Sun filtered into the room behind her, illuminating her in a golden glow.
I skimmed my hands up higher, the tips of my fingers leaving indentations on her ass as she ground her hips against me. “Lennox.”
I jerked up, my eyes flying open as my heart hammered in my chest. I winced as I sat up straight, my back protesting at my position slumped against the wall in the hallway outside of Luce’s room.
Reality came crashing back down.
Lennox wasn’t here.
She had given herself up to save the rest of us.
She was now a captive. Had been for almost two weeks now.
I turned my gaze to my right, ignoring the persistent ache in my chest at her absence. It hadn’t lessened since I had woken up back in Alethens without her. If anything, it only grew—grew more incessant withevery day we spent apart.
The constant pain in my chest and the new marking on my palm got Kara thinking.
She was certain Lennox and I were mates. She had looked into it—found stories of markings similar to ours and recollections of what happened when mates were separated from one another for too long.
It all made sense, that Lennox and I could be mates.
But I didn’t want to get my hopes up.
If it was true, it would explain my pain. Mates weren’t meant to be apart for extended periods of time. Their hearts would ache for one another.
That’s what it felt like—like my heart was constantly aching for her—trying to claw its way out of my chest to be with Lennox. My supposed mate.
Mate.The word echoed in my head.
No matter how much I wanted to believe it was true, there was a seed of doubt lingering in my mind. If she was my mate, why had our path to be together been so difficult? Why had Lennox resisted us being together for so long?
If she was my mate, why would she give herself up and leave me? Leaving me yearning for her with this persistent ache in my chest—in mybones.
I wouldn’t believe any of it until I held Lennox in my arms again. Until I saw the matching markings wrapped around her own marriage mark.
Did she even have the markings? Did she know we were mates?
The only thing I did know was I missed her, and I loved her.
It was those two truths I clung to in the darkness that had seeped into my days.
I directed my gaze toward Declan and Kara; they were talking quietly as they sat shoulder-to-shoulder against the wall across from me. Nico was pacing back and forth in front of the door to Luciana’s room.
I hoped this spell worked.
It better fucking work.
Even if it led us to the wrong location, a wrong location was better than nothing.
I just needed something, something to go after. A thread to grasp on to, to distract myself from the fact that my wife was a captive. That the High Queen of Lethenia had offered herself up on a silver platter to Adreona.
Lennox’s love for her sister was something I had always admired about her, but it didn’t stop me from being selfish and wishing she’d choose herself for once.
Wishing she’d choose us.
I wished I knew how she was. What were they forcing her to do? If they laid a finger on her, I’d?—
My head flew in the direction of the door opening. I rushed to my feet as Luciana entered the hallway. Dried blood was crusted in her nostrils and smeared across her cheek and the back of her hand. Her eyes were hollow, dark circles encasing them.
