CHAPTER 29
It felt like hours had passed while I lay on the floor.
My focus drifted between the rhythmic tick of the clock on the wall and the pulse of agony around my ribs. The bruises across my body had settled into a constant, grinding ache, and I dared not shift too much. Each breath scraped against my lungs, like inhaling shards of glass.
Varian returned. He questioned the Scions, what they had done, why I wasn’t moving.
It sounded like disapproval, but I might have imagined it.
He stepped closer, sneering down at me, muttering something I couldn’t make out.
That was when I realised—I wasn’t hearing properly.
Not because they were far, but because my senses had dulled.
I barely registered his hand pressing against my ribs until searing pain lanced through me. An unforgiving heat, wrapping tight around broken bone, then nothing.
“Get up,” Varian barked, stepping back. “It won’t be long now. Hold her against the wall.”
A pop in my ears sent the world rushing back in. My next breath came easier, the sharp pain in my torso strangely absent. The rest of my body still throbbed: the bruises, the swelling, the deep-set ache of fists and boots branding my skin.
Hands slid beneath my arms and yanked me upright. I didn’t fight it. Not when Caius dragged me toward the wall, not when he shoved me back against the cold wood and pinned me there.
◆◆◆
They were here.
My heart thundered in my chest, a frantic rhythm that pulsed all the way to my wrists, bound high above my head. My body was stretched taut. A knife hovered dangerously close to my throat.
The Scions shifted in place. They had been ready for this, stony expressions locked on the door, waiting for my friends. For him. My stomach churned as I beheld my captors. The trap they laid.
The storm outside howled louder.
Even though I didn’t know how he’d found us, Reagan had come for me.
Maybe some breadcrumbs Varian had deliberately left behind.
It didn’t matter. What mattered was the turbulent wind shrieking through the trees, the tempestuous rain slamming against the roof, and whatever these bastards had planned to do.
Whatever he would see when he looked at me.
I was a weakness, and Varian had seen it, exploited it.
The door slammed open, and three figures stood there, water dripping from their cloaks. Reagan’s rage filled the air like a thunderstorm, his fists clenched at his sides, his face sombre, tight, and covered in shadows.
His gaze landed on me, and I almost shuddered.
Relief and angst. Thunder cracked outside, shaking the walls, a violent echo of the storm he brought with him.
Those dark pools of rage swept over me, taking in every brutal detail—the knife pressed against my throat, the grip anchoring me in place, the bruises marring my arms and legs, the blood crusting the split in my cheek.
Tendrils of lightning coiled from his hands, thick and writhing, but I wasn’t sure he even noticed. His jaw locked, his shoulders taut with barely restrained wrath. For a single, breathless moment, the entire room stilled. Even my captors hesitated, didn’t move.
Then Finn and Gwin stepped in behind him, their shock lasting only a second before it was swallowed by unbridled rage. Finn’s mouth curled into a snarl. Gwin’s eyes narrowed into slits, assessing and fiendish.
Caius stood at my side, keeping me bound. The knife hovered closer, close enough for the scent of rusted metal to fill my nose. He didn’t look at me. His gaze was fixed on Reagan, daring him to take one wrong step.
Varian was in front of us, standing between the other two Scions, his posture perfectly calm.
I wanted to warn them about the trap in the next room, but Caius had promised that knife would find a lung if I tried, and the odds were worse against me than against them.
Reagan’s voice was a low, grave sound that drifted over the room.
“You have no idea what you’ve done. Tell your lackey to put that knife down before I kill him with it.”
Varian’s lips curved into a mocking smile. “You don’t give orders here, cousin,” he said lightly. “I didn’t want her to get hurt, but you forced my hand, since you banned me from my estate.”
Reagan’s eyes swept around the ceiling, as if he were sensing the ward. He assessed the room, searching for weaknesses in the barrier they’d erected there, searching in Varian himself.
Gwinifer’s gaze flicked to mine, and I widened my eyes, willing her to understand as I glanced toward the adjoining room on the right, then back to her. She followed, her brows furrowing.
Reagan glowered at Caius, the muscles bunching in his jaw, a concentration that meant an attack. But nothing came. Caius didn’t bleed. No, they had prepared for that. So he looked. Searched. Weighed the options.
Strike, and that knife would slash my throat.
“What is your plan here? Threaten me? Do you think I’m going to let you walk out of here with whatever you want?” Reagan asked.
The Scions stood stiff, almost unmoving, except for the one who glanced warily over his shoulder at Varian, who didn’t so much as flinch.
“I think you’ll want to hear my proposal.
Otherwise, Miss Darling will have some rather ugly cuts on her neck to add to the nasty bruises.
And it is such a pretty neck, isn’t it?” he said, throwing a sneer at me.
“A delicate neck, one I had the pleasure of tasting this evening when she fell for my glamour.”
I could almost feel it again, the drag of his tongue on my skin. Varian’s tongue.
Reagan’s eyes slid to mine, noting my blink before returning to his cousin. The expression on his face had thickened the air, like a promise of ruthless intent.
“Not even Godric himself will be able to help you when I’m done with you,” he said. “I promise you.”
Varian only held his gaze, then gave a subtle nod to Caius.
The knife moved up and closer, grazing my cheek. My breath hitched as it carved a slow, searing line across my skin. The sting burnt hot, sharp enough to make me grimace.
A flash of brilliant white light cut across the room, aimed at the ward, fizzling against the sheer wall separating us.
The sound of static hummed, echoing louder and louder against my ears.
A ceramic vase toppled from the table, shattering on the floor.
The barrier rippled before fractures splintered across its surface, one after another, as Reagan’s power carved through it like brittle paper.
The staff joined him, sending flashes of blue and red light colliding with the ward.
Gwin’s power seemed to tear the thin membrane apart bit by bit, widening the hole her brother had created in the barrier.
The sharp static was deafening. In response, the Scions wielded their own streams, trying to cover the cracks.
It wasn’t enough. They were breaking the ward faster than the Scions were putting it together.
Varian spun, staring directly at Caius and me. Then, moss-coloured ribbons lifted another transparent wall around the Scion and me, separating us from the rest.
The large ward, the room ward, had finally drifted to the floor like a fragile veil, its tendrils of mana undulating until they dissipated into nothingness.
Reagan crossed to where Varian was, sending his cousin to the wall with bone-breaking force. The other Scions, Goyle and Dexter, advanced on the emissary and battle mage.
Gwin was fast. She had one of them on the ground, frozen just like I was in the corner of the room.
Finn didn’t wield. Instead, he deflected a spell’s blast with his own power and decided to go for a physical restraint.
He jabbed the mage, twisting him with skill until he had his knees on his back.
The Scion was pinned to the ground with a surge of royal blue power.
Reagan’s voice cut through the hum. “Tell him to release her,” he rasped, his tone murderous, his hands gripping his cousin’s neck.
Another wall they had to break to free me. I could still be used as leverage until then.
Varian, who held both hands to Reagan’s wrist, only said, “I’m the only reason she’s alive. If you kill me, Caius knows to kill your human and fling out of here.”
In response, Caius’s hand pushed my chin upward, exposing my neck, until the cold surface of the blade pressed against it. I swallowed, looking down my nose to see Reagan’s face with cold rage, his fingers closing tighter around Varian’s neck, who seemed to struggle to breathe.
I dreaded the sharp blade that could so swiftly kill me, dreaded how easily Varian toyed with my life, my whole body throbbing in pain, stretched to the limit.
But it was the fear of not knowing whether it would be enough to halt him—his need for blood, his need to act—that had me bracing for that unforgiving blade.
A choked noise left Varian’s mouth. Despite the lack of air, his voice managed to get out. “What’s it going to be, cousin? Your revenge or her life?”
Reagan held his cousin’s stare. Thinking, I realised. But Varian didn’t wait. He lifted his gaze to Caius, giving the mage a meaningful look.
Caius turned his head toward me, his face splitting into a sinister smile that made my heart plummet. In the next instant, the knife went through the side of my stomach.
Sharp, agonising pain surged deeper than any bruise, stealing the air from my lungs and leaving trails of fire in its wake.
I screamed without a sound, eyes squeezed shut as if that could stop the blinding pain. There was no air. My wrists strained against the invisible binds holding me, but there was no escape.
“Enough.” A voice, distant and frantic, drowned out by the storm and the agony roaring in my ears.
The pain didn’t stop. Not immediately, not in the next heartbeat. And then, without warning, it vanished.
Air rushed into my lungs, ragged and unsteady. Then I retched, my head bowing violently as if my very insides were spilling forth, soaking into my dress and pooling on the floor. My ears rang with the echoes of screams.
“Pathetic,” Caius sneered.