“…are they doing inhere?” A sharp voice was saying. Female. Official-sounding. “Who authorized this?”
“Keradoc ordered the fugitives to be placed in custody,” came the reply—a gravelly voice belonging to one of the guards who’d tossed us in here.
“No prisoners are to be housed on this level while prisoner 6712 is in holding,” the woman said.
“But we were told to isolate them and—”
“Wait here and stay out of my way,” she commanded. “I will deal with this myself, since you’re obviously too incompetent to follow even the most basic orders.”
Whoever this woman was, it seemed she outranked the lowly guard. I caught the outline of his hunched form as he nodded and stepped back, and then the door slammed shut once more, bathing the room in darkness and locking the woman inside with us.
Jax and I exchanged a glance. This was our shot.
The prisoner in the other cell tried to speak—6712, I presumed—but his words were weak and watery, and the woman ignored him. She headed right for us, her face shadowed, her every footstep echoing through my skull as I gathered my strength and prepared to—
Wait… No. It can’t be. Is that…?
I narrowed my eyes, desperate to make out her features in the utter darkness, but I couldn’t.
Not until it was too late.
She reached the bars of our cell. Peered inside.
“Holy shit,” she breathed. “Saint? Is that you? And… Jax?”
Her violet eyes widened, and in them I saw the shattering of the fragile peace Jax and I had just managed to stitch together.
I saw the shattering of our bond, once and for all.
The demon peeled himself off the wall and took a wobbly step toward her. Wrapped his fingers around the bars. Gasped.
Then, in a pained voice that punched a fist straight through my chest, he spoke the name of the woman he once loved. The woman I’d sworn to him—on our very oath—was dead.
“Oona?”
9
ELIAN
Oona,” I echoed, not sure what else to say. Her name hung in the stale air like another corpse.
I still couldn’t believe she was here. Now, of all nights, in all places.
I’d never trusted her back then—not until my final hours in Midnight the last time around. Before that, she’d been spending a lot of time with Jax, and I knew there was something fucked about her—just knew it. But he’d refused to see it.
So I followed her. Spied.
Took a few weeks, but I finally nailed her. Turned out she wasn’t just some hot little blue-haired fae who liked to hang out at the pub in the Hollow and play Midnight card games with my demon brother.
She was military. Keradoc’s Lieutenant General. And worse, his fucking daughter.
I wanted to kill her. Almost did, too, but she talked me out of it. Convinced me she really did love Jax, but couldn’t escape her duty to the realm. To her father, despite his legendary cruelty.
Now, Jax continued to stare at her, his every cell already vibrating with the rage I knew was gathering inside him. I could practically hear it—the rush of blood, the thrum of his heart, the tightening of his muscles.
For his sake—and because I’d believed her—I let her live that night. Buried her secret deep inside, right along with everyone else’s. And in exchange, she owed me. Perpetually. That was our arrangement, and it worked out well for both of us. She got to keep Jax and the illusion she was just another fae making her way on the mean streets of Amaranth City. I got intel on Keradoc and his officials whenever I needed it, and access to resources that would’ve otherwise been far out of my league.
Then, two years ago, Hudson’s past came back to bite him in the ass, stirring up the kind of trouble that earned most people a one-way trip to the bottom of Beggar’s Moat. The gargoyle never would’ve told me about it directly—rather than risk us getting involved and getting hurt, that sonofabitch warrior was ready to let himself be captured, tortured, and executed by Keradoc’s men.
