Chapter 2
Emillie’s entire world had turned upside down over the nights following Ariadne’s departure with the soldiers of Valenul.
After Azriel left the tomb, they followed, afraid he would get himself killed amidst the soldiers sent to put an end to him.
Instead, she stood beside the fae and lycans on the hillside and watched as he cut down one after another with vicious precision, Madan and Whelan watching his back and taking on any who attempted to attack him from behind.
Never in the nearly one hundred and fifty years of her life had Emillie witnessed such a brutal slaughter by the hand of a single man.
When Madan and Whelan had tried to bring him back, he put a knife to his brother’s throat.
They lost track of him after that. The only way anyone knew in which direction he went was the trail of blood he left behind.
Even his dragon—gods, his dragon—Razer, had a difficult time locating him with how firmly he had shut himself off from their… what was it called? Vinculum.
Despite insisting the others could carry on their journey without her, Edira refused. After all, the task had been to get to the Dhemon King. Now the task merely shifted to helping the Dhemon King regain himself in whatever way they could assist.
What that meant, however, was force-feeding him blood-based potions enriched with illusions that sent him into a stupor.
Zeke, the elder lycan with a vast knowledge of history, pulled from the depths of his supplies an old fae collar used to imprison criminals in L’Oden by suppressing their magic.
In the case of her brother-in-law, it depleted his impressive dhemon strength and allowed them to control his movements through the key that locked it.
Emillie hated that she had seen Azriel bound by the same kind of item once before: when Loren revealed his dhemon lineage in her family’s foyer.
Now she watched in abject horror as Azriel clawed at his own throat in a desperate attempt to free himself of the metal collar.
She could see the memories of his previous experience with it resurfacing.
Panic filled his eyes, and those screams…
Gods, those screams tore at her heart. In those few moments before Madan pried his mouth open and had Whelan tipping another bottle of potion down his throat, Emillie was certain that Azriel believed himself to be back in Algorath, where he had no hope of finding Ariadne ever again.
After delivering the potion, Madan stepped back from his brother.
Emillie watched, her stomach knotting as Azriel sank back onto the grass, red eyes glazed and distant before closing.
His chest heaved, and he brought an arm up to sling over his face.
Curling in on himself, he looked like a huge child attempting to self-soothe.
“How long can we keep this up?” Emillie asked when Madan turned around.
Madan’s face fell. As much as it tormented her to see it happen, she could only imagine what it felt like for him to do it to his brother. He did not respond for several long heartbeats before meeting her gaze. “As long as we have to.”
“That is from the new batch.” The mage, Phulan, had arrived at nightfall with a handful of dhemons that Whelan summoned by flying Oria over Lake Cypher to connect via their dragon bondhearts.
He had been scouting for their next campsite location, as close to Laeton as possible without entering Eastwood Province, and took the opportunity to gather more forces to them. “It’s stronger this time.”
Emillie’s world had grown unbelievably surreal in such a short span of time.
Dragons. Dhemons. Mages. Fae. Lycans. How had she gone from attending balls and dodging Caersan suitors mere months ago to living as a traitor of her kingdom in camps amongst people from across all of northern Myridia?
If anyone had asked her where she envisioned she would be a year ago, she would have told them the parlor of her family estate.
“I’m worried it’ll be too much,” Madan admitted, turning his attention to the beautiful desert woman. He scrubbed at his face with his hand.
Behind him, Whelan stood from where he crouched beside Azriel and slunk an arm around Madan’s waist, bringing him closer. “You’ve seen what happens when he’s left without it. I hate it, too, but we can’t control him with the collar alone.”
A dark laugh dragged all their gazes towards a dhemon that made Emillie’s skin crawl. When she first saw the man, bound and gagged on the floor near the tomb entrance, his eyes had sparked with a vicious interest. He watched her like a ravenous cur, desperate for a scrap of meat.
Now he sat against a tree, another fae collar around his neck and a length of cloth still tied tight around his mouth to keep him as stifled as possible.
If not for the wicked aura and constant sneer, Emillie imagined he would have been relatively handsome.
As it were, after learning about who he was and what he had done to Ariadne, nothing could make her consider him to be either an ally or attractive—as attractive as men could be for her.
In fact, she hated Ehrun so much that she did not stop Luce from kicking him in the gut the first time he had tried to speak to her.
“The collar alone works for him,” Madan pointed out, glaring at Ehrun.
But Phulan shook her head. “Trust me, boy. So long as your brother still has his mate out there to fight for, he will not be so easy to control. That pile of filth,” she shot Ehrun a nasty look, “is alone in this world, whether he can admit it to himself or not.”
The notion almost made Emillie pity him. Almost. All it took to relieve herself of the feeling was imagining her sister being tortured by his hands.
“We should probably let him eat,” Edira said from where she sat near the campfire.
In unison, the four of them turned to look at the camp at large.
Azriel’s prone body lay curled near the edge, in a clearing large enough for Razer to lie down beside him and provide him with coverage from the elements.
With the dragon gone, the Dhemon King looked almost abandoned. Moreso, even, than their true prisoner.
Their camp, located along the northeastern shore of Lake Cypher, was larger than what Emillie was used to while traveling with the spice merchants through the Keonis Mountains and L’Oden Forest. With the addition of Phulan along with three other dhemons and their dragons, they needed to occupy a far larger range.
As such, it was quite the task to find a place that could accommodate them all without being seen by other vampires.
The large canvas tent used by her, Luce, and the high fae stood on the far side of the fire.
Two smaller accommodations were for Phulan and Zeke, Dahlia and Riu.
Dhemons, she learned, were built for cold weather, and they slept fine outside.
It became quite evident how little they needed as Emillie became accustomed to the dragons’ presence.
They let off enough heat that, were it not for cooking alone, the fire would be unnecessary when they were in the vicinity.
But Ehrun had no dragon—at least not with them—and therefore sat nearer the fire than Azriel. At the mention of his name and the prospect of food, the dhemon dragged his gaze to the high fae, his mouth curling around his binds.
“We should let him starve,” Phulan muttered, but turned to him nonetheless, the key around her neck glinting in the firelight.
At her unspoken permission, the holds on the collar loosened, and Ehrun groaned in satisfaction as he pulled the cloth from between his teeth.
He stretched languidly and pushed himself to his feet, back against the tree to twist one way, then another.
As much as Emillie hated him, she did not envy the idea of being stuck in a sedentary position, unable to move.
Edira approached Ehrun first with a bowl of stewed vegetables. She was, as always, someone who looked out for others. Though she expressed her opinions on him, and they aligned well with Emillie’s own, she had a kinder spirit.
Humming his approval, Ehrun bent at the waist to bring his wicked face nearer the high fae’s. “Have I ever told you how beautiful you are?”
With a scoff and roll of her eyes, Edira shoved the bowl forward. “No. Don’t push it, usurper.”
“Oh, good.” Ehrun took the food, eyeing it suspiciously as he always did. “It would be a lie.”
When he did not dig into the food right away, choosing instead to tilt the bowl back and forth to inspect its contents, Whelan peeled himself away from Madan and dunked his finger into the bowl.
He made a show of licking his finger clean before using it to flick Ehrun’s cheek.
Ehrun snarled and lunged at Whelan before his body locked up, nearly spilling his food into the grass underfoot.
“Careful,” Whelan drawled, “or you’ll end up eating a dagger instead.”
Ehrun’s mouth twisted into a grin. “Did Kall say it tasted good?”
At that, Phulan put herself between the two dhemons as Whelan let out a loud roar of fury.
Emillie’s heart thundered, and she took a step back, afraid she would end up on the ground if one dhemon tackled another.
She did not get far before a hand wrapped around her wrist and yanked her away from the violent pair.
Swinging her gaze around, Emillie found herself being hauled closer to the fire by Luce.
The lycan’s umber skin shone in the dancing light, and when she turned her golden eyes back to her, they glowed like twin suns.
Her full lips pinched into a line as her attention flickered from Emillie’s face to Whelan.
“They aren’t safe to be around like that,” Luce said, her brows lowering.