Under him, the beast rumbled.
They took to the skies, the air charged with electricity. The dragon cut through clouds, leaving a misted chill in its wake. The rain was blinding, lashing against them. Az’s hands curled around the knobs protruding from the dragon’s spine, his heart hammering.
I’m coming, Lu,Az thought, hoping, somehow, that she could feel his devotion through their stretched-thin bond.
In the distance, the castle crumbled. One of the outer towers gave way with a distant groan. Dust plumed among the thick fog and rain.
Over the beating of the dragon’s wings and the roar of rain, Bastian’s voice was barely audible?—
"I fear we have not seen the worst of it."
5
AS WICKED AS...
LUELLA
Luella ran a shaking, pale hand over the soft chain of a necklace. It pooled through her fingertips like fine silk, the links so delicate that they moved like water, tinkling softly as they clinked against each other.
"How beautiful," she murmured, tilting her head as she let the necklace fall through her fingers into her awaiting palm.
She did it again. Again and again, she let it slip. She was arrested by the way the soft, golden chains draped over the tips of the stalactites, making the whole cavern sparkle. No, not a cavern. But a den. Adragon’sden—Luella was in the very heart of it.
Barefoot—her shoes had been lost in the chaos of the storm—she padded across the stone floors, wary of the dip in the center. Her balance was already off; she didn’t want to risk it further. Every step sent aches up her spine and out through her wings, folded close to her back without her permission. It was hard to walk; she found her hand braced against the wall as she stopped to catch her breath.
She couldn’t rest, even with the dragon King’s lingering demand rolling around in her head.
She eyed his furs. Piles and piles of warm blankets, the sides slightly risen as if it were a bird’s nest. It looked so… peaceful. She yearned to crawl underneath the piles of furs, but she?—
Couldn’t.
Not knowing they were out there, in her storm, while she was here, safe.
She curled her hands weakly against the stone wall. "Come back to me. Please. I don’t want to do this alone." She spoke to no one and nothing, but perhaps, the tiniest part of her wondered if something was listening. "You took me from everything. Stole me away in the night, so you do not get to leave me here."
Even though she was alone, it was still cathartic to free herself of her innermost thoughts. Like wisps of air seeping outward and billowing about the room.
Her throat burned, her lips cracking as she licked them, desperate for water.
"Do not leave me here." Luella fisted the necklace in her hand, feeling the delicate links cutting into her palm.
The mountains of jewels glittered in Vale’s den, prismatic light reflected upon the walls, mingling with the orange glow of the fire from the stone hearth.
Small tendrils of brighter lights, shining and flickering like stardust, danced with playful movements. But she blinked, and it was gone. A trick of the light.
She had never felt particularly beholden to the gods of the fae, nameless and numberless, as they were. Standing there, feelingsomethingprick at the back of her neck and warm the inside of her soul, she wondered why the gods of the shifters were not revered by all.
She hadseen. She had felt the stardust against her skin in the Temples—an undeniable force that could not be explained away.
Her dreams…
Caliban—pulled inside the cave in the Silva Noctis. The way he had screamed and pleaded for a savior as thick shadows had roamed about the darkened earth—his claim of being the Tenebrae.
Luella understood that just as the Lux made her feel warm and peaceful, thoughts of the Tenebrae made a yawning pit open up inside her, churning with unease.
Slowly, she walked to the small shelf carved into the stone wall, jewels and necklaces heaped atop it like they were meaningless, and placed the necklace back where she had gotten it from.
The gleam of the jewels was a sharp contrast against the stone walls, the shadows in the dark spaces in which the firelight did not penetrate.
