19. Chapter Nineteen
CHAPTER NINETEEN
MORTE
F or a moment, I’m dizzy as the darkness blurs and folds around us. A rift opens, swallowing us whole, and for a time I taste the bitter tang of metal. This differs from the sifting I’m used to. It’s heavier. Strained. As though my limbs stretch and pull to their limits, and I’m sure I can hear my own bones creaking under the pressure. The unbearable sensation lasts only a second before we emerge out the other side.
A large metal room replaces the avalanche-torn mountainside where the remains of the king’s army lay. How many survived? Do they even have feathers to bring them back to life, or are they relegated to a short, miserable stay under his thumb?
My heart aches at the thought of my mates out there, facing the carnage alone. I’m here, relatively safe but helpless, and it only deepens the void. The memory of them—Aggonid’s protectiveness, Emeric’s quiet strength, Wilder’s beautiful spirit, Caius’s loyalty—surges inside me. But I push it down, clinging to one fragile truth: they know how to survive. And until I see them again, that belief is the only thing tethering me.
I picture them—Aggonid, Wilder, Emeric, Caius. For so long, they’ve been my hope, my unshakable truth in a world that’s fractured me over and over. But as the memory of Az walking away resurfaces, a sliver of doubt pierces through. Once, I thought him unbreakable, too. A mate, bound by the Fates and the fire in our souls, incapable of betrayal. How foolish that feels now, with his magic still curling in the air around me, proof of what he’s done.
What if I’ve been wrong about them all? About their loyalty, their love, the bond that I’ve clung to as if it were my lifeline? The thought is a wound all its own, deep and raw, but I push it aside with a force that almost breaks me.
What the Fates have woven together, no king, no power, can ever unravel. I will see them again. Nothing in this life or the next could keep me from my mates.
I take in the utilitarian layout: just a bed, a tiny kitchen, a modest fireplace, and on the opposite end, an open bathroom. With no flue in sight, the place must rely on magic for heat. Even through my boots, the cold floor bites at my toes.
“Where the fuck are we?” I spin on Azazel, wrapping the tails of his shadows tighter around me and yanking my pants back up to their proper position. I want to rage, throw things, make him feel an ounce of what I do right now. Claw this mating bond from my soul, hold it between my fingers, and squeeze.
Anything to ease the agony.
He let that monster have his way with me. He knew what would happen if he left, and he did it anyway.
Az doesn’t answer me right away. Instead, he surveys the metal enclosure with a grim expression, as though it’s been centuries since he’s been here. Then he finally looks at me, his mouth set in a thin line. “His bunker,” is all my mate offers in response. He says it as though all the wind has been let out of his sails.
His figure towers over me, the strange overhead light of this place painting his face in deep shadows. I used to love our height difference—it made me feel safe—but now, I feel nothing but caged. A river of dread sears through my veins as I take in the harsh truth of my new confines. This isn’t a safe haven, it’s a prison.
I just traded one for another .
Grief and sorrow war for each other in my chest. Grief over the loss of the life we could have built, the promises he made and shattered. Sorrow for the love I thought was unbreakable, now tangled in lies and betrayal. Each memory claws at me, making it impossible to breathe as I stare at the harsh reality he’s trapped me in. I once trusted him with my soul; now, that same trust feels like the bars of a cage. Tied to him for eternity.
Was that always his plan?
I glance around, surveying the space for any means of escape.
“His bunker,” I echo, the words a ragged, bitter whisper. That explains the utilitarian layout, the heavy sense of isolation.
You’d think I’d be used to being underground, but in Castanea, we had so much flora, fauna, and light. A river and waterfall. We even had our own weather and manufactured sun. Here, there is none. Just cold, hard metal and my lying, traitorous mate.
“Get these off me.” I lift my arms, wincing as the cuffs scrape against raw skin, leaving angry red marks along my wrists.
My body aches from the lack of magic coursing through it, and I can feel myself growing weaker with each passing moment. We aren’t meant to be cut off from source.
His glower hardens, jaw ticking with obvious frustration. He extends a hand as if to touch me, but then he pulls back.
“I can’t.” Grief drenches his words, as though it could swallow him whole.
“You can’t, or you won’t?” I retort, unable to hide the bitterness coloring my barbs. The sting of betrayal lingers between us, pulsing through our bond.
There’s a small measure of comfort knowing my pain is his pain.
He feels everything I do.
“I said I can’t, Firefly,” he reiterates with a sigh. I want to claw that nickname from his mouth, to deny the ache that festers in my soul at hearing it pass his lips. “Only my father can remove those cuffs.” A large hand runs through his dark hair.
I huff. “That’s right. Your father ,” I hiss, shoving his chest. The same one I traced with my eyes, my fingers, and my tongue on countless nights. He barely moves because he’s a giant wall of muscle and he has magic.
So I storm over to the bed, yank the pillow off and hit him with it before throwing it at his head. He doesn’t so much as flinch, nor does he try to stop me. “Your fucking father had my soul bonded mate killed! And you knew! You. Knew!” I shriek. My hand connects with his face in a sharp smack, leaving behind a bright red mark on his tanned cheek as his head jerks to the side. “For days, you watched me grieve him. It destroyed me. And the entire time, you knew. It was probably you who set it all up!” Rage has spittle flying from my mouth and landing on his face, but I don’t fucking care.
He can drown in it.
Azazel’s mouth tightens, and deep grooves appear between his pinched brows. “Morte?—”
“Is this what you want?!” Sorrow so deep propels me towards the kitchen as I frantically dig through the drawers until they find their mark. My fingers close around a smooth handle, and I spin and wave a paring knife in his direction, chest heaving, my gaze wild as hysteria seeps into my voice. “Is this what you want, Prince Valtorious ? To destroy me?” With my other hand, I yank out the drawer full of silverware and throw it at him, knives, forks, and spoons bouncing off his sternum and clattering to the floor. “Congratulations, I’ve lost my fucking mind!”
“Firefly,” he begins again, hands raised as he absorbs my wrath. Agony, as thick as sludge, pulses through our bond.
“Or do you want to see me bleed?” I drag the blade down the full length of my neck, from my right ear to my collarbone, the bite of pain barely felt over the agony in my heart. Blood gushes between my fingers, each heartbeat sending out another wave of crimson to soak the kitchen.
“Morte!” Az shouts as he blasts magic at the knife to fling it away from me as he rushes over.
But it’s too late.
Scarlet fans spurt from my filleted skin, painting his face. He’s beside me in an instant, his hands glowing with a warm light as he tries to heal my self-inflicted wound.
But the cut is too deep.
“You knew.” I sob, my legs giving out as I lose feeling in my body, slumping into his arms. “You let that monster put his hands on me. You walked away. You didn’t stop him. You didn’t stop anything.”
My hands fist into his shirt, trembling with the fury I can’t contain, the betrayal carving its way through me like jagged glass. “Now, you get to watch your mate die over and over again, just like I do every time I close my eyes. Every time I see Aggonid fall. Every time I feel their hands on me where you left me. Where were you, Az? When I needed you the most—where the hell were you?”
I shove at him weakly, my rage no match for the hollow ache bleeding through me, but the words keep spilling, uncontrollable. “You let this happen, and you think holding me now will fix it? You think you can be my savior after you were the one who condemned me?”
He cradles me to his front, tears pouring down his cheeks as he rocks me. His grief is a balm to my battered soul. He feels what I feel.
But even as the shadows close in, I feel the familiar, searing heat building within me. The flames of regeneration. My body knows what to do, even if my mind is slipping away.