24. Rozronuuk
Chapter twenty-four
Rozronuuk
The Autumn Court
I woke locked behind large black bars on a cool stone floor. Of course, the sirens had caged me. In a dungeon by the looks of it. Rows and rows of iron bars stretched down the length of the room for as far as I saw. Beside me, a tiny figure groaned in the cell next to mine. I ignored whoever was in there and hollered so loud the sound bounced off the walls like my rage was a living beast. It would be soon. If anything had happened to Thea, then I would leave no siren alive in this hellhole of a realm.
A guard rushed into the hallway, a sword in her hand. As if a sword would stop me. I’d take it from her after I cleaved her head from her body with my talons.
“What do you want?” she snapped, pointing the sword at my chest.
I gripped the bars. The metal was cool beneath my heated grasp. “Why am I in here?”
“You threatened the queen’s life.”
“She’s not your queen,” I seethed. “I’d never lay a harming hand on my mate.”
“Look, demon.” She stepped closer, keeping the glistening silver sword between us but staying well out of my reach. “She is our queen. I don’t know what game you’re playing seeking to come to the Autumn Court and claim the queen. Perhaps it was all a ruse to become king?”
“Wouldn’t I have waited until after she claimed me to attack her if that was the case?”
“So you admit it.” She sneered.
I yanked the bars with all my strength, intent on getting out of this cage and showing this imbecile who their real queen was, finding my mate, and killing whoever did this to her. “I have no plans except that of finding my mate.”
So I lied a little.
She laughed. “You won’t be getting out of this cage ever.”
“We’ll see about that.”
I wrenched on the metal bars again, but they held tight. Even my mighty muscles didn’t budge them.
She sheathed her sword, turned, and left the hallway with a smirk etched on her too-beautiful face.
I cursed the ever-living hell out of her, but her leather heels clicked down the stone hallway and she disappeared from my sight.
There was more than one way out of here and if I couldn’t get through the bars, then I’d portal out. Summoning my powers, a harsh zap exploded inside the cell, dropping me to my knees. My hands smoked as though a fire had burned them. Shit, someone magically imbued the cell with enough force to singe me alive if I weren’t such a powerful rage demon. I roared my frustration. Even my powers wouldn’t get me out of here and to Thea.
“Please,” arose a whisper beside me. “Stop yelling. My head hurts.”
My head whipped to the side. Anger and frustration were ready to explode on anyone. Even another prisoner. Perhaps if I killed whoever was next to me, they’d move me, and I’d have a chance at escape. I stomped over to the bars connecting the two cells. All I’d have to do is reach my arm through the bars and snap their neck.
“Who is that?”
“Raelin,” she whispered.
“Thea’s handmaiden?”
Shit. I couldn’t kill her.
“Yes.” She eased off the floor and stepped out of the shadows. Clutching her head, she inched closer to me into the small amount of golden light thrown from the torches hanging on the walls.
“If you’re in here too, then I’m right. I almost hoped I was wrong.”
“Wrong about what?” She sank back to the ground and rested her back against the bars.
“Melanie is pretending to be Thea.”
“Oh,” she said. “That makes sense.”
“In what way?”
“I left Thea to get her gown and when I returned, she took it from me, but she wasn’t herself. She refused to let me help her with it. I asked her what was wrong, then she hit me over the head with her staff. I woke up here wondering what I did to make her so mad at me that she’d put me in the dungeon.”
She cried as quietly as she walked, but I could hear her tears tracking down her cheeks and plopping onto the stone floor.
“Raelin.”
She lifted her chin, showing the salty tracks of her tears smeared through the dirt on her face.
“Thea said you were the only one she trusted. That’s why you’re here. You would have seen through Melanie. She realized that, too.”
She wiped her cheeks, smearing the dirt into a dull black over her cheeks. “Melanie has always been jealous of Thea. I figured it was sibling rivalry.”
“This is much worse than sibling rivalry.” I dropped to my haunches beside her on the other side of the bars. “My brother and I have a healthy dose of it, like when we arm wrestle. He’s a king too, and I’d never entertained the notion of doing away with him to be king myself.”
She gasped. “You think Melanie killed Thea?”
“I’m hoping against hope that she didn’t.”
Fresh tears shone in her eyes, but she said, “Wouldn’t you sense if she was dead since she’s your mate?”
“If she’d claimed me too, then yes, I’d sense her. The fated mate bond only works when both mates mark their claim.”
She scrambled to her feet. “I’m going to kill Melanie.”
I rose to my impressive height, towering over the small siren who’d muttered such angry words. “You need to get behind me for that.”
She ran her gaze over my horns. Not in the way Thea did when she wanted to grab hold of them so she’d drive me wild with passion, but in a cold, calculating way, as though they might be our answer.
“Can you get us out of here with those?”
“No, my horns are good for ramming and other things.” I winked because I was sure Thea had talked to Raelin as close as they were. They were more sisters than her actual twin sister. Now I saw why. Her sister was evil. Rotten to the core. A thorn in Thea’s side I’d be more than happy to extract. Once I did, I’d end her existence with my rage. “But someone magically imbued the bars.”
“So how do we get out of here?” Her voice was quiet, yet full of determination.
Perhaps Thea was right, and I hadn’t given her handmaiden enough credit. Between the two of us, we might figure a way out of the cells and out of the dungeon of the Autumn Court.
“I’m working on it,” I ground out through my tight jaw.
After three enormous steps back and forth, I paced the tiny cell. There had to be a way out. A way to bypass the secure bars. A way for me to find my mate.