24. Zev

Chapter 24

Zev

I fight for consciousness, the mental effort like swimming through tar. I kick for the surface of my mind, doing my best to peel my eyelids apart. My head feels like it's been split open, a throbbing ache in the back of it, and along the side of my jaw. I'm pretty sure I have four broken ribs too. Reality comes back to me in a snap, and I jerk awake.

"Jagger," I say, immediately finding him on the stone floor next to me.

My moves are sluggish, my limbs not cooperating the way they should as I drag myself over to him, looking for the wound I saw in his chest right before the collector core started to beat me with their batons.

There is no visible wound, only the evidence of one—a massive amount of his blood soaking his leathers, still glistening wet.

He struggles to wake, groaning as he opens his eyes. It takes him a second, and then he's sitting up too, surveying our surroundings. "What the fuck happened?"

Thank fuck, he's alive.

"I don't know," I say, glaring at the cold, damp dungeon we've been thrown in. The walls hum with magic, some sorcerer's work draining the power, nullifying it in my blood. I've tried to call on it six times already, even using my necklace, and nothing has happened.

"Your succubus isn't exactly what she seems," a cold voice sounds from the other side of the bars. Lights flicker outside the dungeon cell, illuminating the prince's face.

I manage to stand, forcing my muscles to work as I limp closer to the bars. The prince leans against the door to our cell, arms folded over his chest, amusement dancing in his eyes.

"She's a tress," he continues, looking at me, then behind me to Jagger, who finds the strength to stand at my side.

"She came about as close to killing my father as anyone has in half a century," he says. "Whose idea was it?"

I fasten him with a glare that promises exactly what I'll do to him when I get out of this cage.

"How many of you were in on the assassination attempt?" The prince's eyes dart between the two of us, and he shakes his head. "I can make you talk, you know," he says matter-of-factly.

I hate that he's right. The prince certainly outranks us in power, but does his work so near the stone drenched in this nullifying magic? I'm certain we'll find out.

His eyes go distant for a moment, and he pushes his tongue in his cheek. "I've only seen power like that once," he says, almost like he's speaking more to himself than to me and Jagger. He sucks in a sharp breath, pushing off of the dungeon door, looking at us once again through the bars. "She's mine," he says. "Thank you for bringing her to me."

I slam against the bars, lashing out at him through the slats only to be hit with a fierce shock, launching me to the back of the cell. I groan, pain radiating through my entire body as I force myself to stand again.

The prince doesn't smile, but there is enjoyment all over his face. "So reactive," he says. "The succubus is mine," he says again. I growl as I make my way back over to the bars. "Whether you tell me anything about her or not, she belongs to me." He tilts his head. "Though, I suppose I could bring her down here," he says, eyes narrowing on me. "I could torture her in front of you. I'm sure you'd tell me everything I wanted then?—"

"If you harm her," I say in a low menacing tone. "I will rip out your spine."

"And I'll make a guitar out of it," Jagger adds.

The prince breaks his emotionless gaze, smiling in what can only be interpreted as sinister. He looks over us both, nodding. "Maybe you two will be useful after all," he says before disappearing around the corner.

"What the fuck does that mean?" Jagger asks.

"Hmm," I respond. "I don't know," I say, dropping to sit on the cold, damp floor.

"She's alive," Jagger says, coming to sit next to me, the two of us leaning our backs against the wall. "Whatever magic they're using in this cell may nullify my power, but I can still feel our bond."

I nod. "I can feel her too."

The sensation is still so fresh, the Linked bond between us so new that it's still foreign to me. My soul keeps tugging at it, exploring it, doing its best to fold it into the very fiber of my being. Already I can feel the separation between us, despite knowing she must still be in the palace because it doesn't feel too stretched.

And her heart beats. That's the one thing I can cling to while being stuck in this goddessforsaken cell.

"What the fuck are we going to do?"

"I don't know," I snap, hating that I don't have answers.

I didn't account for this.

I didn't plan for this.

"She didn't kill him," I whisper. "He was right there and she didn't kill him."

"For us," Jagger whispers back. "I heard the Collector say he wouldn't heal us if she didn't drop her power. Death was embracing me." He shivers.

"He could have left you that way," I say, looking down to Jagger's chest where that wound had been. "But he had his Treasure heal you, why ?"

"Maybe he wants the same answers the prince sought," Jagger says, rubbing at the spot where he'd been stabbed. "Maybe because he saw we were her weakness?"

"Fuck," I groan. "Of course."

Pain rips through me, my stomach sinking to the floor. When I asked her to choose me, I never once considered I would be a weapon against her.

"He's going to use us…" Jagger says.

"In order to control her," I finish for him.