I shoved him slightly to the side, risking a glance into the room, when my mouth fell open. On the floor, bloodied and bruised, lay a beaten-down Harley.
He looked…
Gods…
He lookeddead.
Chapter 5
KAIDEN
The blanket had been tossed somewhere below our bodies, her leg tangled with mine.
Even with the necklace that Lyra had given her, the warmth that Morrigan radiated was enough to keep me warm through the coldest winter. She twisted, peering up at me as she rested her chin on my chest. With her lips pressed together, her finger traced over my markings, sending a shiver down my spine as my shadows pleaded to be released.
I still had yet to understand why they reacted so strongly to her. She called to them in a way that even I couldn’t manage. For me, they felt wild, unruly—a cursed extension of my soul that I couldn’t ridmyself of. But to her? They calmed. They weren’t quiet, but their intentions felt clearer, more harnessed. Like I was myself again—like I hadcontrol.
Through Morrigan’s silence, I could still see her mind working through something. There was a question on her lips that she seemed to be holding back.
“What is it?” I asked her, rubbing a hand down the middle of her back and feeling her skin tremble in response.
She let out a long sigh before speaking. “Is there any… update on…” Her eyes remained downturned, staring at the black swirls as she avoided my gaze. But I knew exactly who she was referencing.
“There isn’t,” I answered softly. “I’m sorry.”
After Guinevere’s execution, and Harley’s subsequent disappearance, I had sent a few of my guards to investigate. It just wasn’t like Harley to disappear like that. I could understand the shock of it all to some extent… but Harley? He hadyearnedfor a family. He wanted nothing more than to fall in love and have a child of his own, after basically raising the seven of us. But, with his immortality, he couldn’t bear the idea of watching his loved ones die. The idea of outliving your own children… I thought, with Morrigan, he would have been happy.
Morrigan may have appeared mortal on the surface, but thetrueprophecy guaranteed that, once bonded to all seven of us, she would live the life of an immortal. Another reason I was so against it. Why condemn an innocent girl to an eternal life of servitude like that? I had been on this earth for three hundred and twenty-one years. It was enough time to make friends, and lose them in the blink of an eye. I had watched too many people I cared for die from old age, while I remained frozen in time.
I felt my shadows slide across my chest, wrapping around one of Morrigan’s fingers. “We’ll find him,” I assured her, because wewould. He couldn’t hide forever, and I didn’t believe for a second that he wouldwantto.
Morrigan turned her head to lay back down, huffing before mumbling under her breath. “Maybe it’s best that we don’t…”
I couldn’t seem to move as I stared at him, like none of this was real.
His entire face appeared swollen, bruises beginning to blacken beneath his eyes, and cuts along his lips that covered them in blood. He was… here. Why was Harley?—
“Kaiden!” Naaz yelled, shoving past me. “Don’t just fucking stand there!”
I had to shake my head to pull me from my own trance just as Naaz fell to his knees, slowly cradling Harley’s head. “Shit, alright… Just… Let’s get him to the bed.”
“Harley?” Naaz called quietly, shaking him slightly to get any form of reaction. The groaning had stopped, and Harley didn’t look to be breathing either.Fuck. “Harley, it’s Naaz. We’re here. We’re going to help.”
“We need to keep going,” Eris said behind me, standing in the doorway as I joined Harley and Naaz on the floor. “We need to find?—”
“It’s Harley!” Naaz yelled at him. “I will not leave him here!” Picking up his body, we laid Harley down carefully onto the bed, and Naaz quickly bit his wrist before placing it over his mouth. “It’s alright, Harley. You’re going to be alright.”
As Naaz worked on him, my eyes scaled the room, taking in the stiff bed that Harley lay upon. On the other side of the cell stood another bed. It was smaller, with a single blanket on top of it. What made my stomach churn was the lack of a mattress. It was practically a board, covered in a thin fabric. I took in a deep breath, and a very specific scent wafted from that area. A scent that made my shadows stir.
Morrigan.
Morrigan had been in this room… on that bed.
“Stay here with Harley,” I instructed Naaz. If Harley looked this bad, had Morrigan been hurt this badly, too? Did they do something to her? I recalled Dez screaming that he couldn’t feel her anymore. Did that mean… No. I couldn’t allow myself to think that for even a second. The need to find her only intensified now to a burning rage that made my skin physically hurt. “Eris,” I turned to leave the cell, “we need to find Cain.Now.”
I no longer cared if anyone saw us, but I knew better than to kill the very people who had the answers I wanted. It was only a couple of minutes before we encountered the occupants of the other cells. One by one, I used my shadows to knock them unconscious on the ground. I could retrieve themafterI found Morrigan—and let her tell me which ones deserved a quick death, and which ones would be a treat for the darkness that continued to build within me.
Because every one of themwoulddie.
