I luscelered to my room. My new door remained unharmed, and my shadows were still in place around the knob. I opened it, ran to my desk, and rummaged through the drawers, but the key wasn’t there. Then I remembered I’d placed it on the side table next to my bed.
Minutes later, I unlocked the dungeon doors and stalked toward the pet’s cell.
He looked up at my approach, but like Lucille, he seemed too numb to care why I was here. I guaranteed he felt my rage. His attention flicked to my swarming shadows, yet he still stayed put on the ground.
After unlocking his cell, I grabbed him by the neck of his shirt and slammed him into the wall.
He barely reacted. “I wondered when you’d stake your claim. I remember what it felt like when my praesidiumacted up.”
My fist paused midair.
He grinned, but it lacked humor, more a baring of teeth than anything. “Didn’t catch those memories, then, I guess. Thought you already knew. I don’t normally share that part of me with anyone. Lucille doesn’t even know.”
At her name, the rage and my protective instinct returned. I drove my fist toward his face, and it crashed into a wind barrier.
“We went through a lot of trouble to rescue the prince’s ass. I’m not about to have you throw it back in our faces because something pissed you off,” Alexei said, walking down the dungeon hall.
I ignored him, gathering my shadows. Alexei blasted me with a shot of wind, throwing me from the pet’s cell. I threw a shadowball at his chest and luscelered simultaneously. He dodged, and I made it into the cell, only to be thrown against the wall.
“I can do this all day. I have backup coming any minute.”
I pulled at my shadows and made to attack again, but someone luscelered between me and the pet.
It wasn’t MJ like I’d expected, although I could see her fiery hair from the corner of my eye. No, that someone was Lucille. MJ must’ve flown her here.
“Ronen! What are you doing?” she demanded, eyeing my shadows like the threats they were. That same foreign energy twisted inside her mind.
The fact that I felt it—and now knew what it was—only made my power whip around more chaotically. One shadow lashed out, sliding past her. MJ’s flames couldn’t burn it. Alexei’s wind couldn’t blow it away. It circled the pet’s neck, cutting off his air.
“Stop!” Lucille cried, stabbing me with an icicle.
It pierced my uniform, but the moment it touched my skin, it melted.
She stared at it, stunned. But her shock only lasted a second, interrupted by Aspen’s gasps. Next, she wreathed her hand in Glory and threw a ball at my face. I let it hit me, smiling when the searing heat turned into a brush of warmth, caressing my cheek before it dissipated.
Desperate, she shoved me back. “Ronen, please! Please stop!” she begged me.
It was her begging. She really didn’t want any harm to come to Aspen. But it was also the energy prompting her, twisting her insides until she listened to its controlling urges.
I couldn’t let the pet live.
Then she did the only thing that could’ve possibly stopped me.
She grabbed one of my Soul Swords, stepped away from me, and held it to her neck. “Stop, or I’ll slit my throat.”
“Whoa, beautiful. You’ve gone too far. Give Ronen his sword back. He won’t hurt the prince, right, Ro?”
My heartbeat picked up speed. I knew she wasn’t joking. That unstoppable energy would force her to take her life to save him. I’d lived through that horrific scene before.
“Right,” I said, instantly releasing Aspen. “Lower the sword, Lucille.”
She didn’t. “Explain.”
Any other moment, I’d admire the steel in her spine and the fury in her face. Right now, her pain didn’t control her. But I wouldn’t be able to explain anything until she returned my sword, and I killed Aspen.
“Yes, General. Explain,” the pet said, realizing something else was going on here.
Out of all of them, MJ was the only one who knew the full extent of my story. Alexei knew most, but not this piece.
