26. Chapter Twenty-Six
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
AGGONID
T he cave stretches wide, its jagged walls towering high enough that shadows cling to the vaulted ceiling, just out of reach of the torchlight. We’re somewhere inside the mountain. Murmurs of soldiers bounce off the rock as they mill about, forming clusters near the stone pillars that support the cavern's immense weight. The glow from the torches lining the walls splashes harsh shapes across the uneven stone floor, illuminating the shine of sanguimetal woven into their armor and weapons.
Guards line the perimeter in precise rows, their postures rigid despite their battered state. Good. We've made a dent, and they don’t have magic, either. Some press bloodied cloths to hastily bandaged wounds. Others sharpen their blades in silence, their eyes leveling us with disdain and wary amusement. Chains bite into my wrists, anchored to a reinforced metal post sunk deep into the cavern floor, the cold of it leeching into my skin.
To my left, Wilder glares at the nearest soldier, his muscles taut as though he’s already weighing how many of them he could take down if the chains snapped. Caius sits slouched, his grin aimed at no one in particular, like he’s daring someone to test him. I stand motionless, a predator biding his time .
Everything reeks of hostility—oppression lingers, feeding the tension tightening around us.
Caius climbs to his feet, worry etched across his features. We’ve been here for hours, and now he’s pacing in his chains, tail flicking with each turn, his jaw clenched so hard I swear his teeth might shatter. He’s usually the one doing the caging, not the other way around, and it’s eating him alive. His rune lights ripple across his skin, as though they, too, are agitated. Through our mating bond, I feel his rage and frustration. His worry about Morte.
Where the fuck are they keeping her?
I want to reach out, to soothe him, but we’re chained too far away from each other.
Wilder stands rigid, muscles wound, his eyes simmering with an anger that threatens to break him open. He’s used to being in prison and at the mercy of guards, but here, they don’t feed us, let us use the facilities, nor can we bleed our magic. Everything is cut off. Not even a trickle of water for him to sate the ache he no doubt feels.
Emeric barely breathes, hands fisted, the skin pulled taut as he studies every minute detail of our surroundings, as though searching for any weakness, any escape route. His analytical mind never stops working, even in the direst of circumstances.
And then there’s me. Everything in me thrums, my body an instrument strung too tight, moments away from snapping. The damn cuffs bite into my skin, keeping me from unleashing the wrath swelling inside. Why they put these magic suppressant cuffs on us, I’ll never know. Our magic hasn’t worked since the moment we landed on this gods-forsaken realm.
My eyes train on him . I want to tear into him with my teeth and claws, strip the meat from his bones, and feast on his insides. Torture him for eternity for betraying us.
For betraying her.
Azazel, traitor incarnate, stands apart from us, every bit the prince his tyrant father crafted. My gaze rakes over him, searching for something familiar, but all I see is the cold perfection of his father’s heir as my eyes catalog every arrogant refusal to acknowledge the devastation he’s caused. His face, an empty mask filled with piercings, refuses to acknowledge us. My voice has grown hoarse from screaming all manner of threats to him.
All of ours have.
For more than a millennium, he’s been the perfect citizen of hell, winning nearly every Forsaken Hunt, banking my favors. I wouldn’t have gone so far as to call him a friend, but after he mated with Morte, I considered him family.
I can deal with the hurt he’s caused me. But the pain he’s caused our mate? Unforgivable.
“Az!” Wilder’s snarl cuts through the quiet, the chains rattling as he strains forward, veins standing out against his forearms, bulging at his neck. Blood seeps out of his wound with each of his movements. “Look at me, you fucking coward!”
Rage curls in my gut like a live wire—I can’t stop seeing how her face had looked the moment she’d learned of his betrayal. A grief and sorrow so deep, it killed her. He’ll answer for that. The sanguimetal bands at my wrists creak, and I hope they’re ready to snap. Because if I can’t use my magic, I’ll happily use my fists to sever his head from his neck.
Just like he likely orchestrated with my sister-in-law to do to me.
The bedrock door groans open, and the king’s physician steps through with that self-satisfied smirk plastered across his face, his hand wrapped around the hilt of a sword strapped at his waist. My breath catches when Morte appears behind him, walking with a steady, regal grace I don’t recognize. Her chin lifts, her attention sweeps the room, and for an instant, those familiar blue-green eyes land on me. Nothing warm lives in them—no relief, no acknowledgment. It’s like staring at a stranger wearing her face. Something inside me twists, aching and deep. I want to call out, but the moment passes, her attention sliding away as though I’m nothing at all.
They have her in a see-through gown, every bit of her skin on display. She’s stunning, freshly bathed, with her hair still damp down her back. Her feet are bare, and it angers me to see her with so little clothes when it’s freezing. Around her wrists are the thick suppression bracelets.
Her face—expressionless, cold—meets none of our eyes. She looks through us, past us, empty in ways I can’t name. My chest aches, everything in me roaring to shield her, to break those chains and rip her from this nightmare. She doesn’t even see me.
Azazel shifts, a twitch at the corner of my vision, stunned confusion, and perhaps a little bit of panic, furrowing his brow. What’s that look about? He waits for something, a clue, perhaps, sputtering like a candle in a storm, but our mate remains distant.
“Let her go!” Wilder roars, his wrists snapping as he yanks at the chains. Fuck. He’s going to be useless in our fight now. Not without magic.
Morte flinches and she stumbles, the only slip in her mask since she walked in.
“We’ll get you out of here,” I call out to her. Whatever it takes.
“He’s got her under some kind of spell,” Caius snarls.
Emeric stills. “Magic doesn’t work here,” he hisses.
King Ollin fucking Valtorious enters, and fury claws through me. He moves as though he owns every stone in this wretched cave, his satisfaction twisting like a dagger in my gut. That smirk—he knows he has us, knows he's won this round, and it makes me want to tear the realm apart just to defy him.
How the fuck does a king best a god ?
He strides beside Azazel, his fucking grin widening as he turns to face us, and all I see is red. The rage boils over, my chest heaving with the need to break free, to rip that smile from his face.
“Prepare the bed,” he calls out to his regiment, his amusement echoing through the stone chamber.
The bed? What the fuck is he planning?
Sweat drips down the guards’ strained faces as they carry a simple wooden pallet draped in luxurious silk bedding into the chamber. Their boots thump against the cave floor as bile rises in my throat.
Azazel steps forward, his eyes darting to Morte, searching. Whatever he’d expected to see isn’t here, and confusion distorts the angles of his face. He stills and draws in a sharp breath.
Morte doesn’t look at him. Her focus remains fixed on the ground in an acceptance that twists something deep inside me.
Whatever the king has planned, his son isn’t in on it.
Our mate slips an arm through Ollin’s, letting out a beaming smile as she looks up at him, and my world tilts.
A strangled sound escapes me, rage blistering beneath my skin as he pulls her closer, possessive, as if she belongs to him. “Your queen has chosen,” he says, each word slicing into the space between us, between each and every rib inside me. “She will be mine. And with her power, and yours, I will rule the Underworld.”
A blast of agony punches through the room. Wilder stumbles, his knees nearly giving way, lips parting in a soundless cry. Caius lashes out, face mottled under his fury, his tail snapping against the wall, the stone cracking beneath the force of his wrath. Emeric shudders, eyes wet, a soft, disbelieving gasp escaping his lips.
“You can have it!” I shout, straining against our chains. “Just give her back!”
Morte shakes her head, meeting my eyes. There’s a smirk plastered across her face, a self-satisfied arch of her brow. “I don’t want you anymore.”
My breathing stalls in my lungs. “You knew I was your soul bonded mate when you tortured and killed me. I could never want you.”
She’s right. So fucking right, but that doesn’t make the agony sting any less as she rips out my heart and feasts on it with her words.
“And you,” her attention lands on Caius, his skin paling, “let it happen. Did it not occur to you I was naked when I came back to the house that first night I chained myself to him?” She huffs a pitiful laugh. “Love is your weakness, and I hate weak fae.”
A whimper escapes him as he hangs his head, his dark blue hair falling into his face as he crashes to his knees. His tail rubs at his near-translucent sternum, as though trying to ease an ache. But we all know this kind of grief has no cure .
She parks herself in front of Wilder. “I loved you for two thousand years. For two hundred of those, you knew. Knew that I was your anchor. You let me grieve you for two centuries, as I slept outside the prison every fucking night just to feel close to you, because I felt every single ounce of that bond but didn’t fucking understand it. You did that to me. I spent fifteen years in a cryochamber because I felt it when they ripped you away from me. You could have relieved me of this agony, but you didn’t!” Tears pour down both of their cheeks in earnest now.
Wilder’s body trembles, his lips quivering as he tries to form words, but nothing comes out. The weight of Morte’s accusations leaves him gasping for air.
“Please … Little Bird.” His voice breaks as he whispers, clutching his broken wrists to his tanned chest. “I was trying to protect you. I’m so sorry, so fucking sorry.”
“Not as much as I am,” she murmurs, walking away.
All I feel through our mating bond is agony. Pure grief and sorrow, pulsing like a living thing, desperate for relief.
She stands in front of Emeric, hand pale against his dark skin. “You could've been mine. I wanted you, but you were too afraid to have me.” Her voice cuts, and Emeric's head drops, pain etched deep in his expression. “Weak, just like Caius."
Azazel pales, stumbling, before bracing himself against the wall, his mouth opening in a silent protest when she gets to him.
“And now, the master manipulator is bested at last. You played your game for thousands of years, but look at me—I've toppled Aggonid’s regime in less than three." She smirks, turning slowly, her scrutiny sweeping over the broken figures before her.
“Come now.” King Valtorious holds out his hand, and I watch as her slender one slips into his and he leads her to the bed.
“No …” Azazel’s shattered stare clings to Morte’s, desperation rolling off him in waves. “No, Firefly, please.”
“You don’t get to call me that anymore,” she snaps, whirling around to face Az. “King Valtorious is the only one fit to rule both the Underworld and my heart. ”
His fingers twitch as though reaching, then drop, helpless as he studies her, chest heaving.
Valtorious smirks, a cruel sparkle in his eyes. “She wanted this. Her choice. Her decision.” He draws her nearer, tilting her face to his with a gentleness that makes bile rise in my throat. “Son, go have a seat next to Roth. He’ll begin the ritual process.”
“What ritual process?” Emeric paces, eyes scanning the room.
The king chuckles. “As soon as Morte and I secure our mating bond, I’ll be able to siphon all of their magic, all thanks to Azazel’s blood.” He beams at his son. “More metal than fae, that one. A conduit through which I’ll be able to drain every last drop of power from each of her mates. Pity you never got a chance to mate her, too.” He levels Emeric with a look of disappointment.
Wilder pushes forward, his scream tearing through the chamber, voice breaking. “This isn’t you! Don’t do this!” He struggles against the restraints, heartbreak bleeding into each syllable.
Emeric’s shoulders sag, his expression cracking, hopelessness stealing the fire from his eyes. “Morte,” he whispers, broken. “Don’t do this.”
But she doesn’t flinch, doesn’t even blink. Her eyes remain empty, a veneer that sends ice lancing through me. She lets Valtorious lead her, no fight, no resistance. Only silence. The bed creaks as they both climb onto it, leaving nothing but shattered hope in its wake.
Azazel falls to his knees, his head bowing as something in him breaks. “Firefly …” His whisper trembles, barely making it past his lips, fragile and lost.
Chains groan as I throw my weight against them, each pull tearing into the raw flesh of my wrists. The bite of sanguimetal sears like fire, the pain fueling a rage that blots out everything else. The cavern tilts, the torchlight spinning in my vision, but it doesn’t matter. None of it fucking matters.
Memories rush in, unbidden, of nights when the world made sense. Morte leaning over the ledge of my throne, teasing me with that sharp tongue of hers, her laugh warm and unguarded. The feel of her fingers brushing mine, as though daring me to believe in something better. She always believed in me—she saw past the devil, past the crown, to something even I couldn’t see. A male who could be more than a tyrant. A man who could love beyond the bond I've already forged with Caius.
She made me want to be better, for her, for them—for us.
Now she stands there, out of reach, and it feels like those moments never existed. Like they’re ash scattering in a storm. I tug harder, the cuffs biting deeper, blood dripping to the stone in crimson lines, but the chains hold fast.
My attention locks on Valtorious. That smug bastard wears my despair like a crown, his grip on her arm far too possessive. Every fiber of my being screams to rip him apart, to shred him until there’s nothing left but a memory of his arrogance.
But all I can do is pull, scream, and bleed against bonds that refuse to break while he steals everything I’ve ever cared about. Everything I’ve ever loved.
Her.
Morte.
I would burn every fucking realm, this entire fucking mountain, just to have her look at me the way she used to, with fire in her eyes and trust in her heart. But here she is, standing next to him, and I can’t tell if it’s her courage or her betrayal staring back at me.
The memory of her smile twists in me, splintering something vital. I was hers. I still am. But if she’s his now? Then I’ll make him pay with every drop of blood in his body.
One way or another, this ends with him destroyed.
Wilder collapses, tears streaking across his cheeks, his sobs hitching in his throat, each breath a battle. Caius trembles, growling under his breath, his body quaking as his tail lashes out again. Emeric remains motionless, his stare locked on the bed, devastation carved into his features.
This isn’t where it ends. It can’t be. Yet right now, it’s all slipping through my fingers, beyond reach, beyond hope.