I stopped a few feet in front of Arcane and Brock. “Let him go first.”
Arcane thought it over for a moment, weighing his options before he threw Brock on the ground in front of Dovelyn. The moment Brock was out of Arcane’s hands, the princess twisted.She moved so fast, her small frame more agile than Athler’s. She was out of his grasp and dragging Brock over to Sie before he could blink.
I sprinted in the other direction, praying Athler and Arcane would chase me. A small smile spread over my face once I heard pounding footsteps. I risked a glance behind me and saw opal eyes gunning after me. In the distance, Arcane was chasing Sie, Dovelyn, and Brock, gaining speed as Brock slowed them down.
I focused on the path ahead of me and sprinted as fast as I could toward the castle. Once I made it to the jungle behind it, I could lose Athler under the canopy. Tezya told me Kallon made a portal by the hut decades ago, and if I couldn’t escape Lux, or if something happened to the one by the ocean, to meet there. Kallon would come for me.
I knew Dovelyn could manage everything else. She would get everyone to the portal. She just had to escape her older brother.
My entire body felt weak as I sprinted up the long rising incline. I pumped my arms hard, my legs feeling immensely heavy as they pounded against the pavement. I had drained myself too much. But I just had to last long enough to distract Athler so my friends could escape.
I just had to make it to the jungle…
But then I forgot why I was running. I didn’t want to leave Lux. In fact, I wanted the opposite. I wanted to be near him, near Athler.
I stopped immediately, my legs coming to a halt as I turned around and found opal eyes. A flash of dull red hair on pale skin came up beside me.
Yes. I wanted this—wantedhim. My mind went blank as all I thought about were those eyes. Then his veiny hands, about how they would feel touching me. I wanted them on me. No. Ineededthem on me. Desire pulsed through me, making me dizzy. My breath was already coming out in ragged pants from running, and it wasn’t subsiding.
I exhaled harder. I couldn’t focus on anything but him.
“Do you want me to fuck you?”
I nodded and relief fluttered through me at his returning grin and the attention he was giving me. He’d taken off the hideous mask so I could see his face—his beautifully crafted face—with high narrowed cheekbones and a slanted nose. How have I never found him attractive before?
“Hold out your wrists.”
I did immediately.
“Good girl,” he crooned.
My heart skipped a beat, and I wanted nothing else but to exist for him. I couldn’t hold back my smile as he clamped golden shackles around my two zeroes, and my stomach turned into a pit of butterflies, imagining him taking me in them.
I was making him happy. Iwantedto make him happy.
“Enough. Release her,” Arcane drawled as he came up beside us. “You have her chained, you don’t need to keep using your powers on her.”
Athler laughed as his ability lifted off me, and my mind was my own again. Realizing what happened, what he’d done to my body… I collapsed, my knees scraping into the pavement as I vomited on the ground next to me.
Disgust ran through me as my adrenaline settled, and my fate was sealed. I couldn’t stop gagging. He changed my actions in an instant. He made me want him, made me forget about everything else in the world except for him.
Arcane shared a look with me that I couldn’t quite read. His gaze roamed over my flushed cheeks to the vomit on the ground. I prayed everyone else got away, that I didn’t just let myself get caught for nothing.
I staggered backward, trying to put space between Athler and myself, but the chains pulled taut. It was already too late. There was no way I’d be able to escape now.
I wasn’t making it to the hut.
TWENTY-SIX
TEZYA
“Check all the portals,”I shouted to Kallon, not caring who heard us now. “I’ll cover the area by foot. Something’s wrong.”
I turned away from the bay and started sprinting to where Scottie was supposed to be. I felt our connection teeter in and out right after the explosion, fading weaker and weaker until it was nothing. First her panic came through, then desire, before pure terror overtook her. I couldn’t make sense of the shift of emotions, but my gut told me it was Athler.
“Tezya, wait!” Kallon screamed, but I didn’t stop. I just prayed she could cover more ground without me and I wasn’t making a mistake by separating. Something told me Scottie was somewhere else, that she wasn’t by the portal.
Distinctly, I heard the gasps from a few Luxian citizens who saw me tear through the streets. Some shouted the youngest prince was back in the city, others screamed for soldiers to take me down. Dovelyn’s invisibility was gone, but I didn’t pause long enough to see or care about the damning consequences.
