Chapter 4
Every second that slid by was enough to kill Madan. Every breath he took meant his sister was out there somewhere with the most vile man in Myridia, playing a game that could very well get her killed.
After Whelan took his half-eaten bowl of stew, Madan sat on his boulder with his face buried in his hand.
Voices drifted from the camp as those gathered did their best to distract themselves from what was happening.
Yet he had no chance of outrunning it all.
With his heart split in too many directions, no matter which path he took, it led him towards fear.
Thinking too long about his partner had Madan’s blood chilling.
Whelan was his heart and soul, and with the coming battles, there was no telling what might become of him.
No amount of preparation, even centuries of raids and skirmishes, readied someone for a full-scale war.
Not physically, mentally, or emotionally.
Switching to Emillie didn’t help. After spending time observing her interactions with the high fae spice merchants and especially their lycan guard, Madan knew what the two women were avoiding.
There was no doubt in his mind that Luce had bonded to Emillie.
That lycan never let her out of her range of sight or smell for long.
Even the most minor threat to his half-sister’s safety had Luce pulling her away.
If they weren’t careful, he feared they’d spiral together.
Brutis was no comfort. Try as the great dragon might, he knew Madan’s mind too well. They both feared what would become of them in the coming nights as well. All it took was one of Loren’s well-aimed ballista to put a permanent end to them both.
Then there was his most obvious concern: Ariadne.
Given she had run off on her own without thinking through the consequences, there was a side of him that hoped she learned her lesson.
It warred with the half that wanted nothing more than to tell Brutis to tear off the roof of that damn manor and get her out, book be damned.
Madan peeled his hand away from his face to look at the final piece of his fucked-up puzzle.
It’d been a mere two hours since they’d force-fed Azriel the last potion, and yet he already stirred.
Perhaps between his time in Algorath and the micro-doses he’d been taking for weeks, his tolerance was now too high.
They wouldn’t stave off his aggression for much longer.
“They’re at the reception.” Brutis’s voice was quiet due to their distance. As much as Madan hated him being out there, they needed a mature dragon that could carry Almandine and keep her near enough to communicate with Ariadne.
“How is she?”
The silence that followed had Madan’s heart racing. Had everything been fine, Brutis would’ve told him so immediately. That his bondheart searched for the right words frightened him.
“She says she’s fine.”
That was not a comforting statement. It meant that Brutis knew otherwise and withheld the information to keep him from spiraling more than he already was.
Thoughtful though it was…it didn’t help.
In fact, it only made him feel even more out of control of what was happening.
And Madan hated to feel as though he had failed to plan everything out.
As if his sister had given him the chance to properly plan anything.
“What’s the timeline?” Madan grasped for anything that could give him more with which to work.
Another long pause. This time, he assumed it was due to Brutis instructing Almandine to connect Ariadne through the vinculum. It took several minutes, during which Whelan worked his way back to where Madan sat, no doubt listening in through his connection with Oria.
“They've been at the reception for some time now.” Almandine’s voice, small already, barely registered thanks to the distance.
Brutis added, “They will be a little longer before they head back.”
The words made Madan’s heart lurch into his throat. That was when everything could devolve all too quickly—when Loren would discover Ariadne’s treachery and act. He could only pray to Keon that it would not be the violent outburst that he imagined.
“Let me know when they leave.” Madan rubbed at his brow, then turned his attention to Whelan, his shoulders slumping in silent defeat. When he spoke aloud to his partner, he did so quietly and in the dhemon language, “I’m scared.”
Whelan didn’t respond right away. Instead, he knelt at Madan’s feet and took his hand between his, pressing his lips to his fingers.
When he looked up, his red eyes shone with worry.
It wasn’t often that Madan admitted those kinds of feelings.
He’d spent his entire life having to be strong and use his vastly different skills to make a name for himself amongst the dhemons.
“What do you need from me?” Whelan asked finally, matching his tone and tongue.
Sucking on his teeth for several heartbeats, Madan loosed a heavy breath before saying, “I need you to tell me that everything is going to be fine…that we won’t lose anyone else.”
At that, Whelan hesitated. He opened his mouth to speak, stopped, and considered his words. Every emotion that Madan himself felt passed behind his mate’s eyes: anguish, despair, hopelessness. Then he merely said, “Madan…”
“Lie to me.” Madan searched his mate’s eyes, hoping to see some gleam of hope hidden there.
When he found nothing but the mutual pain of having lost their best friend, his throat tightened.
Something was going to go terribly wrong.
There were too many variables for him to control and too many pieces on the board to predict the outcome of what would occur once Ariadne got that book.
If Ariadne got that book.
Madan continued, “Lie to me, Whelan. Please. Just this once.”
Grimacing, Whelan nodded and plastered a smile onto his perfect face. “Everything’s going to go perfectly. We’re all going to be alright. She’ll be safe, and we’ll get her out with the ritual.”
With that, Madan leaned down and pressed his lips to Whelan’s hand.
Gods, he needed something to go right. Something.
Anything. If that meant having his partner there with him at that moment, lying to his face at his behest, then so be it.
He’d take what he could get—even if it meant pushing the pain off until later.
The quiet, familiar wail had them breaking apart entirely too soon. Madan looked over Whelan’s shoulder to where Razer stirred, shifting his huge body to curl his face closer to his bondheart.
“Fuck,” Madan breathed and stood in tandem with Whelan. “It’s wearing off too fast.”
Before either of them could take a step forward, Phulan appeared from the circle around the campfire.
A small vial glinted in her hand, and her hard expression told Madan all he needed to know: she also understood just how dangerous it was for Azriel to be coming-to so quickly.
Her illusions had never been as powerful as Melia’s, and her potions suffered as a consequence.
Calculating the timeline in his own mind, Madan forced his feet to move, intercepting the mage as she approached his brother.
His heart twisted at the sight of Azriel, half-drugged and staring into space with an unfocused gaze as he swept his hand through the grass as though trying to decipher where he lay.
For a brief moment, those red eyes swiveled to him and lit up in recognition.
All too soon, it faded, and he groaned again, bringing his hands to his face as he always did when waking from his potion-addled state.
“He’s going to start screaming again.” Phulan made to step around him, but Madan shifted to block her path.
Her sharp amethyst eyes snapped to his face.
It wasn’t the first time he’d tried to stop her from giving it to him, only to realize just how much worse it would be to try controlling him without it. “Move, boy.”
Madan held his ground. “No.”
Behind him, Razer rumbled in agreement.
Phulan sighed. “He’s going to hurt himself.”
“We’re going to need him soon.” Madan glanced back at the dragon, now moving his great head over Azriel protectively. “Once Ariadne gets back to the manor with Loren, we can let him go.”
The mage scoffed. “He won’t be in his right mind until morning, no matter what we do. You plan to send him into a fight like that?”
A gut-punch like none other, but Madan lifted his chin a fraction. “He’s done it before.”
“In the Pits? He nearly died,” Phulan hissed, her eyes glossing with emotion in a rare crack in her usual calm demeanor. “And I had to watch it happen.”
“He’ll survive.” Madan spoke the words like a prayer to Keon. “Because it’s for Ariadne.”
Even Phulan couldn’t argue with that. She’d recounted the tale herself of the way his half-sister had nearly thrown herself into the fighting pit while commanding her husband to get up. And, gods damn him, he’d done it. Done it, killed the fae, and won the match.
“We need him,” Madan added with another look at the prone figure on the ground. “He’s the Dhemon King.”
A dark laugh from Ehrun had them both turning to the dhemon and snapping in unison, “Shut up.”
Another groan from Azriel had them refocusing on the tasks at hand. One to pour more potion down his throat. One to stop it from happening.
“I won’t let you give him any more.”
Silence stretched between them before Phulan pursed her lips and took his hand in hers. She placed the vial and key necklace in his palm and curled his fingers around them as she said, “He’s your brother. But you are responsible for keeping him quiet until the right time.”
With that, the mage turned and slipped back into the circle around the fire, settling in beside the older lycan, Zeke.
Madan stared after her for a long time before a whimper from Azriel had him tucking the vial into his pocket, stringing the key to the collar around his neck, and returning to his brother’s side.
This is what you deserve.