I tried to look for it—that tether that bound us every time I heard his voice—but the pain was too great. I looked up to see smoke rising to the ceiling. “The room… It’s… on fire…” I coughed as I inhaled some of it.
“You need to get to the door. I can lift the ward I placed through you, but only if you’re touching it.”
I searched for the door, needing to hurry and open it so I could get out, but I noticed that fire had caught on the wood of the mirror, blocking the exit. The only other room was the bathing room. So, I turned and crawled toward it as more smoke filled my lungs.
“I can’t lift the ward without you, Morrigan! I need you to go to the door!”
“I… I can’t…” As I made it into the bathing room, I collapsed onto the cold marble, and when I looked up, I saw him hovering over me. “My… fault…”
“Shhh,”he muttered, resting his cold hands on my face. “Come on, Morrigan. I need you,please!”
My coughs grew more painful, and my lungs were on fire as well. Slowly, the light that lit my veins began to dim, but just as well, my blinking slowed.
“No! Morrigan, listen to me!”
“Morrigan!” Eris’s voice screamed from the hall. It was muffled beneath the sound of crackling fire. Fire thatIhad somehow started…
“My f-fault… Why… Why is e-everything always… my fault?” I grasped onto his arms, hyperventilating as my lungs struggled to breathe in clean air. “I can’t… I can’t breathe… I can’t?—”
“Shit,”he whispered under his breath. As my head lolled back onto the floor, he leaned over me and placed his hands against my temples. “It’s going to be okay, Morrigan. He’s here. He’ll be able to get past the wards. This was too soon. I’m sorry. I… fuck… I have to do this, okay? Please don’t hate me.”
Suddenly, a large burst of light flashed over my eyes, and pain seeped into my head like I had been slammed against a wall.It was as though someone had reached into my brain and squeezed it, making everything around me fuzzy until my eyes closed and the room disappeared.
Chapter 40
KAIDEN
“What’s wrong with her?!” I yelled, dropping to my knees on her other side.
“She just needs to rest it off,” he whispered, swiping away a strand of hair that covered her eye. My face heated as I watched him touch her like he… Like heknewher.
“What did you do to her?” I snarled, pressing my fists into the charred, cracked ground.
“I’ll call on Guinevere to bring Azrael to her room. She’ll want to see him when she wakes up,” the white-haired lycan said to him.
Guinevere?
“Answerme!” I demanded.
Both men finally turned in my direction. The one standing—Malakai, I believe, is what she called him—sneered at me and peeled his lips back, revealing sharp canines. “We have spent the past two months taking care of your littleprincess,” he hissed. “Just today, she had to use her magic to helpyourbrother, then fight off more vampyres than I could evencount,and has now spent every last drop of her light. You can wait another gods damned minute so we can bring her somewhere safe.”
Brother. Gods… I had almost forgotten that.
I faced Morrigan again, watching her sleeping figure. Everything he said… It was almost impossible to imagine. Morrigan had a bite to her, but to have faced off against monsters such as vampyres?
I shouldn’t even be surprised.
“I will allow you to come with us, but only for Morrigan’s sake,” Tristan said with a clipped tone. “And you may want to get your stories straight,brother. Because what just happened? That blood is onyou… not Morrigan.”
Shadows crawled from beneath his shirt, and it happened so fast that I almost didn’t have time to grab his arm before the darkness swallowed all three of us, and I landed on a cold stone floor. I almost felt sick. I was used to shadow walking on my own, but being along for the ride? I didn’t know how Morrigan managed it so well.
When my vision finally cleared, I saw Tristan already walking away with Morrigan limp in his arms. I scrambled to my feet and followed after him, keeping the distance as minimal as possible, but still stuck behind the white-haired beast that seemed far too attached tomyMorrigan.
“Who are you?” I whispered at him, not bothering to hide the irritation in my voice.
“I was one of your father’s generals,” he answered quietly, and I noticed Tristan stiffen slightly in response. “I actually met you once, a long time ago.”
I scrunched my face as I tried to recall any memory of him, but nothing seemed to rise.
