Chapter 18
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Knox
I moved swiftly through the remaining vines, tearing them free. When the last vine gave way, Devnair collapsed on the bed and stared at the doorway with unblinking eyes. His expression said he didn’t dare hope this was true.
When the sorcerer stirred, I shifted back to myself but kept my claws extended to sink them into his head. I lifted the caster from the bed.
“We have to go,” I said gruffly.
Devnair finally blinked and shoved himself up. He pulled the vines from his wrists and ankles before tossing them aside.
“How did you do that?” Devnair asked.
I didn’t answer him as I snatched a piece of discarded vine from the bed.
“You’re not much of a talker. Understood,” Devnair said.
When I lifted my head to glare at him, the elf held up his hands. Blood slid down his arms and chest as he stepped closer to Briar.
“We all have our secrets,” the elf said.
When he rubbed his bruised and bloodied wrists together, the action sent my mind screaming back to my time here. Entering this place, smelling and seeing it again, hadn’t triggered a tsunami of awful memories as I’d been too focused on finding Briar.
That simple, familiar motion caused them to assail me as I recalled the countless times I’d done the same thing after the casters finished with me and the vines released. The wrists always ached far more than the ankles.
Once the beast relinquished its hold, sliding back to whatever corner of my soul it resided in, it left me to deal with the aftermath of my sore, battered, bruised, and sometimes bloodied body.
I was also left to deal with the ramifications of my tattered soul and despair.
There was no hope in here, no relief; there was only suffering.
Having a mate only made things worse. Yes, she’d betrayed me and put me here, but even if the beast had replaced the animal I was supposed to become, it still acknowledged the mate bond, and so did I.
I was only supposed to be with my mate; she was the one made for me, yet I was here, in this place where they took everything and left us shells of our former selves. Yes, the beast took all the rapes, but it was still me deep inside, crying for a mate I’d also like to kill.
When I came back to myself, that simple rubbing motion had been my only sense of comfort from the ache created by vines wrapped so tightly they often restricted blood flow until my hands and feet swelled. It sometimes took hours for the feeling to return to my extremities.
“What about the others?” Briar asked.
Her question jarred me out of the past and back into the present. I blinked away the memories as I flexed the fingers of my free hand, enjoying the mobility in them.
She was the reason they imprisoned me here. She was the reason I knew what it felt like to have vines digging into my flesh as the thorns pierced my skin and blood fell. She was the reason for my shattered heart, the beast, and the curse that stole everything.
Lifting my head, I snarled at her. She pressed her back against the wall as terror filled her eyes. There was a time when I would have killed anyone who made such a look cross her face, but now, she could rot in Hell for all I cared.
Deep inside me, something tugged at my soul, demanding a link, a connection to the mate who’d stabbed me in the back.
I shoved it aside; for years, I’d craved my mate and struggled with my desperation to see and mark her again, but I’d always known it would never happen, and I would make sure of it, no matter how much I hungered to fulfill the mate bond again.
Briar was only good for telling me how to break that curse; after that, I’d make her pay for it all.
“What others?” Devnair asked.
She tore her wary gaze away from me. “The other prisoners.”
Devnair’s mouth parted. “Are you serious?”
“We can’t leave them here.”
He blinked at her a couple of times before his gaze shifted to me. “Is she really a caster?”
“Oh, believe me, her heart is most certainly as black as the rest of those fuckers,” I assured him. “Even more so.”
“That’s not true!” Briar blurted. “I’m not like them. I never have been!”
I couldn’t tell if she was trying to convince us of this or herself. When our gazes locked, she started to say something before clamping her lips together.
“Listen, honey,” Devnair said. “While I’m not going to kill you for what you are, there are many in here who wouldn’t hesitate to rip off your pretty little head and wear it as a trophy. If that’s what you want, then sure, let’s go free the others.”
“Of course that’s not what I want,” she retorted. “But I also don’t want to leave them behind. Why are you so willing to do so when you know exactly what they’re going through?”
“Because I know we’ll only get so far before one of them kills you, and while I abhor everything about your kind, you saved me, and for that, I owe you.
Is my repayment going to be helping you free the others until one of them finally kills you, or would you prefer to save the favor for a later time? ”
“I’d prefer not to leave them trapped here!”
“You’re forgetting one thing,” I interrupted. “I’m the one who has to free them, and I’m not doing it. Now, let’s go; we don’t have time for this.”
The night caster’s heels bounced off the floor as I dragged him toward the doorway. I looked back at Briar and the elf when I didn’t hear them moving behind me.
I’d drag her out of here if necessary. In fact, I’d enjoy doing it.