What Lurks Between the Fates (Of Flesh & Bone, #3)(24)

She tossed her head back, and the Queen of Air and Darkness laughed.





6


Caldris


Heat filled my hands, the iron burned the skin from my body as I gripped the bars and pulled. They didn’t budge, refusing to release me from the cage Mab and her twisted little minion had left me in. There was nothing I could do to reach my mate while her pain flooded the bond, her blood staining my soul.

I felt it drip down her face, felt her need to push it away in order to fight. I felt the lingering terror that she refused to even acknowledge to herself for fear of not defending herself against the threat that was coming for her.

The roar that tore itself from my throat felt more like a cave beast than a man, deep and calling to every wild part of me that existed beneath civility. I was not human, but that didn’t mean I particularly enjoyed the reminder that I was one moment away from becoming more beast than Fae. The loss of my mate would be too much for me to bear, forcing me to descend into the feral madness that came with the loss of the half of my soul that I’d waited centuries to hold in my arms.

“Estrella!” I roared.

The sound echoed through the empty dungeon. Even the shades who had occupied Estrella’s cell shuddered, retreating into the back corner to hide from my wrath. I pulled back from the iron bars, my lungs heaving with the force of my distress as I glared at them. I shifted to the back of my cell, turning my body slightly to the side and vaulting myself forward. I ran with all the speed I could possess in such a limited space, hurling my body at the bars.

They groaned beneath the force of it, the reinforced iron tempted to give way to my strength, but still they held. They kept me caged as they were designed to do, refusing to let me make my way to freedom. I could sense her as clear as day, feel her just a few floors directly above the dungeon. Mab hadn’t chosen that location accidentally, placing Estrella in a place where she would be able to hear my struggles.

As if the way she could feel me wasn’t torment enough when we were forcibly separated.

Given my centuries spent under Mab’s control and imprisonment, I didn’t need to be able to hear her words to know what she would use as a threat to get what she wanted. She would torture. She would allow my mate to be raped. She would do whatever it took to break Estrella’s spirit so that she could take control of her.

I understood her game; the only thing I couldn’t be certain of was the strategy behind it. She could play the short game, taking what she wanted and discarding Estrella when she had it.

Or she could play the long one, slowly manipulating my inexperienced, young mate, who didn’t know any better than to fall for the games of the Fae. It was hardly Estrella’s fault she only had two decades of life to arm her against a creature who had ruled for centuries.

Any threat Estrella could pose, Mab had probably already faced. She’d lived and learned and fought and surrendered.

She’d won the battles Estrella had yet to fight.

I growled, the sound vibrating against the iron as Monos took a step toward my cell. “You must calm yourself. The guards will come,” she murmured softly, doing her best to appease the monster.

My lips pulled back into a snarl, revealing my teeth that I would have used to shred through her flesh in that moment if she’d had it. It didn’t matter that I’d fought to try to spare her from the fate that awaited her. Not when my mate was in danger.

I shoved my weight into the iron bars once more, fury overwhelming me when the dungeon door opened. Three guards stepped into the space, standing in front of the bars and exchanging nervous glances among themselves. One more stepped into the dungeon, a syringe clutched in his hands. I was no stranger to the contents of it. The potion had been crafted by the witches Mab employed and contained flecks of iron, weakening a Fae from the inside.

It was the only way for Mab to control me, even when she wasn’t nearby. The only way her guards could keep me complacent when she wasn’t around to enforce her orders.

Estrella screamed, the shrill sound of her shriek making the hairs rise on my arms. The moment they opened the gate to my cell and all four guards stepped into it, I lunged. My claws went for their skin, for any part of their body I could reach as they grabbed me to restrain me. I couldn’t access my magic, not with the iron surrounding me, but neither could they. So we grappled in a physical fight, tearing flesh from limbs. I dragged my black nails through the fleshy part of one of their eyes, not even bothering to pause to see who I’d maimed. They shoved me into the iron bars, and the skin along my back burned through my clothing as the one with the syringe got close enough to jab his needle into the side of my neck.

I gasped as heat flooded my body. Burning me from the inside out, searing me alive and making it so that my legs crumpled beneath me almost immediately.

It was a small dose, a precarious balance since too many iron flecks within the injection could kill a Fae, shred his heart in a way that was irreversible.

This didn’t offer me the peace of that oblivion, nor burden me with the regret for taking Estrella with me into death thanks to our blood vow. It sent me plummeting to the floor in a useless heap. My mate struggled upstairs, her fight out of reach and my body rendered entirely useless.

My eyes drifted closed as I fought to keep them open for just a few more moments. Just a few precious seconds in the hopes that my mate would survive. I lingered in that space between life and death that ran parallel to the moments between being awake and falling asleep. Estrella’s fight ended abruptly upstairs. Her body going slack with the end of her struggles and the death of her opponent tickled at my senses.