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“Why?” she demands. “Where are they?” But she already knows. I can see it in her eyes.
Hyperion took them.
She flinches—my strong, brave spitfire flinches. She’s beginning to understand what I truly learned a week and a day ago.
Loving someone leaves you powerless.
“Then I’ll go after them.”
I explode toward her, barely stopping without touching her, my face lowered so it’s on level with hers. I shake my head slowly, forcefully. You will leave now. You cannot go after them.
“Say it,” she says.
She already knows the truth. I can tell. Even without the bond, I know her. You’re the one he wants. He’s holding them hostage to get to you—just in case you’re still alive somewhere.
“And if I don’t go?” She lifts her eyebrows.
I hate how smart she is. I hate it.
Azar was the only thing that kept Hyperion from hurling Liz into that volcano when those demons demanded her. With them gone. . .
“Axel, if I don’t go there and face Hyperion, then what?” Her jaw is set, and I know what she’s saying.
Going there would mean dying, I say. You can’t go.
“But if I don’t go,” she says. “He’ll eventually try throwing them in, won’t he?”
I wish I could argue with her logic, but I can’t.
“Where are they, exactly?”
Hanging over the volcano in a cage, I finally admit.
“Can they see the. . .” She cuts off and looks around.
Everyone here knows about the demon creatures in the volcano, I say. It’s not a secret. I don’t know whether your siblings can see them, but the creatures pay no attention to anyone who comes near or hangs over the volcano. They’ve only ever cared about one person, and so Hyperion only cares about one person.
“I’m sure he’s plenty upset he didn’t chuck me in when he had the chance.”
Then you understand why you must go, I say, just to her.
“I understand why that’s what you want me to do.” She steps closer, and lifts her hand to the side of my face, caressing my golden scales. “But Axel, I won’t leave my family, and I won’t leave you. If you truly ever thought that was an option, you don’t know me at all.”
You must go. I huff. I’ve ordered it, and if Gaia and Agrippa and Phileas and Wilhelm have to drag you back, kicking and screaming, so help me, they’ll do it.
She steps forward again, ducking around my head, and wraps her arms around my neck. When she squeezes, my stupid, traitorous heart lurches. I yearn for this moment to continue, but it can’t. I won’t allow her to become bonded to me, not now that Azar’s dead.
There aren’t many things in this world that can harm me, even now, but the idea of having her here but being unable to protect her? That’s the worst nightmare I can imagine.
And it’s staring me in the face.
The one who wants her dead is far too powerful for me to resist.
Running away is our only option.
But when Liz finally releases me and steps back, something strange happens. I start to feel a weird sort of pulling sensation, as if something is sucking away at my very soul.
Axel-Azar, Prince of Flame and Earth, she says just to me, you are mine. You will always be mine. Whether you can set the world on fire or just set my heart aflame, you are mine, and I won’t give you up. She reaches up and grasps my face, turning it toward hers, and the pulling feeling intensifies.
