Chapter 24
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The dark fury inside me is swallowing my whole soul.
That small spark of light and hope is now nothing more than a tiny pinprick in a stormy ocean full of thrashing black tidal waves.
I can barely hear anything over the roaring in my ears as Orion ushers us all out of Bane’s cell and into the dimly lit stone corridor outside.
The door closes behind us with a thud. The four soldiers remain inside, keeping Bane under control, while Grey quickly disappears into the stairwell up ahead.
“What do you mean gone?” I demand as soon as we’re alone.
“We could’ve gotten him back!” Galen snarls at Isera. “We could’ve—”
“No,” she snaps, cutting him off. “We couldn’t. You know it as well as I do. There was nothing we could’ve done to take him back at that point.”
“But the—”
“We barely managed to get the two of you out! She was already halfway across the city when—”
“Just tell me what happened!” I scream at them, panic still thrashing inside my chest.
Deafening silence falls over the rough stone corridor. It’s so loud that it almost echoes between the walls.
“It was as if Jessina could feel it the moment that you took Bane,” Lyra begins, her orange eyes full of dread and worry.
“She probably could,” Alistair adds from where he is standing next to her. “Through their mate bond.”
My heart slams against my ribs, and I barely manage to press out, “What happened?”
“She just… went berserk,” Alistair continues. Disbelief shines on his face as he shakes his head. “She cut off Gremar’s hand with a sword to get the dragon steel off.”
A jolt shoots through me, and I reach towards those glowing orders that are supposed to be floating in the back of my mind. They’re no longer there. My mouth is dry as sand as I try to swallow through the storm of emotions that is building inside me.
“Once that was gone, the entire Red Clan showed up as well,” Isera picks up. “Along with the soldiers from the Silver Clan who were already there. Draven was swarmed. He shifted into a half-shift to try to escape in the chaos, but Jessina in her dragon form somehow managed to knock him out.”
My heart pounds painfully as I whisper, “Where is he?”
“She took him. Alistair and I can’t fly, and she was halfway across the city by the time Galen and Lyra managed to get free from the horde of dragons that was swarming them as well.
” For the first time since she stepped through the portal, her eyes soften a fraction as she holds my gaze. “There was nothing we could do.”
Panic thrashes inside me, and those massive black waves that threaten to crush me wobble precariously inside my soul. I drag in short, jagged breaths.
“We need to go back,” I declare. Whipping around, I lock eyes with Orion. “Call Grey back. Tell him to open another portal to the Seelie Court.”
Orion’s gaze slides to Isera, and he says nothing.
“Open another portal!” I scream at him.
“No,” Isera replies from behind me. “The castle is already overrun. And Draven isn’t there anymore.”
I whirl around to face her, rage burning through me like wildfire. But the expression on her face stops the threat on my tongue before I can spit it out. Pain and sympathy, emotions that I’ve almost never seen on her face before, shine in her eyes as she just holds my gaze in silence.
“Selena,” Lyra suddenly says from where she’s standing next to Alistair. Her voice is also laced with pain. “We all want him back. But he’s not in the Seelie Court anymore. Going back there isn’t going to help him. First, we need to figure out where she took him.”
On my other side, Galen paces the stone floor like a snarling wolf. But even he doesn’t argue.
“We still have Bane,” Alistair says, addressing the entire room. “We can use him to get Jessina.”
“How?” I ask. “How are we—”
Pain suddenly spikes through my chest.
It’s so violent that I double over and gasp out loud.
Another stab of pain hits me.
Sheer horror washes through me when I realize where it’s coming from.
The mate bond.
I can feel Draven’s pain through our flickering mate bond.
Jerking upright, I gasp out, “She’s hurting him!”
“What?” several of the others reply at the same time.
Another burst of pain hits me through the mate bond. And I know from experience that the intensity of the emotions that I feel through our mate bond is only a tiny fraction of what Draven feels.
Blind rage hits me like a boulder. It’s so intense, so all-consuming, that my vision actually blacks out for a second.
Lurching forward, I yank open the door to Bane’s cell.
The four guards inside jump in surprise, but Orion must signal to them from behind my back because they do nothing as I storm into the cell.
Before we left a few minutes ago, I increased Bane’s small spark of tiredness until he passed out from it.
Now, I shove my magic into his chest and smother that flame of tiredness again. He jerks awake.
“Show him those memories again,” I snap at Orion, my words coming out like an order rather than a request.
Thankfully, Orion doesn’t make an issue of it. He just summons his magic and hits Bane with it without question. Bane yanks hard against the thick manacles that keep him trapped, and he throws his head from side to side as he is forced back into his worst memories.
Standing there before him, I summon my own magic and slam it into that black flame of despair in his chest. Then I start increasing it. And increasing it. And increasing it.
Bane thrashes hard in the chair as I amplify his emotions over and over again. Desperate whines rip from his throat, along with broken sobs, and his limbs shake violently.
I keep increasing the strength of my magic, knowing that Jessina can feel all of this through her own mate bond with Bane.
She thinks I’m cruel? Oh, we have only scratched the fucking surface of just how cruel and vicious I can really be.
Another burst of pain stabs through my chest. Stronger this time.
“Selena,” Galen calls from somewhere behind me. “What’s going on?”
“She’s torturing him!” The words rip out of my lungs, full of desperation and tasting like blood.
Rage and hatred and undiluted terror tear through my chest, and I force more magic into the flame of despair in Bane’s chest. He screams. His body shakes violently, and he starts banging the back of his head against the chair.
Another massive spike of pain shoots through my and Draven’s mate bond.
I increase the strength of my magic until Bane’s mind almost breaks. I can feel it, like a fragile eggshell that only requires one more tap to shatter. That ruthless ocean of unforgiving hatred inside me almost makes me do it. But reason manages to break through first.
If I kill Bane, Jessina is going to kill Draven. And I didn’t do all of this for no reason. I did it so that she would stop torturing Draven.
With immense effort, I pull myself back from the edge and cut off the flow to my magic.
“Stop showing him the memories,” I tell Orion.
Yet again, the Unseelie King thankfully does what I tell him without issue.
Bane slumps back in the chair, his chest heaving. I reach out with my magic and connect to the spark of tiredness again. Then I steadily increase it until he passes out.
The moment that Bane’s agony stops, so do the bursts of pain from Draven. For another minute, I just stand there, watching Bane sleep slumped in the chair like that. But no more spikes of agony come through my and Draven’s mate bond.
“What… happened?” Galen asks hesitantly from behind me.
Dragging in a deep breath, I try to pull my sanity back together again. It’s getting harder and harder every time. After raking my fingers through my hair, I draw in another breath and then turn around to face the others.
“Jessina was torturing Draven,” I explain. My voice comes out shockingly flat. As if I’m just reciting last week’s weather. “I could feel it through our mate bond, which has started to reconnect at times lately. So I showed her what will happen if she hurts Draven. And now, she knows.”
Several of them exchange a glance that I can’t muster enough fucks to interpret.
“So,” Lyra begins. “She’s not torturing him anymore?”
“No.”
Both she and Galen let out a shuddering breath of relief.
I start towards the door. “I’m getting him back.”
To my surprise, it’s Orion who grabs me by the arm to stop me. “No.”
That horrible flat emptiness in my voice remains as I glance down at his hand on my arm and simply declare, “I suggest you take your hand off my arm.”
“Stop and think for a moment,” he grinds out, but he does release my arm. “Jessina Iceheart is viciously smart. This is what she wants. She wants you to get emotional and charge in there to save him so that she can capture you too. So we need to be smarter.”
Galen forces out a long breath, his pale brows drawn down in a scowl.
“I hate to admit it, but he’s right. If we just charge in there now, we’re only going to get Draven and all of us killed.
It’s the middle of the night. We’re all angry and exhausted and worried.
We need to get some sleep to clear our heads. Then, we will make a proper plan.”
“If she was torturing him just now, it means that she can’t have flown all the way back to the Ice Palace,” Isera adds, her sharp gaze moving across all of our faces. “She must have landed somewhere else.”
“That’s a good point,” Lyra agrees. “Based on the average flight speed and time that has passed…” She trails off for a few seconds while staring out at the wall, as if counting in her head. “The only other village within that distance is Hunter’s Marsh.”
“Okay.” Galen nods several times, but it looks more like he’s trying to settle his own nerves than reassure us. “So Draven and Jessina are in Hunter’s Marsh. That’s good. That’s a start. Let’s get some sleep to clear our heads, then we make a proper plan in the morning.”
The others nod in agreement.
I just stalk past them and out of the dungeon without another word.
In the morning? I don’t fucking think so.
I am getting him back.
Tonight.