Chapter 20
Effie Harlow
“Effie! Come play with us!” A smile flitted to my lips as I looked up from the book I was reading and saw that my friends were done with their tutor work early, already playing in the castle courtyard.
Sitting up straighter, my gaze moved to my own tutor, who was currently talking to my dad, their brows furrowed in some serious debate.
They would often talk like this for hours.
Deciding to take the risk, I slipped from my chair and left my book open as if I was taking a small break rather than leaving completely. I had made it all the way to the stairs of the open-air pavilion when my dad caught me.
“Little moon, where are you going?”
My friends scattered, and I scowled at their betrayal, but I quickly wiped it from my face, turning and offering my father a large smile. “Me? I was just taking a break.”
My dad’s gaze lit up with humor as my tutor shook his head, looking amused as well. My dad sighed. “Go play. You have one hour.”
I squeaked in excitement, tossing out a ‘thank you’ before running into the courtyard. My best friend peeked out from behind a corner.
“I was so worried he wasn’t going to let you play!” she exclaimed happily. The other girls came back as well, all of them shooting my dad concerned looks as if worried he would change his mind.
“I have an hour to play,” I told them, and they immediately relaxed.
With the exception of my best friend, whose father was one of my dad’s guards, all of the girls seemed scared of my parents, specifically my dad. Then again, I couldn’t totally blame them…
Being king did tend to intimidate people.
The memory faded easily as consciousness replaced it.
I was momentarily relieved by the change, the dream having confused me, but I quickly found myself wishing I could pass back out.
Pain slammed into me and echoed through my head like a stone being tossed down an empty hallway, the sensation churning my stomach.
Gritting my teeth, I curled further in on myself, the ground around me seeming to rumble as loud voices shouted in panic. They were voices I should have found familiar, but because of the haze of pain coating my senses, it was hard to recognize that. Instead I focused on taking stock of my body.
My skin felt numb to the touch, frozen, except for a sharp, stinging pain that broke through on my wrists and ankles.
The scent of fresh water and cold wind hit my nose, and the sound of shattering glass echoed in my ears.
The sensation of cold rock under my fingers paired with the coppery taste of blood in my mouth made me dizzy.
I needed to open my eyes, because this unrelenting onslaught of sensations was overwhelming while feeling essentially blind.
“She’s waking up,” a masculine voice said, demanding my attention. I tried to force my eyes open, feeling like they were glued together, the sensation of sand beneath my eyelids making me whimper.
“Effie, I need you to wake up.” The second voice held an air of command that had my eyes snapping open. It wasn’t forced by magic, but something told me it could be if needed, which meant…Julian. That was Julian, and Ryder’s voice had been the first.
But when I opened my eyes and cold air hit them, a pained noise left my throat.
Something had clearly gotten into them because my vision, while slowly clearing, was extremely blurry.
It was disorienting, and my wolf was working overtime, trying to pull together a picture of the room based on our other senses.
Considering the wind howling in my ears, it wasn’t working very well.
Where were we? What had happened? I couldn’t remember, and the more I tried to force the memory to the surface, the sicker I felt.
“Her eyes are all fucked up because of the toxic magic they used,” Dakota growled, his voice filled with unparalleled fury.
My mates were all around me, I could feel all five of our bonds, and with that realization I fully focused on that connection, using it to ground me as I sorted through their intense emotions.
They were livid, more angry than I’d ever experienced, and while I knew it wasn’t at me, all their attention was currently focused on me.
Dakota’s words fully processed, and I realized I’d been right—I did have something in my eyes.
Were my mates then experiencing the same level of pain since we’d all been hit with the toxic magic he mentioned?
My wolf began to pace anxiously inside of me, and my fingers trembled.
What type of situation had we gotten ourselves into?
How? When? I had a million questions, and panic was building in my throat, making me feel suffocated.
“Lil bit, can you look at us?” Tore’s voice grounded me, and I searched for him, but all I could see were…
waves? My neck was so tight and my body was frozen as if I were a statue, unable to move or turn.
I stared down at the waves that hit the entrance of the space we were in, covering the ground around me with icy water before slipping back into the massive body of water below us.
My skin felt both numb and in excruciating pain, and icicles had formed on my clothing, the details of them becoming startlingly clear as my vision finally sharpened.
“I’m trying,” I said, my voice sounding horrible, like I’d screamed for hours. “My vision is all messed up, but it’s finally clearing a little.”
“I have no idea how he got access to magic like that—damn near poison gas,” Dakota snarled. He sounded closer than the others. In fact, I had heard from all of my mates except Caedmon. Was he here?
Dakota’s words began to click in my head as I put together what had happened.
Toxic magic like poison gas? Images of glass windows shattering inward as purple smoke filled the room began to leak into my head.
Everything had gone dark after that, taking away the happiness of our relaxing night and replacing it with…
whatever all this was. Someone had taken us…
somewhere. That was all I’d been able to put together so far.
“Hastain. It was fucking Hastain.” Caedmon’s voice was filled with an eerie amount of calm that was all wrong.
I needed to see him. I needed to see what was causing him to speak like that.
Trying to move again, I hissed, the metal cuffs around my wrists making themselves known.
They were locked in front of me with a metal chain that was bound to the floor.
My back was pressed against something hard and cold, the waves crashing against my left side causing that part of my body to feel frozen in place.
Oddly, despite having been sleeping, I wasn’t lying down—rather my feet were locked in front of me, and my body slumped in an awkward position that was causing the pain in my neck.
The need to see my mates superseded that though, driving me to turn my neck anyway. I whimpered, taking in a scene that could have been plucked from my nightmares.
The huler.
The cave walls were dark and stained with old, dried blood, and the edges of the mouth that faced the lake were edged in deadly looking icicles.
Oddly, neither of those was the worst part.
No, the most nightmarish part was that my mates, who were spread throughout the space, were all tied up like me. Trapped. Imprisoned.
Directly across from me was Ryder, he and I having been placed closest to the edge of the cave, both of us getting the brunt of the waves.
His magic tried to spark to life as he stared at me with dark, burning eyes that conveyed his worry better than he could have ever expressed verbally.
My brow dipped as I studied his cuffs and realized that his magic seemed to be fighting against them, their dark blue metal a type I’d never seen before.
Had Hastain put him in those to stop his magic?
Did he know Ryder had the ability to fight against this type of cold?
I looked down at my own cuffs and then to Dakota’s.
Our cuffs looked normal in comparison, Dakota’s expression dark and dangerous as he studied my wrists, which were bleeding actively from pulling against the metal.
My magic, despite being drained and confused, wasn’t repressed like Ryder’s—although his cuffs were causing our connection to feel nearly cut off, which had my magic feeling almost manic and panicked.
It didn’t appear that any of my other mates around the huler had been forced into special cuffs like Ryder, but magic metal or not, they were clearly strong—enough so that my men couldn’t physically break out from them.
My gaze moved to Caedmon, who was next to Ryder, his dark, expressionless gaze on me.
Something truly terrifying flashed across his face, something that should have had me flinching back…
but I wasn’t scared of Caedmon. I knew he would never hurt me.
I was, however, worried about the others, especially if he shifted.
Finally, I looked towards Tore and Julian against the back wall on either side of the door out of here.
This was bad. This was really bad.
“Hastain?” I asked, trying to focus on the explanation for all of this.
My body was trembling in its restraints, wanting to move but unable to.
Tore let out a low rumble, panic infusing his gaze at my struggle.
Julian was oddly quiet, but I could tell that his magic was surging under his skin, ready to lash out at any moment.
My biggest concern, though?