Tower of Shadows (Once Upon A Wicked Villain #2)

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

HAVEN

Traveling through the caverns wasn’t something Haven had thought twice about before, not when he generally flew wherever he pleased. After he was first summoned as a boy to this court, he’d been sent a map of the entire land and decided the only desirable way to the castle was by air. During his two-year imprisonment, he’d pulled out the old map and memorized every aspect of the court, the most obscure ways to reach Adham without being seen.

The bone-like structures surrounding Haven were about as mundane as they could come. But to Rozlyn, her doe eyes had lit up at each stalagmite, as they had with other parts of Souldark.

“It’s as if you’ve never seen something phallic before,” Haven said as he halted his steps so Rozlyn could catch up with him.

No response.

With a frown, Haven turned around. The glow of the violet orb only reaching so far into the darkness, but she was … gone.

Had she gotten distracted? He sighed, knowing he should’ve carried her over his shoulder until it was time to rest.

“Rozlyn!” Haven shouted, his voice echoing throughout the caverns.

No answer. Not a sound.

“Rozlyn?” he called again, his voice gentler this time. She couldn’t be far or the bonding cuff would’ve squeezed his wrist. The cuff had faded a little more since that morning, but that shouldn’t mean the connection was severed yet.

Haven’s heart lodged in his throat—if it had , it would take much longer to find her if she’d strayed too far. It could also mean that he would wind up back inside the tower, encased in marble, unable to drag her back to him again.

Nostrils flaring, he focused on the cuff, their link, and after only a moment, he felt her pulse. A soft, slow hum, a murmur that was unnatural compared to the other times. But Rozlyn was still there . Only … she wasn’t in these passageways. It seemed to be coming from below him. Fuck . Had another sorcerer been hiding in the shadows somewhere? No, Haven would’ve noticed.

He knelt on the ground, releasing his shadows in tumultuous waves. They skimmed across the stone near his boot, and one aimed to pierce through the ground. It slammed against it and curled upward, unable to breach the surface. A spell . His shadows crawled up the walls to slip past the barrier, but the spell prevented them from entering there too.

As he trailed a finger over the stone, he was certain that the spell had been cast by a shadow. Who did this fucker think they were? Haven was the Marquis of Shadows, and he would annihilate anyone who took what belonged to him.

Haven slammed his palm against the stone, and his shadows mirrored his movements. His thumb ring lit up, changing from black to a deep red, the blood in his veins pulsing with rage. He growled an incantation, his words booming off the cavern walls until the stone floor disappeared, revealing a rippling silver liquid. A fucking hidden mirror. Pitiful bastard .

Jaw clenched, Haven peered down. Four shadows danced in the middle of a room with blue flames, circling a silhouette couple wearing wispy crowns, all spinning round and round like fools. But from the portions he could see, Rozlyn was nowhere in sight. He knew she was there … s omewhere . His cuff and sorcery wouldn’t lie. The shadows must’ve hidden her.

They’re all going to fucking die .

Haven grasped the edge of the slick stone, then dropped through the liquid before letting go. He landed, kneeling, and his shadows swirled around him, their wrath matching his, keeping him protected.

The dancing shadows ceased their movements, their heads slowly turning in his direction as though he shouldn’t have disturbed them . His shadows whispered to Haven, and he could feel through them that the silhouette previously linked to a sorcerer was the one wearing a crown. When he was alive, he was weak—levels beneath Haven.

“Where is my wife?” he spat, his shadows weaving faster, their fury growing. One of his silhouettes tugged on his shoulder to glance behind him.

With his shadows keeping their gazes trained on his enemies, he looked behind him. Facing away from Haven, Rozlyn sat in a stone chair before a table filled with shadowed food, silhouette maggots and worms crawling over it all.

Haven rushed toward her, but she didn’t move. His chest tightened when his gaze landed on her face.

Rozlyn was frozen. A human statue. Her eyes were too wide, her beautiful lips twisted in fear. Her pulse thrummed weakly through his cuff, becoming fainter with each passing moment.

The blue flames in the hearth crackled, and his eyes snapped to the other shadows who’d placed her in this decrepit state. One of the crowned figures had carried on dancing, twirling in circles around the sorcerer shadow. By the curve of her body, it was female, and she dropped to her knees before the sorcerer who pretended to be a king.

Haven’s chest tightened as his gaze lingered on the shadow’s bound hair around her head, the shape of her breasts, her height. Everything .

Rozlyn .

And her ensnared shadow was about to suck the shadow’s cock.

“Stop. Now!” Haven seethed. Teeth clenched so hard they would surely crack, a raging fire churning within him, he stormed toward Rozlyn’s silhouette.

His shadows shook with fury—she would suck no one’s cock but his. Two of his shadows shot forward and hauled Rozlyn’s silhouette from her knees. Another formed a blade and sliced through the four dancers’ waists, their split bodies falling silently to the stone. Smoke rose from their wispy forms before they faded and disappeared.

The sorcerer shadow hurled pathetic inky blades at Haven that were easily knocked aside.

“Make him suffer,” Haven growled. His silhouettes obeyed, rooting the shadow in place while pulling off piece by piece of the sorcerer. He wished he could hear the bastard’s screams as he collapsed to his knees. With each part of him thrown to the ground, smoke seeped up until there was nothing left.

Satisfaction filled him at the sight, and he whirled around to find Rozlyn’s shadow still hovering outside her body. She writhed in one of his silhouette’s grip, fighting him while trying to dance instead.

Haven’s boots stomped against the cavern floor as he approached the shadow, and she stilled, peering up at him.

“You will return to your body. Now,” he demanded.

She resumed wriggling, her legs kicking in some sort of foolish dance. He lifted his hand where another of his shadows waited in his palm. “Get her back in her body.”

In answer, his shadow lengthened, taking the form of Haven’s build. The silhouette sauntered to Rozlyn’s shadow and lifted her chin with his forefinger. He trailed his other digits down her side and circled his arm around her waist, pulling her flush against him.

Her dancing slowed until she became captivated by his silhouette.

His shadow held her close, spinning her around and around in a slow, seductive dance until they neared the table. The shadow leaned close to her ear, whispering something Haven couldn’t hear. Her head fell back in what he could only assume was a giggle by the way her shoulders shook. Haven stayed focused, impatient for Rozlyn’s shadow to return to where she belonged.

His shadow lowered Rozlyn’s silhouette into her body without a fight, her wispy form disappearing.

With a gasp, Rozlyn jolted forward, and Haven caught her as she stumbled forward.

“Are you all right?” he asked. When she only blinked, he lifted her chin with a forefinger as his shadow had done to her silhouette. “Rozlyn, can you hear me?”

Her light brown eyes held his, her breath and pulse steady. “You look worried, but I’m fine. I would never let you become stone again,” she whispered and collapsed against his chest, her eyes falling shut.

Haven was a fucking bastard, and she never should’ve started to care about him. The least he could do was get her out of this room.

While lifting her into his arms, he waved a hand through the air. Cracking reverberated across the space as rectangular stones pulled from the wall and fashioned a staircase leading toward the mirror in the ceiling.

Haven held Rozlyn’s warm body close as he carried her sleeping form up the stone steps, his shadows watching from every angle for anything insidious.

Once he passed through the rippling liquid, he cast a spell, the mirror vanishing and replaced with stone.

As he carried Rozlyn a little further, she stirred against his chest. “Haven,” she whispered. “I’m sorry. I think I triggered the shadows when I touched the stalagmite.”

“I should’ve been watching you more closely.” Haven had made a mistake by not having her close to him, but that wouldn’t happen again.

“All I remember was that my shadow was taken.” She sighed, her voice no longer exhausted. “And then you catching me before I fell.”

“It doesn’t matter. Your shadow was under a spell, but I got there in time before anything other than dancing occurred.” Slicing the shadows into two wasn’t fucking enough. He should’ve picked the dancers apart piece by piece the way he had the sorcerer.

He righted Rozlyn on her feet and caught the way she watched him—as though he were her hero. That was the furthest thing from the truth. “You won’t become stone,” he said.

“What do you mean?” She wrinkled her nose.

“If something happens to me, you won’t turn into a gargoyle outside my tower. I lied about that.” He waited for her to grow angry with him, to shove at his chest, to curse him.

“Ah.” Rozlyn smiled.

Why was she fucking smiling instead of raging at him or trying to escape. “Aren’t you going to call me a bastard?” He would’ve done much more than that if the situation were reversed.

“No,” she said. “Telling me the truth means you’re letting someone in. Friends, remember?”

Haven scowled at her words, at how good she was. He couldn’t look at her anymore or he would start to dig deeper into himself. “Stick close, or I’ll have to chain our wrists together.”

Haven and Rozlyn wandered down a narrow tunnel, the rough walls pushing into his broad shoulders, and the ceiling brushing his scalp. They shimmied through a thinner section, and he grunted when stone dug into his abdomen.

As they stepped into the next chamber, the air muggy, he paused—lavender and vanilla tinged the spicy scent.

Haven recognized the spell instantly. It would fuck with anyone who entered, draw their fears out in the most efficient way. A dusty yellow sky hovered above them, even though he knew it was nothing but limestone. The walls were stucco, the ground packed dirt instead of stone. Birds cawed in the distance, mournful and long. Potoo birds. Poor me , they seemed to cry.

Poor fucking me .

“None of this is real,” he told Rozlyn. “Don’t touch anything unless you want your fears to overtake you.”

“I certainly won’t,” she promised.

Thick walls loomed on either side of them and another directly in front of them, reminding him of the labyrinth in his tower. If anyone could get past the entrance of his labyrinth, it changed to suit those who entered. He’d created the place to instill true fear in his enemies, to torment them until their hearts gave out. And before their death, they would regret everything .

But this was pathetic compared to his creation.

Two paths appeared before them—right and left. Each curved so it was impossible to see more than a few steps in.

Haven released his shadows to see which route they should take. The path to the right would drain the victim in seconds, turning them into a husk. The left was nothing but an endless loop.

Closing his eyes, he pressed two fingers to his thumb ring and repeated an old incantation. The spell on the right shoved into his, but he slammed it back, choking it until the sorcery faded, leaving only a simple cavern before them.

He clasped Rozlyn’s hand and held it tightly. “Don’t let go of me until I say.”