CHAPTER TWENTY
My head pounded with a sickening throb, as if a war hammer were being driven into my skull. My vision was a smeared mess of grey and black before the world slowly, agonizingly sharpened.
Stone. Cold, unforgiving stone.
Panic clawed at my throat as I realized my position.
My arms were yanked brutally behind my back, my wrists bound so tightly I could feel my pulse hammering against the hemp.
My legs were anchored just as firmly, my ankles strapped to the heavy iron legs of the chair.
I tried to summon a spark—a flicker, a coal, anything—but my veins felt like they were filled with lead. Nothing.
I reached for Aether first, desperate for the warmth of the panther who had been my shadow since I was a child.
Empty.
The absence hit like a plunge into freezing water, stealing my breath.
I bit back a scream. Aether. I couldn't feel his heartbeat. I couldn't feel his sass or his strength.
My stomach flipped over itself in a sickening roll. He can't be dead. I would've felt the snap. I would've broken with him.
I reached deeper, past the hollow place where Aether should have been, searching for something darker.
Asher.
There.
Faint. Distant. But furious.
The blood bond pulsed beneath whatever poison they'd pumped into me, a thin thread of shadow and rage that told me one thing with terrifying certainty.
He was coming.
"Well, well… look who finally decided to join us."
The voice was oily, slithering through the damp silence of the cell. My heart dropped.
Zorian. The red-haired bastard was leaning against the rusted bars on the far side of the room, casually twirling a jagged dagger between his fingers like a schoolyard toy. He looked far too pleased with himself.
"Princess," he purred, the title sounding like a slur. "Good to see you again."
The cell door creaked open with a groan of protesting metal. He stepped inside, flanked by two taller males I didn't recognize—guards or mercenaries, both wearing the same twisted, predatory glint in their eyes.
“Started a club, I see,” I said, my voice dry and raspy, masking the terror curling in my gut. “What are the requirements? All psychos welcome, or do you have to be especially pathetic to join?”
Zorian chuckled darkly, the sound echoing off the wet walls. "Still got that mouth on you, huh?"
He crouched in front of me, the scent of stale sweat and cheap ale rolling off him.
He dragged the flat of the blade slowly down my thigh—not hard enough to break the skin, just enough to let the cold steel threaten.
“Since you got me expelled, you little bitch…” He pressed the tip in, drawing a thin line of crimson across my skin.
"I figured I'd return the favor. Start by ruining that pretty little body of yours."
I winced as the metal bit in, but I didn't flinch.
Instead, I gathered what little moisture I had left and spat directly into his face.
He didn't even wipe it off. He just smirked, a sick, hollow expression that made my skin crawl.
Then he moved.
The blade plunged into my other thigh.
A white-hot scream tore from my throat as my back arched against the chair, fire erupting through my leg.
“You don't want to play dirty with me, Ava,” he murmured, his voice almost sweet as blood poured down my skin.
I gritted my teeth, the taste of copper filling my mouth as I fought the black spots at the edges of my vision.
"What do you want?" I growled through the pain. "Where is Aether?"
Zorian tilted his head, the dagger in his hand now slick with my blood. "Oh, your panther?" He smiled, and it was the most terrifying thing I'd ever seen. "He won't make it through the night."
My heart stopped. The world went silent. "What. Did. You. Do. To. Him?"
"A rare little toxin," he mused, inspecting the blood on his blade. "One that's… specifically lethal to boundlings. A slow, agonizing fade into nothingness."
Rage, pure and incandescent, erupted in my chest, momentarily dulling the agony in my legs. "You're dead," I hissed, my eyes locking onto his. "When I get out of here, I will burn the skin from your bones."
But he just stepped forward, grabbed my braids, and yanked my head back until I was staring at the cracked ceiling.
His foul breath was hot against my ear.
"You're mine now, Ava. There is no 'getting out.”
Gods help him. Because I knew the shadows were coming. And when Asher found me, this place would drown in darkness.
"Why do you want me?" I spat, the words tasting like copper and bile. I was desperate to buy even a few seconds of time. "What's the matter, Zorian? Couldn't handle a little rejection?"
Zorian's grin spread slowly across his face, utterly disgusting. He didn't answer.
Instead, he dragged the tip of the dagger down the center of my neck, slowly, agonizingly, slicing through the fabric of my sports bra until the cold, stained metal hovered just above the swell of my breasts.
"Gods, Ava," he whispered, his eyes dark with a localized insanity. "You really are beautiful."
I flinched, my skin crawling so hard it felt like it might peel off my bones.
"But you didn't want to be mine," he continued, his voice dropping to a jagged murmur.
"So now? You don't get to be anyone's. Since you pulled that little stunt and got me expelled, I
've decided on a new curriculum. I'm going to break you down. I'm going to make you beg for me to claim you."
I felt a surge of nausea so violent I nearly vomited right on his boots. He turned to the two silent males flanking the door.
“Watch the entrance,” he ordered, his eyes never leaving mine. “Outside. I want some time alone with my sweet girl.”
His hand grazed the raw wound on my thigh again, and my vision swam.
But then—the bond sparked.
A flicker. A frantic, golden pulse. Fuck yes. Zorian didn't know. He didn't know about the blood-bond. He didn't know about the storm he had just invited into his house.
"Asher!" I screamed, throwing every ounce of my soul into the call.
Something pulled. Then it surged, dark and massive.
A roar of recognition tore through my mind, so loud it nearly drowned out the sound of my own heart.
"Ava!" His voice exploded through the connection, vibrating with a lethal intensity. "Where are you?!"
"Zorian's got me—" I gasped mentally, the pain in my leg flaring as I tried to shift.
The emotions flooding from his end were staggering. Pure, unadulterated anger. Raw power. A promise of a slow, agonizing death. "And Aether—"
"He's alive," Asher snapped, the words sharp as a blade. "Jules found him. She has him. Focus on me, Ava. I am coming."
Thank the gods.
Meanwhile, Zorian was still rambling, pacing in front of me and completely unaware of the darkness barreling toward him at terminal velocity.
He was talking about "loving" me. About ruling Zymarra together. Delusional, pathetic bastard.
Asher's voice in my mind grew colder. Measured. Deadly. "Ava, tell me exactly what is happening. Are you hurt?"
"Well," I replied, trying to keep my thoughts coherent despite the throbbing in my skull. "Well, the sick fuck already impaled me in the thigh. Then he scraped a dagger down my throat and stopped at my chest. He's... he's touched me, Asher. And I'm pretty sure I'm going to throw up on him."
Silence.
Then a sound pierced the bond that I would never forget.
A snarl. A primal, predatory rage that felt like it was shredding the very fabric of the bond.
"I'm going to fucking kill him."
The idiot still didn't realize what he'd summoned. The bond pulsed with vengeance, dark and lethal.
Zorian wasn't leaving this room breathing.
"They thought they were clever, erasing your scent," Asher growled through the bond, his presence feeling closer, heavier. "But they clearly forgot that we're blood-bound."
His voice was the only thing keeping me from shattering into a million pieces.
“They dragged you off-campus, but Zya and I tracked you down. She’s furious, by the way. She said if anyone else touches your panther, she’s taking limbs.”
"Territorial," I muttered internally, the pain in my leg curling tighter.
"Hang in there, firecracker. I'm close. So close."
"I'm trying," I replied. "It's not like I've got a busy schedule today, other than bleeding out and listening to this psychopath's monologue."
He sent a pulse of comfort through the bond, a soft, fleeting touch like a phantom kiss against my ear.
Even with Zorian standing right in front of me, I shivered.
Not from fear, but from the terrifying, beautiful weight of being claimed.
"Ava, my love," Zorian crooned, stepping into my space with a look of mock tenderness that made my skin crawl. "Tell me… how do you feel about me now?"
I looked up at him through my lashes, a jagged, bloody smile stretching across my face.
“Hmm.” I spat a mouthful of metallic-tasting blood onto his polished boot. “I feel like you’re a revolting, pathetic fuck of a male who couldn’t get a girl without a restraint spell.”
His smile didn't just falter; it vanished. The next second, his fist slammed into my jaw.
Crack.
White light exploded behind my eyes. Pain lanced through my face as my head snapped back.
My ears rang with a high-pitched whine, and the world tilted on its axis.
“Ava!” Asher’s fury tore through the bond, savage and protective.
Blood trickled from my split lip, but I blinked through the haze and smiled again, shaky and bloodstained.
"He's going to ruin you for that," I whispered.
Zorian blinked, a flicker of doubt crossing his face before he masked it with a sneer. "Your little earth prince won't save you, princess. Jeremy is probably balls-deep in some third-year by now, forgetting you even exist."
My heart flinched at the mention of his name, but I didn’t let a single shadow of it reach my eyes.
I just stared up at him—calm, cold, and utterly certain. "It's not Jeremy you have to worry about."
"It's me."
The voice didn't come from my mind. It came from the doorway.
Zorian spun around and froze.
Asher stood there, framed by the darkness of the corridor, shadows pouring off his frame like smoke.
Blood—dark and fresh—slicked his twin daggers, dripping slowly onto the stone floor.