Chapter 12
Chapter
Twelve
LYRA
Gasping for air, I threw the demon bitch off me and staggered toward Adriel, who was being pummeled by two of the remaining demons. Gripping my dagger in shaking hands, I plunged it through the first demon’s back, eliciting a bone-chilling scream before he, too, dissipated in a wisp of smoke.
The distraction was all Adriel needed to flip the second demon and stab the creature in his side. It wasn’t a fatal wound, but it gave me the chance to thrust my witchwood blade through the demon’s heart.
Seeing his comrades being reduced to smoke, the final demon released his hold on Sorsha and vanished from the chamber.
Adriel cursed. “He’s going to alert every demon in this place that we’re here.”
But I didn’t care. I was already moving toward Kaden, whose expression was tense, verging on feral.
“We’re going to get you out of here,” I said in a low voice, approaching him as I might approach a skittish horse.
Kaden tracked my movement with those eerie black eyes, and I fought back a shudder as I reached for one of the rowan-wood stakes that held him to the wall.
The stakes were narrow and difficult to grip, but I braced my left hand against the stone and withdrew the first with a smooth tug.
An inhuman snarl slipped from Kaden, but he didn’t try to stop me as I moved on to the second.
Sorsha was immediately at my side, starting on Kaden’s other wing as I gripped the top of the next stake. To my relief, that one slid out as cleanly as the first, leaving no fragments behind to fester.
Adriel climbed out of the hole he’d made in the stone to stand guard outside the chamber as the two of us worked to free Kaden.
Sorsha slid the last stake out with a groan, and Kaden pushed himself off the wall and lunged.
I was so unprepared for the sudden movement that I fell back, head smacking the ground so hard I saw stars.
Terror and confusion swamped me as Kaden pinned me to the floor, black eyes glistening with malice. My mind lurched, unable to grasp that the male who’d shared my bed, who’d made love to me with such tenderness, was now glaring down at me.
“It’s me,” I rasped as Kaden’s long fingers closed around my throat. “Lyra.”
But my words were cut off as his grip tightened, squeezing my neck with enough force to bruise.
My vision wavered as desperation engulfed me.
This couldn’t be happening. After all we’d been through — everything we’d done to get here — Kaden was going to kill me.
Grief crowded out every other emotion as I groped for my witchwood blade. But before I could find it, the weight on my chest lifted. Kaden’s fingers were wrenched away as Sorsha flung him off me, sending her brother crashing into the stone wall where he’d just been bound.
“What the fuck?” she snarled, reaching down to pull me to my feet.
My head was spinning, and my knees shook, but I managed to get a grip on myself as I stared at the male before me.
“A little help here,” Sorsha called through the opening in the rock, drawing her weapon as she glared at her brother.
Kaden was breathing hard, his chin lowered as he glowered at me. He still seemed to be in some sort of trance, but I had no idea how to break it.
Adriel reappeared a second later, his expression wary as he took in the scene.
“We may have a problem,” Sorsha told him.
Adriel didn’t ask what she meant, but his movements were slow and predatory as he stepped between me and the prince. His gaze was hard as it settled on Kaden, searching those demon-black eyes for the male who lay beneath.
“We have to go,” he said quietly. “I don’t know what the fuck is wrong with you, but I need you to get your shit together and not try to kill us before we escape this place. Understood?”
Kaden nodded, though his jaw clenched as he cast a hateful gaze my way.
“If you try anything, I’ll kill you myself,” the royal guard added, almost as an afterthought.
He held out a hand, and Kaden took it, gingerly pulling himself to his feet. Wordlessly, the four of us clambered out of the cell and into the narrow tunnel.
Kaden moved stiffly as he edged his way to the front, his bloody wings sagging behind him.
I stifled a gasp.
There were so many wounds in them — dozens more holes and lacerations than the number of stakes Sorsha and I had removed.
Some of them were partially healed; others were red and angry, festering with splinters.
It looked as though he’d been nailed to that wall repeatedly and then ripped off for sport.
Furious tears burned my throat, but I swallowed them down and took up the rear. My eyes scraped the shadows for any sign of Semphrys’s minions, but we encountered no one as we made our way up through the bowels of Dorthus.
The narrow stone tunnel sloped sharply upward, ending at a set of stairs that reminded me horribly of those carved into the Tower of Souls.
Kaden had to be in terrible pain, but he didn’t stop or even slow down as the steps became steeper, winding around what must have been the outer shell of the volcano.
Soon, it began to feel more like mountain-climbing than ascending a flight of stairs. Entire steps had crumbled in places, forcing me to pull my whole body up to reach the next one.
My muscles burned with exertion. Sweat trickled down my back, causing my leathers to stick to my skin. It was unbearably hot inside the volcano, and my throat itched for water, but I welcomed the discomfort because it meant we were approaching the surface.
Finally, the staircase reached a landing that led to another tunnel, where small holes in the rock revealed lava gurgling below. Shrieks echoed down the passageway, causing my hair to stand on end, but Kaden still didn’t stop.
As we came to the end of the passageway, the rough volcanic rock gave way to polished obsidian, and I knew we had reached the main level of the palace.
Kaden moved like death itself, his shadows billowing around him. His battered wings spanned nearly the full width of the corridor, and when two lower demons emerged from a chamber on our left, coiled ropes of shadow shot from Kaden’s hands.
They wrapped around the demons’ throats, choking them until they went limp. Kaden discarded them on the floor with a thud and continued as if there’d been no interruption.
We rounded a corner into an antechamber I recognized, though it still bore signs of the destruction Kaden and Adriel had wrought upon our last visit. The center of the ceiling had caved in, the intricately carved buttresses chipped and crumbling.
Demons froze at the sight of us, but Kaden simply sent out more lethal tendrils of shadow, knocking one demon against the obsidian wall so hard I heard his skull crack.
Another demon lunged for Sorsha, but Adriel ran him through with his sword, and more wispy ropes of darkness found the demon’s head, twisting until his neck snapped.
Silence fanned out around the antechamber, and Kaden paused as if waiting for something.
A dark figure appeared at the end of the hall, and my spine stiffened. The male was tall and well-muscled, his features handsome yet artificial.
Fleshtalker.
“Well done, my prince,” the demon crooned. “You have delivered our prize. His Majesty will be so pleased to know that your mate is with us at last.”
A sickening chill raced over me at his words, and I tightened my grip on my dagger.
“Would you care to summon your father, or shall I do the honors?”
Kaden didn’t speak, but his shadows seemed to pour from the walls, great columns of midnight smoke unfurling from the slick obsidian and billowing around Fleshtalker’s ankles.
“Your wings appear to be healing nicely,” he added, unconcerned with the shadows of death coiling up his legs. “Shall we go another round?”
My stomach lurched, and I fought the urge to be sick. This was the male who’d orchestrated my mate’s suffering. The demon who’d tortured him, warped his mind to the point that Kaden barely recognized me.
My skin itched with the need to bury my dagger in the demon’s black heart. But not before I’d had the chance to shatter his teeth and peel the flesh from his bones.
“As usual, Fleshtalker,” Kaden growled, “you forget your place.”
And then his shadows lunged, winding around Fleshtalker’s head and slamming him to the floor. The ground trembled from the impact, and I watched with grim satisfaction as Kaden stalked toward the demon.
Slowly, he placed his booted foot on the side of Fleshtalker’s face, grinding his heel into the male’s cheek until I heard a cry of pain.
A muscle feathered in Kaden’s jaw as he pressed down harder, nostrils flaring as a resounding crack echoed through the hall.
My throat went dry as Kaden cocked his head, using the toe of his boot to flip Fleshtalker’s body over.
With his skull shattered, the demon’s face was no longer recognizable –– his nose and cheekbones just amorphous blobs of bruised flesh. Kaden clucked his tongue in dissatisfaction before drawing a rowan-wood stake from his pocket.
The tip was stained with Kaden’s own blood, and his eyes widened as he bent to shove it up through Fleshtalker’s sternum.
I heard a crunch as it punctured bone, and a slow smile twisted Kaden’s handsome face as he rotated the stake. Fleshtalker’s eyes fluttered beneath his eyelids, and I wondered if he could still feel pain with bits of his brain leaking out of his skull.
“As artistic as this is,” came Adriel’s voice, “can we please get the fuck out of here?”
Kaden jerked his head up, seemingly annoyed, though it was hard to read anything in his expression when his eyes were that eerie solid black.
With a sigh, he straightened and continued down the hall, his body reflected in the polished obsidian floor as his tattered wings dragged behind him.
As I watched him go, something inside me shattered. Any satisfaction I’d felt watching him crush Fleshtalker’s skull and plunge the stake through his heart evaporated in an instant.
The Kaden I knew was gone.