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At the door, I stopped, transforming back again. My body ached from the constant back and forth of shifting, but it was nothing compared to my desperation. The need to see and hold Maren overtook all else.
“Maren!” I yelled as I started down the rickety steps. “Maren, are you down here?”
But only the cold draft of the caste’s underbelly met my calls. Shivers slid down my neck as I descended, the blood roaring so intensely through my head, I couldn’t hear anything but the solid, uneven rhythm of my heart.
What did you do, Odette? Am I too late?
“Maren?” I tried again, my voice weakening as I tried to sniff the air for her.
A slight ruffling sound caught my attention, and I whirled around on guard, ready to pounce. Two luminous yellow eyes peered at me from the corner of the cavernous basement, way up in the rafters.
“Maren!” I choked. The owl’s wings expanded, and she shot down, transforming into her fae figure as she landed, squarely into my arms, shaking uncontrollably.
“Oh, gods,” she sobbed. “You’re safe! I thought she had done something to you, too!”
My arms wrapped tightly around her, and I drew her firmly against my naked chest, willing her to stop shaking. “What happened? Are you hurt? Is the baby…?”
I couldn’t bring myself to finish the question.
She shook her head. “I was locked in a spell, but it broke suddenly. I was too weak to run,” she mumbled. “And I thought Odette was coming back… she might come back.”
She pulled back, looking around in terror. I gently put her head down to my chest, shaking my head. “No. She’s not coming back,” I promised. “Never again.”
Maren raised her head to look at me worriedly, but I pressed her against me, and she ultimately let herself relax to the thudding of my heart.
“I didn’t see it,” she moaned. “I… I felt sorry for her, even after the way she treated me.”
“You can’t blame yourself for this,” I said tersely. “I didn’t see it, either. She had me fooled much longer.”
Again, she tried to look at me, the fear and worry in her eyes tangible, and I wanted to kill Odette all over again.
“What happened with… your father? Was it your father?” she asked, her confusion breaking my heart. “I don’t know what’s real anymore.”
“All of that can wait. There’s no danger, not anymore. That was not my father. Lucius is not coming back here. I have known that for a long time.”
“But—”
“No buts,” I whispered. Gently, I cupped her face in my hands and lifted her lips to mine. “Let’s get you out of this terrible place.”
Visibly swallowing, she nodded and allowed me to scoop her up in my arms and carry her back toward the stairs in the shadowy darkness.
Tomorrow morning, I would order this entire basement filled and sealed. No one would ever get caught down there again.
Chapter 20
Maren
Ihardly remembered Nyx carrying me upstairs and into the main bedroom of our suites. My aching, bruised body was laid in a hot, bubbly bath as he retreated to dress in the adjoining room before returning to shampoo my hair and rub my back.
Two dozen candles lit the tiles, the overhead lights off to cast a sensuous glow over the marble ensuite, soaking away all of my anxiety and stress until it felt like I’d just endured a bad dream.
I tried a few more times to ask for the details of what had happened, but Nyx refused to talk about it, insisting that it could wait until we were both in a better frame of mind.
“Tonight, we recover. Tomorrow, we can deal with the horror show,” he said, and I ultimately let it alone.
A servant brought hot tea, and one of the healers waited in the bedroom when the water finally turned too cold to stand.
“How’s the baby?” I asked worriedly as she looked me over, offering me runeshade peppers. I accepted them eagerly, even though I didn’t believe that dark magic had really been the driving force behind Odette’s actions. Bitterness, jealousy, some misguided sense of affection for my mate, perhaps, but despiteher use of dark magic with the ebonleaf, Odette had merely been a terrible fae.
