Page 17 of Crazy as Hell

“I came here to see who the asshole in charge of this mess was. But I guess she just left. Do you know who she is?”

“Just that her name is Sybil, and she seems to be in charge of this particular operation. Who did you come with? Are you working with the Guardians?”

“Sort of. I came with Arson and a few others. Unfortunately, they were all killed shortly after we made it through the portal.”

“Damn,” Cassian sighed. “There goes my last bit of hope.”

“The guard just said that Killian is here with reinforcements. We just have to hold out for them to find us,” Viktor stated.

“It will be too late,” Naomi countered. “I don’t have long, and everyone else will probably run out of air or starve to death before they find this place.”

Her words had alarm bells ringing in his head. Viktor knew she was wounded, but the black clothes she was wearing concealed any visible injuries. He wanted to go to her, to check and see just how extensive the damage was and to try to heal her, but it just wasn’t possible.

“How badly are you hurt?” he demanded.

“Don’t worry about that. Right now, I need to know a few things. Like, how long you have been hanging out in here.”

Cassian snorted in derision. “Ha ha, very funny. Who in hellfire is this chick?”

“My mate,” Viktor growled low enough so only he would hear. “Watch your tone when you speak to her.”

“Oh, shit.” Cassian gulped. “That’s…talk about bad timing.”

“I mean, when did you get captured?” Naomi specified. “I need an approximation of how many hours you’ve been here.”

“I have no idea,” Viktor answered honestly. “We were captured shortly after dawn in the woods, then I was unconscious for a while—”

“It’s only been a few hours,” Cassian cut in. “I couldn’t move, but I was in and out of consciousness while they dragged us through the portal and hung us up here. I heard the guards complaining about having to cancel the auction.”

“Good. That’s good.”

Turning her head, she spat out some more blood. The dark stain on the ground was a macabre warning that was impossible to ignore.

“Naomi…” At a loss for what to say, Viktor’s voice trailed off.

She smiled at him. The sight of blood coating her teeth should have been repulsive. Instead, he found her smile heartbreakingly endearing. Viktor, the unemotional dark angel who hadn’t cried in centuries, wanted to weep for their twisted fate.

“I wish we had more time,” he said softly.

“Don’t worry,” she said weakly. “Time is the one thing we’ll have plenty of.”

“What does that mean?”

Instead of answering him, she said, “I know those shackles are probably pretty indestructible, but I’m going to try something. It might hurt a little.”

“Okay?”

That came out more as a question rather than a statement. He barely managed to get the word out before she unleashed a torrent of powerful magic straight at him. Since he had thought she was human, the move was completely unexpected. Viktor braced himself for the impact, but the sheer force of the blast shocked the hell out of him.

The magic struck his chest like a physical blow, surging into him with a flood of heat and energy. It hurt, though not nearly as much as he had expected. Her magic poured into his depleted reserves, filling the hollow void that had been left by the enchantments suppressing his own power. The pain faded into a sense of contentment, of belonging and pure joy.

She was marking him as her mate.

The bond between them snapped into place as she shared her essence with him, though it was still incomplete. They would never be truly bonded mates until he shared his magic with her. And under the circumstances, that wasn’t going to happen.

At least, not in this lifetime.

His body convulsed in agony as the new magic inside of him went to war with the powerful enchantment woven into the shackles around his wrists. The restraints were specifically designed to suppress and contain magic, and they reacted the moment his magic flared against them, trying to break free.