How long had it even been since they’d staked us, beaten us, thrown us down here?
Hours? Days? An eternity?
There was only one way into the dungeon—the steel door they’d dragged us through—and no one had come or gone since.
The whole place reeked of death.
Jax and I were shoved into one of a handful of barred cells, all of them empty but for a lone prisoner in the cell directly across from ours. Now, a pained gasp emanated from his side of the dungeon, but I had no idea who or what lurked behind those bars. It was so dark, I couldn’t make out much of anything beyond our immediate area—beyond the wet stone and waste and the moldy rags that were probably once prisoners, their bones picked clean by rats. It hurt to breathe. Hell, I wasn’t even sure I remembered how. Everything attached to me was bleeding and raw, inside and out, and my whole body trembled with a gaping, soul-sucking need foronething. One fucking little black pill to make it all go away.
But that old Devil wasn’t dancing with me tonight. Only those ever-shifting shadows and my rancid thoughts and the demon I still called my brother, slumped against the damp stone wall right next to me, the sound of his ragged heartbeat and the acrid scent of his warm, hellspawn blood the only evidence he was still here with me.
Hell, maybe hewasn’there. Maybe we’d died in that throne room together on our knees, and this was our purgatory. Or maybe we’d never even escaped Midnight at all. Maybe the last two years in New Orleans had all been a fucking dream and we’d been trapped in the dungeons the whole time, wasting away breath by breath. Memory by memory.
“Jax,” I whispered for what felt like the hundredth time. “Jax.”
No response but the squeaking of another rodent gnawing at what I now realized was a festering corpse in the far corner. A red-haired fae from another realm, naked and long since forgotten.
My mind spun, still trying to piece together how everything had gone to shit at the Feast of the Beast.
The pain of Gem’s betrayal cut through me anew. How could she have set us up like that? How had I not seen it coming?
And Keradoc… What game of illusions was he playing? For those few hazy moments, kneeling in a pool of my own blood before the dais, I’d looked upon his face and seen…
No. Impossible. Just more ghosts and wishful thinking and the byproducts of a mind long ago poisoned by drugs and fantasies.
“But I could’veswornit was him,” I said anyway, as if I still needed someone to convince me otherwise. “Silver eyes. Those silver fucking eyes. I saw them, Jax. Clear as the first moon. But then they vanished.Hevanished. Fucking illusion magick, or… I don’t know. Another one of Melantha’s games or the Dream finally scrambling up whatever’s left of my brain.”
Next to me, Jax coughed, the sound of it rattling through his chest. I’d taken out the second round of bolts and fed him more of my blood, but healing was slow going for both of us. The guards weren’t exactly gentle when they tossed us into the cell, and the water Keradoc was supposed to send us still hadn’t materialized.
“I lost him again,” I said, my mind swirling in and out of consciousness, traveling through time and memory. “All of them. They were never the same after that. It should’ve been me, Jax. Not him. He was the good one. It should’ve been me.”
Jax coughed again, the scent of a fresh spray of blood tingeing the air.
My stomach churned with hunger for it, but even if I’d wanted to drain him dry, the demon blood wouldn’t sustain me, and there were no humans down here. Not tonight.
“Did you ever have one?” I asked, my speech starting to slur. “A family? Were you someone’s son? A father? A brother?”
At that, the demon finally spoke, every word gritted out through teeth clenched in pain. “What thefuckare you on about, Saint? A brother? More blood and roses bullshit?”
“My family… my fae family. A long time ago.”
“You had a family? Good for you. They know what a fuckup you are?”
“Yeah, I think they might.”
“And Haley? What about her. What abouther, you fuck? You left us days ago without a word, nothing more than some bullshit note, and I defended you. I looked into her sad, worried face and actually defended you. Where the fuck were you?”
“With Gem. Figuring out the plan, just like I said.”
“Trading secrets with the enemy. Playing right into her fucking trap.”
“If I’d known she was planning to stab us in the back, I would’ve—”
Jax coughed again, cutting me off.
Just as well. When it came down to it, I had no explanation. No excuses. I was the one who’d trusted her, who’d spent so much time with her—then and now. I should’ve seen it coming. Yeah, Gem was an old friend—one who’d proven her loyalty long ago. But still. Therehadto have been signs. Signs I fucking missed, andthatwas on me.
“I’d say I was sorry,” I said, “but I don’t think you’re the one who needs to hear it.”
