Chapter 39 Adrian
Adrian
Icouldn’t remember the last time I was sick. Shivers wracked my body, my bones aching with the ferocity of whatever illness burned my veins.
I barely even registered the door to my cell opening or the light that flickered on. My head felt impossibly heavy, making it difficult to lift my eyes, but when black boots entered my vision, I forced my gaze to follow the length of the body up to a familiar face.
“Elias,” I sighed, throat raw. Not from talking or screaming. Whatever it was Dante was doing to me, it completely fucked me up.
The wolf crossed his arms, concern darkening his eyes. “I’m going to send for a healer,” he said, taking a step back.
“Wait,” I coughed, squeezing my eyes shut against the pain in my head. It throbbed, making my eyes hurt. “Not yet.”
“Kingsley, you look halfway to death,” he snapped, a growl entering his voice. “I don’t know what he’s doing to you, but he’s draining you of your power right now.”
Another shiver wracked my body. “Yeah,” I replied, opening my eyes again slowly. “I feel it. But you have to bring Blythe. I don’t…I don’t trust him not to come out.”
Elias pressed his lips together before nodding once. “I’ll be back.”
When my eyes closed again, I didn’t try to force them open. I heard the soft sound of the door opening and closing, and behind my eyelids, the lights flickered off. There was a brief moment of relief as I was taken back to the darkness of my own mind, but not even that lasted long.
I felt the prickle of his presence in the back of my mind, too familiar now as he entered my thoughts.
What’s the matter, little brother? he whispered, voice chilling and painful as it reverberated through my head. Don’t you trust me to take care of you?
I drew in a deep breath that rattled in my lungs and released it slowly. Leave, I thought. Get out of my head.
His chuckle made bile rise in my throat. But don’t you want to know the secret Sable kept from you? I uncovered it finally, you know. And your mate…she’s not too happy about it.
The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. Before I could respond, the door to my cell opened again, the lights coming on.
I kept my eyes closed as I listened to Elias talk to the healer. The whole time, Dante was there, his presence remaining hidden within me.
Would he let me speak? Could I even warn them?
“He is terribly weak,” the healer said, her voice soft. “It’s worrying. You think this has something to do with…?” She trailed off, but I felt her move closer.
I could kill her through you, Dante whispered, making my stomach twist sharply. I could kill them all with you as my weapon, little brother.
I tried to open my mouth to warn them off, but no sound would leave my lips. No, I thought, heart pounding, crashing against my already sore ribs. Don’t.
He chuckled again. When the healer moved closer, I tried to open my eyes, lift my head, but I was trapped in my own body.
“Wait,” Blythe said, her voice hard. “He’s here.”
The air stilled, tension filling the cell.
“Leave,” Elias said, hopefully directing that at the healer. “You aren’t safe in here.”
“But he needs—”
“He needs you gone,” Blythe cut in, stopping the healer completely. “Is there anything we can give him?”
There was a beat of silence, silence that had Dante pressing further into my mind, silence that had the aches in my joints and bones worsening the longer he remained present.
“Give me a few minutes. I’ll brew something for him.” Then she was gone, taking her healing energy with her. The door to my cell closed again, though the lights didn’t go out this time.
“You coming out to play, Dante?” Elias said. “Or have you weakened Adrian too much?”
The way Elias was trying to goad Dante made him angry. But my brother didn’t assume control.
Maybe he couldn’t. Elias was right that I was weak. I’d weakened myself too much in the Old World, and when we returned, I’d done little to refill my magic reserves. Whatever Dante was doing now only made it worse.
Which he knew. So, I wasn’t sure what he wanted now. Did he need me weak? Dead, even?
Of course I don’t want you dead, Dante said, his voice, even in my head, starting to sound strained. I’m only looking out for you.
I didn’t bother responding or calling him out on how ridiculous that sounded. He wouldn’t be trying to kill me if he were looking out for me.
Fingers, cold and almost soothing, brushed my temple. I stiffened out of fear, not for myself, but for Blythe.
The words that came through weren’t Dante’s, sparking even more terror within me. It clamped tightly around my chest, striking at my heart without remorse.
You can follow his mind, Adrian, she said, her voice soft. He might be able to enter yours, but he opened a gateway. You can slip into his. He just doesn’t think you’re capable of doing it. He thinks you’re weak.
Blythe’s fingers fell away as she stepped back. She said something to Elias, her voice gentle and quiet, but I couldn’t hear her over the thundering beat of my heart.
But her words echoed in my head, over and over again. He opened a gateway. It seemed impossible; I wasn’t a mind mage, and as far as I knew, there were none in my father’s bloodline.
And yet…she wouldn’t lie about that, unless it was a trick. Unless Dante changed her words…
I squeezed my eyes shut and searched for him in my mind. His presence was no longer there; maybe Elias scared him off, or maybe something else was happening. He never stayed long anyway.
In the very back of my mind, where I knew Dante usually resided, I found the impression of his presence. The dark wrongness that seemed to spread through me whenever he entered my head. There was a flood of the dark magic in the back of my mind.
“The healer is back,” Blythe said, her voice cutting through my thoughts, pulling me away from Dante’s darkness.
For the first time since they entered the cell, I could open my eyes again. The sting of tears when I finally took in the pair was nothing compared to the exhaustion wracking my body. Dante might have been weakening me, but there was something about having them in here that made it worse.
He wants me alone. Isolated, I reminded myself as I watched Blythe open the door a fraction wider and take something from the healer. Elias wasn’t anywhere in my line of sight, but I felt him somewhere nearby. Maybe at my back. But why?
Blythe closed the door, and in her hands was a small ceramic cup she brought to me. Her dark eyes were bright with magic, which seemed to spill from her as she stopped in front of me.
For a moment, she looked over my head at the wolf behind me. Her lips didn’t move, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t speaking to him.
But the moment passed quickly. Her eyes dipped to meet mine. “I’m going to bring this to your lips,” she said, voice so eerily gentle, it didn’t quite suit her. “And you will drink it all.”
My skin prickled with another shiver that didn’t have me wincing in pain.
Without responding, I let my lips part. The cool ceramic hit my bottom lip as she tipped the liquid into my mouth.
It was thick like syrup, tasted sweet and almost sugary.
I winced each time I swallowed, taking all that she offered, unable to complain until the cup was removed and I was left gasping for breath.
Nothing happened, unless you counted the way it churned as it made its way through me. It took all the control I had not to throw up.
Blythe stepped back, her eyes darkening. “It should work its way through him over the next few hours,” she said, looking at me but directing those words to Elias. “I’ll keep an eye on him, if you want.”
Behind me, I heard him push off the wall he must have been leaning against. “Good. I’ll check in later. There’s a meeting I need to take.”
Blythe nodded once. From the corner of my eye, I watched Elias move to the door. He only cast a single look back at me. “Did he say anything?”
I blinked hard, swallowed, and groaned. “Yeah,” I managed, the word grating in my own ears.
Elias stopped at the door. “What did he say, Kingsley?”
“Only that he knew what Sable was hiding from us,” I croaked. “That Ivy knows. And it’s bad.”
The wolf’s throat bobbed as he swallowed hard. “Good work.”
Then he was gone, leaving me with Blythe. The witch didn’t move for a long moment, her eyes narrowing on me. There was a slight flush to her cheeks, something about her seeming…different.
“You understand what I meant?” she asked, crossing her arms. “He can’t stop you.”
I shuddered, looking away from her to the door. Unintentionally, I reached for that wrongness in the back of my mind. My heart rate spiked with fear at the thought of having to follow it to him.
But you might see Ivy again, I told myself, the thought bringing me some peace. You might be able to help her.
“Will it get him out of my head?” I asked.
“Maybe,” she replied. “But it will weaken him.”
That was good enough for me. The weaker he was, the less damage he could do to my mate. Maybe it could help her.
Anything to stop feeling useless. Like I couldn’t do anything to help her.
I tore my gaze from Blythe and closed my eyes again. As I focused on the darkness where Dante resided, I heard the door to my cell open and close. A small shiver of fear rushed through my body at the thought of her leaving me, too. Knowing I would go through this alone.
But there was nothing she could do to help me. I was the only one who could get through to him.
It was my fault he’d successfully gotten into my head in the first place.
Despite it all, I pushed my way through the darkness, seeking the tickle of wrongness that came whenever Dante appeared. I imagined how it felt; the fear, the magic shuddering through me, the sound of his voice grating on my nerves as he whispered about my mate.
I pushed through the rising sickness, the fear.
My heart thundered against my rib cage. The more I pushed, the worse it felt.
Sweat dampened my brow and upper lip. When I licked my lips, I tasted it on my tongue.
The reactions might have been real, but I knew the fear wasn’t.
I knew it was a trick, one of Dante’s manipulations.
I knew because it felt like his magic. It felt like something he used to do when he lived with our mother, and he didn’t want anyone going into his suite. It reminded me of things from my childhood I’d blocked from my memory.
Dante’s cruelty had always been there. Even when I was a child looking for friendship with my older brother. He’d been twisted, unyielding. And he’d hid it too well from those meant to protect me.
Another cold chill rolled down my spine. The skin of my arms prickled, awareness rushing through me.
The feeling of being watched hit me, but the knowledge that I was alone in my cell still had me tensing.
What are you doing, little brother? Dante hissed, reappearing in my mind. I could almost see him, dressed as he was when we found him in the dilapidated cottage, like a general conducting a war. Not a soldier, like he pretended to be, fighting on behalf of his people. But a figurehead.
I didn’t respond to him as I shoved further into the shadows where he usually waited. Shadows that were pliable, easy to push into.
My brother, by some miracle, was weak. There was nothing to keep me away. Not even his voice, shouting at me to stop.
When I stumbled out of the darkness, I wasn’t looking at my cell anymore. There was a fog that settled over the mind I was in, but through his eyes, I saw everything.
Screens. So many of them. Dante couldn’t stop me from taking it in.
Not the ones that were blurred out because they’d been cut off, or the ones on the cages of his shifters, who were escaping due to a male unlocking the doors.
Not the camera directly placed on the cage where my father and the rest of my mother’s mates were being held—alive, breathing, but preparing.
And definitely not the screen that showed Ivy, standing with the Primal from the Old World, conducting their escape.