Chapter 68 Win the Battle, Lose Your Wife
(Classic Villain Move)
Kazimir
Hello again, old friend. Did you miss me?”
The words came from Arabella’s mouth, but they weren’t hers. The inflection was wrong, the cadence ancient, and her eyes—fuck, her eyes were pools of living darkness that reflected nothing.
Nyx landed hard beside us, her wings spread wide and trembling. The dragon’s liquid silver eyes were wild with distress, and she let out a keening wail that made my bones ache. She stretched toward Arabella, then recoiled.
Arabella’s head jerked to the side in an unnatural angle, then snapped back, her limbs moving in stuttering, puppetlike motions as if invisible strings controlled her body and she was fighting against them.
I tried to push myself up, but my body betrayed me. Every muscle screamed from the internal battle I’d just fought. The runes throbbed with a dull, persistent ache that made thinking difficult.
Our bond was silent. No warmth from the Heirloom’s power, no electric current of connection between us—just a hollow void inside my chest where Arabella’s presence should have been.
Nyx circled us in agitation, her claws scoring deep grooves in the earth. Every few seconds she’d dart forward, trying to reach Arabella, only to pull back with a distressed rumble.
“What’s wrong?” Arabella’s voice continued, though it was the Shadow King speaking. Her arm twitched before extending toward me in a grotesque parody of concern. “No witty retort? No villainous monologue? You’ve changed, Kazimir. Or should I say that you’ve forgotten who you really are.”
My gaze flicked to Auremar’s corpse. The golden king lay in a spreading pool of blood, Arabella’s throwing knives still protruding from his eye and throat.
Part of me—a dark, vicious part—wanted to crawl over there and mutilate the body.
To tear it apart with my bare hands for what his death had caused.
But that impulse passed as quickly as it had come. Revenge on a corpse wouldn’t save Arabella.
“Get out of her,” I growled, finally managing to sit up properly. The battlefield spun around me, but I forced myself to focus.
The Shadow King laughed with Arabella’s voice, and it was wrong, so fucking wrong.
Her body convulsed with the laughter, shoulders jerking backward before her spine arched at an impossible angle.
And I guessed that the Shadow King was purposefully allowing the strange movements to torture me.
“But she basically invited me in when she killed that pathetic excuse for a king. All that power, all that hybrid magic singing through her veins. She’s a much better vessel than you ever were. ”
I searched her face for any flicker of recognition, any hint of my wife beneath those hazel eyes.
But where I’d built walls against the Shadow King’s whispers over weeks of constant battle, she’d had no warning, no defenses—just raw power singing through her veins when that ancient darkness came calling.
The only inkling I had that she was still in there somewhere was the steady warmth from the ring on my finger.
I should have told her about the Shadow King.
I’d kept it from her out of fear, but if I’d just shared my struggle with her, she might know how I’d been fighting him.
To make matters worse, she’d told me she loved me.
It’s what saved me, and yet I hadn’t said those words back as soon as I opened my eyes.
For the first time in my villainous life, I wanted to weep with regret.
“My lord!”
Thorne’s voice cut through the fog in my head. My security chief emerged from the smoke, his armor splattered with blood and worse. His eyes went wide when he saw Arabella standing over me, the Heirloom visible and blazing with dark power on her brow.
“Stay back,” I warned, but Thorne was already moving closer. His sense of loyalty wouldn’t let him leave me on the ground.
“We’ve secured the captives,” he reported, his voice carefully neutral as he assessed the situation. “Lord Sebastian is preparing for the cleansing ritual to reseal the prison, to free the ley lines from—”
“It won’t work,” I interrupted.
Thorne’s scarred face hardened. “What do you mean?”
“Oh, do tell him,” the Shadow King purred through Arabella’s lips.
Her head cocked to the side in that gesture that was so reminiscent of my mother it nearly made me sick.
But of course the evil that had been living in my head would know that.
“Explain how the Heirloom of Dominion is central to your plans. But you no longer have control of it.”
I ignored the taunting, focusing on Thorne. “The Heirloom is bound to Arabella. Without her…”
Thorne’s gaze tracked from the circlet blazing on Arabella’s brow to my face, then back again.
His jaw worked silently as the pieces clicked together—the artifact we’d hidden, the malevolent power radiating from her, the implications of what I’d just admitted.
He didn’t need to hear the whole story to know that something was very, very wrong with Lady Blackrose.
His hand clenched around his sword hilt until his knuckles went white. “Fuck.”
The Shadow King tsked. “Is this the quality of minion you’re keeping these days? Standards have really slipped since my time.”
Rage boiled through me, hot and useless. I wanted to tear the Shadow King apart, to rip him from Arabella’s body with my bare hands. But that wasn’t how possession worked, if that’s indeed what this was. Violence would only hurt her.
“There has to be a way,” Thorne said, his hand moving to his sword before he caught himself. “Some way to extract—”
“There isn’t,” I said, cutting him off. Not through any method we had access to here, not with my magic depleted and Arabella’s will being systematically crushed.
But there was one option. One person who might know something, anything, that could help. I forced myself to stand. My legs shook but sheer will kept me upright.
The Shadow King watched with Arabella’s face, amused by my struggle. “I suppose I should thank you for the assist. All those years of building your mental defenses, keeping me locked away, only to tear them down for love. How beautifully ironic.”
I stepped closer to Arabella—to the thing wearing her face. The Shadow King didn’t retreat, confident in his control. Her arm reached for me in stuttering movements, fingers alternating between clawed and relaxed.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
The Shadow King’s laugh was cruel. “For which part? Letting me possess your wife? Failing to protect—”
I slammed my dominion magic into Arabella’s mind.
Not gently. There was no time for finesse or room for careful extraction. I drove my power deep, past the Shadow King’s presence, searching for Arabella’s consciousness. When I found it—that flickering flame—I wrapped it in layers of magical sleep.
Nyx’s roar split the air, but she didn’t interfere.
The Shadow King snarled and Arabella’s body convulsed as I forced her into unconsciousness. It wasn’t elegant. It wasn’t kind. But it might, might, preserve some part of her mind while I found a real solution.
Her body went limp. I caught her before she hit the ground, cradling her against my chest. The Heirloom still blazed on her brow, but at least the Shadow King couldn’t use her voice anymore.
Nyx spread her wings, bristling with threat. But when I cradled Arabella closer, the dragon’s aggression crumbled into a low, mournful crooning as she pressed her massive head against Arabella’s unconscious form.
“My lord,” Thorne began, “what are you—”
I didn’t let him finish. Didn’t explain, didn’t leave instructions, didn’t do any of the things a responsible leader should do. I just gathered Arabella in my arms, called on every scrap of power left in my bones, and tore open a portal.
The last thing I heard before stepping through was Thorne shouting my name and the whoosh of Nyx’s wings as she took flight.
Then I was in Skyspire’s dungeons, standing before a cell.
The Alchemist looked up from their meditation, those shifting eyes taking in everything—my haggard appearance, Arabella unconscious in my arms, the dark power radiating from the Heirloom.
“Well,” they said, their shifting eyes softening with sympathy. “This is unfortunate.”