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My brow furrows.What does that mean?Everything he gives me is so vague, I’m beginning to wonder if I should trust him at all.
“Zora, I saw something. He pulled a past thread along with his most recent ones.” The Prince’s eyes trace me with worry. “You were in it. At least, I think it was you. You were younger. Much, much younger. Maybe only three or four. And it was a flash of a second. Your mother screamed your name as Ferris ripped a boy from your grasp. You were unconscious.”
My heartbeat slows. “I was two.” I look back at Ferris, an itch sprouting in my skull. He looked familiar, and that’s why. He’dbeenthere the night my parents were murdered. I may have been young, but one look at his face has the memory hooking into me. My chin trembles, anger surging through me. “He took him. He took my brother.”
The Prince runs his palm over my arm.
I yank myself away, unable to stomach any kind of touch. Not with that memory stuck in my head. “Did you see anything else? Anything that would lead me back to my brother?”
The Prince pinches the bridge of his nose. “No. Fuck. I’m sorry. I think maybe Ferris was going to bring those threads forward. He wanted to look at them, but –”
“But I slit his throat.” I grasp my head, knotting my fingers in my hair. I give him a desperate look. “Can you read the threads of the dead? I mean his body is still fucking warm.”
The Prince’s face darkens. “I can, but—”
“Then do it.” I close the distance between us and grab his hands. I clutch them to my chest, panic rushing through me. “Please.”
He breathes out slowly then nods. “Okay.” He tugs free of me and prowls toward Ferris, his movements slow. His throat bobs as he kneels beside the large man and reluctantly places a hand on his knee.
“Can I help at all?” I ask, kneeling beside him.
But he’s already gone. Eyes closed, forehead scrunched in concentration. His breaths return to a shallow, stuttering state.
“Hey,” I touch his leg gently, but he doesn’t respond.Why can’t he hear me? He could before.
The Prince groans, and the hand against Ferris’s knee trembles. Shining color peeks beneath his palm, tugging up from Ferris’s knee and into The Prince.
My eyes widen as I realize they’re threads. So. Many. Threads. I remember the pain his sister went through just to extract one in the club that first night.Fucking hell.
The Prince gnashes his teeth, his torso breaking out in a sweaty sheen. He leans into me, and I wrap my arms around him.
“It’s okay. I’m here,” I mutter into his hair.
His arm falls from Ferris’s knee, and I suck in a breath of horror as the threads shoot forward and into The Prince’s chest. He cries out in pain as they tunnel under his skin, his tattoos sizzling out of focus.
My stomach drops as I catch a glimpse of a chest ravaged by scars. A chest unmarked by ink but torn by a blade.He lied to me. I pull him closer with a scowl.His tattoos are as much of an illusion as his eyes.
He trembles as the last of Ferris’s threads slam into him.
I press my fingers to the side of his neck, and my heart thumps wildly as his slows. “Don’t you fucking dare,” I growl and slap his cheek a few times.
Blood trickles out of his nose, and the illusion across his chest settles back into solid ink. His eyelids flutter open.
“You bastard,” I hiss.
He grimaces.
I calm as his pulse returns to normal, then I give his cheek another firm slap.
He scowls at me and lifts himself from my grasp, but he doesn’t stand, still shaken.
“You almost died, and don’t even get me started on the illusion on your chest.” I cross my arms and glare at him.
“Zora.”
“Why would you put yourself through that? If I knew it was going to kill you, I wouldn’t have asked you to do it.”
“Zora.”
