rules and laws existed for a reason. Prisons were designed to keep bad people inside, and all signs from the past three weeks pointed to the fact that Ryker's wife was not a good person.

But the other part of Ryker—the part that fucking loved Brynleigh—was dying at the sight of her in this place of death. That part was overriding his anger, screaming for him to take action and save her.

He thought he understood pain, but nothing could have prepared him for this.

By the Obsidian Sands, he had heard Brynleigh's confession. He had listened as she admitted to everything, from being a fucking vigilante to plotting to kill him.

Ryker should despise her. He should want her dead and out of his life for good. He should be happy she was so broken.

But he wasn't happy.

Not. At. All.

Gods damn it all, but he didn't even hate her. He was angry with her—so fucking angry that his magic was a barely contained storm in his veins—but hate? He didn't even know if he could, now that he'd given her his heart.

And didn't that just make him the biggest fucking fool of them all?

"Yes, I did," Ryker said calmly, falling back on years of military training.

He would not let her see the turmoil that existed beneath his skin, nor would he let her know the depth of his deep-seated pain or the currents of anger coursing through him.

Brynleigh's black eyes shuttered, and her shoulders slumped. Her head hung low, and matted hair curtained her face. As if she was sorry. As if she wasn't the one who had wanted to kill him.

Fuck, that anger was coming back.

He forced himself to breathe. He was so busy not screaming that he barely heard her next words.

"I understand," she said softly, her voice as broken as his heart. "I couldn't… After our wedding… I changed my…"

She drew in a shuddering breath but still didn't meet his eyes.

He didn't say anything. He couldn't.

After a few minutes, she continued, her words even softer. "In the end, I wasn't going to… "

Her voice trailed off, and she mumbled something too low for him to hear.

"What?" The word slipped out of him, harsh and booming.

Brynleigh jumped, her arms pulled against the restraints, and then a half-sob, half-sigh left her lips.

"Forget about it," she whispered. "It doesn't matter."

He stared at her, his heart racing as he tried to process her words.

Not matter? How could she say that?

Nothing mattered more than this. She had wanted to kill him, for the gods' sake.

Never, in all his years, had he been this hurt. This angry. This fucking destroyed.

By Brynleigh's own admission, she had spent years crafting a meticulous plan designed to end Ryker's life. She was a killer.

Not in the way that all vampires had blackness in their hearts. That would have been one thing.

But no.

She truly was a bringer of death. She'd sought to bring about his death.

And yet…

I wasn't going to…

Her words echoed in Ryker's head, and despite everything he knew, despite everything he'd learned, he couldn't stop thinking about them.

It took everything he had not to scream his frustrations to the heavens.

Over the past three hellish weeks, Ryker had steadily ignored thoughts about his treacherous wife and instead conducted a deep dive into her Maker. The things he'd discovered had painted a clear picture of exactly who the vampire was, and it wasn't pretty.

Ryker hadn't even had time to train his sister River—not that he wanted to face his family right now—but he was keeping up with the updates Gabriel, another water fae in the army, was sending him. Thank the gods, Gabriel had been willing to help train River. Ryker didn't want his sister to suffer because his personal life was imploding.

Earlier, Ryker had been stepping out of the shower, preparing to review the tapes of the shifter's interrogation for the tenth time that day, when his phone vibrated.

Nikhail

Get to The Pit, Ryker. She's going to talk.

A stone had lodged itself in the captain's stomach as he read his best friend's message. His fingers had curled around the phone, and the metal cracked before he realized how tightly he was holding it.

Ryker hadn't had time to consider why Brynleigh was in The Pit and not in a less dangerous prison. He threw on some clothes and raced over to the dungeon, breaking a dozen speeding laws to get there as quickly as possible.

He arrived just in time to hear his wife confess everything. He thought she'd admit her involvement with the rebels—after all, learning about her involvement with the Black Night was the reason she'd been subjected to this level of interrogation in the first place—but the words she'd spoken had been so much worse.

Brynleigh had wanted to kill him.

Her plan had been simple and terrifyingly dark. She'd make Ryker fall in love with her, and then she'd kill him on their wedding night.

Every word had curdled his stomach until he felt like he'd ingested a gallon of spoiled milk. He wanted to believe she was lying, but in his gut, he knew she was telling the truth. There were too many similarities between her story and the one Zanri Olyt, the shifter who'd attacked Ryker, had shared.

And that meant that Ryker's wife truly had plotted against him in the worst possible ways.

Instead of stopping her, he had served her his unguarded heart on a silver platter.

A smarter fae would have heard her confession and walked away, content to let her die for her crimes. Up until a few months ago, Ryker would have said he was a smart fae.

It turned out that he was the biggest gods-damned idiot of them all.

I wasn't going to…

Those four words echoed in his mind on a never-ending track.

He should leave. He should kill her for what she did. He should yell. He should scream. He should punch the walls. He should turn around and never, ever come back.

Everything he had left—his family and his job—pulled at him to go out those doors without a second glance. A smarter fae would've done just that.

But he couldn't get his mind off those words. He couldn't ignore them and let his anger win.

If there was even the slightest chance that Ryker hadn't been wrong, that he hadn't married a cold-blooded, merciless killer, that the woman he loved somehow had existed, then he couldn't leave.

Seeing her here, broken and bleeding, hurt more than her betrayal. More than her deceit. More than watching her bleed out on the carpet in their hotel room. More than the anger burning a hole in his chest.

He couldn't turn and walk away, abandoning her to die.

A risky, stupid plan formed in Ryker's mind. It was foolish, could potentially cost him the job he loved, and was likely something he'd regret in the future, but it was the path he needed to take.

His stupid heart, with its stupid need to protect those he loved, wouldn't let him do anything else.

Consequences be damned. He'd deal with those later.

Making up his mind, Ryker took one last look at his broken wife, hardened his heart, and walked to the door.

Brynleigh's rattling breaths spurred him onwards. They must've done something to her to keep her in this state without succumbing to the bloodlust Fledglings often fell into. Victor liked to work with a witch. Ryker wouldn't be surprised if she'd used her magic to keep Brynleigh mentally sane so she could endure more torture.

The thought, like many others from the past few weeks, made him see red.

Palming his phone, Ryker unlocked it and navigated to his messages. His fingers slid over the screen as he texted a number he'd memorized years ago.

Representative Challard wasn't someone he interacted with often, but in this case, she might be the only person capable of helping him.

Once the message was ready, Ryker read it, adjusted a few words, and pressed send .

A moment later, his phone vibrated.

Myrrah

Are you sure?

Ryker

Yes.

He was certain of very few things these days, but this was one of them. Brynleigh would not spend another night in this prison.

Okay. I'll arrange it.

That was all he needed to hear. Taking a deep breath, he opened the door.

Victor Orpheus leaned against the double-sided mirror, a sneer twisting his lips as he glared at Brynleigh through the glass.

Gods, Ryker hated the man. Orpheus was one of the worst soldiers in the entire army. He had climbed through the ranks thanks to his cunning duplicity, and his taste for blood and torture was well-known.

More than one prisoner had mysteriously died after spending time in Orpheus' interrogation chambers.

But Ryker couldn't touch Victor. Not right now. He had to focus on getting Brynleigh out of there.

Standing in the doorway, Ryker let authority ripple around him. Orpheus might be a powerful fae, but Ryker was the son of a Representative, and he was born to power. Right now, he let the other fae see exactly how displeased he was by the prisoner's mistreatment.

"I'm taking her." Ryker held up his phone, flashing the message from Representative Challard.

He wasn't asking for permission, nor did he require it.

Perhaps sensing that his interrogation had gone too far, Victor did not push the captain. Instead, he simply pulled something out of his pocket, put his hand between them, and said, "Good luck."

Ryker's eyes narrowed as he stared at Victor's extended hand. Disgust twisted his insides, and his primal instincts had him wanting to kill the other man for touching what was his. He buried those instincts, though.

This needed to be quick and simple.

Maintaining his emotionless mask, Ryker slid his hand into the other fae's. Victor's palm was cold, and it took everything Ryker had not to shiver.

"Thanks." Ryker closed his fist around the metal key Victor had slipped him.

Without sparing the other fae another glance, Ryker grabbed a small bag of blood from the cooler by the door and stepped back into the cell.

Black, pain-filled eyes rose and met his.

For a single moment, it was like he and Brynleigh were back at the Masked Ball.

Two souls, already connected, but seeing each other for the first time.

Everything else faded away. The dungeon, the silver blade, the blood, even the fae behind the glass.

For a moment, it was just the two of them.

For a moment, it was good.

Then, somewhere in the bowels of the dungeon, someone screamed.

The moment shattered like a broken window.

Brynleigh inhaled sharply, and a tear rolled down her cheek before she closed her eyes.

She dared cry after she planned to murder him? How fucking hypocritical. He was the one she'd wanted to kill, yet he wasn't crying.

Ryker was just… angry. With himself. With her. With the world.

Everything they'd shared was gone. Their moments were in the past. Now, they were just two broken people.

With that depressing thought in mind, he slowly approached the chair. Her eyes opened, and her lips parted, but she was silent. Maybe that was better.

Ryker's heart leaped as he drew near, but he pointedly ignored that feeling. It had no place here.

He uncapped the blood, and her eyes followed him greedily.

It wasn't a lot, and it certainly wouldn't be enough to fix everything that had been done to her, but he didn't want her to faint or worse before he got her out.

Ryker went to hand the blood to Brynleigh when he realized her hands were still bound. Wondering exactly how he'd ended up here, offering his tortured, murderous wife blood, he raised the drink to her mouth.

Her chapped lips closed around the top, and in under a minute, she'd sucked the bag dry. A slight touch of color returned to her cheeks.

Just enough to remind him she was still alive.

"I… thank you," she breathed.

He grunted in response. He didn't give her the blood to be kind. It was a precautionary measure. That was it.

Reaching over, he yanked the silver blade out of her leg. The situation was eerily similar to when he'd pulled the bullet out of her only weeks ago, and a shudder ran through him as he threw the knife away.

Brynleigh hitched a breath, but Ryker didn't dare meet her gaze. Not again.

He wasn't sure if he'd see a dream or a nightmare within the depth of her eyes, but either way, he wasn't ready.

Ryker crouched and focused on unlocking the prohiberis manacles binding her to the chair. They fell away, exposing reddened, bleeding flesh.

"Can you stand?" he asked, surprised that his voice was smooth and lacked any hint of all the emotions he was ignoring.

Maybe he could do this.

She sucked in a breath and shook her head. "I… don't know."

Gods damn it all, but her words were like knives to his gut.

It was harder than ever to keep that mask in place.

He held out a hand and briskly said, "Try."

The command echoed through the room, laced with the innate power of his position.

She didn't fight him. Her bloody hand trembled as she lifted it off the armrest. Her fingers shook as they landed in his, and like the first time they'd touched, sparks ran through him.

Forcing those sparks far, far away, he focused on her hand. He couldn't help but notice the dirt coating her fingers, the broken fingernails, and the dried blood caked on her exposed flesh.

Gods, he would kill Victor for this. Not today, and probably not tomorrow, but one day, he would destroy him.

Who had authorized letting this monster loose on Ryker's wife? Rebel or not, she didn't deserve this treatment.

No one deserved this.

Brynleigh whimpered, "That hurts."

Wide-eyed, Ryker looked down, realizing he had an iron grip on her frail fingers. A curse that would've made even the most battle-hardened soldier blush slipped from his lips, and he loosened his hold.

As if she were a hundred and not twenty-nine, Brynleigh slowly pushed herself to her feet. Whatever magic Victor's witch had been using to keep the Fledgling vampire at bay seemed to have drained Brynleigh's strength. She trembled, her legs barely straightening, before her knees buckled.

"Fuck." Ryker caught her before she could slam into the ground. "I've got you."

That was the last straw. She wouldn't be spending another hour in this prison. They should've brought her somewhere else. Somewhere civilized.

Maybe if he'd surfaced from his grief and anger long enough to wonder where she was, he could've prevented this.

But it was too late for maybes.

As Ryker wrapped his arms around Brynleigh and cradled her to his chest, he noted her skin's frigid temperature. The opposite of a fever, it was like she was made of ice. Her skin was so pale beneath the blood and bruises that it was almost translucent.

He carried her towards the door and clung to the only truth he knew for certain: he wouldn't let her die.

Even though she had planned to kill him, even though she'd ripped out his heart and stomped all over it, she was still his.

She'd always be his.