Page 19 of Cursebreaker

My blood heats, burning like liquid fire, until a bellowing wail is ripped from Will’s chest, and my veins turn to ice. I holster my pistol and place my trembling hand over Gabriel’s, still clamped tightly around my wrist. “Gabriel, please.”

Gabriel grinds his teeth, a cord in his neck bulging as he takes the keys from his belt.

The cell door creaks open, and I rush inside, tripping over my own feet to get to Will.

“Hello, Aster.” A dark, gritty voice that seems to come from both within and without.

I stop short.

“Did you think I couldn’t reach you here?” the booming voice purrs. “Did you think you were safe?”

I brace my head between my hands, trying to block out the voice, but to no avail.

“Aster, are you—” Gabriel reaches for me, but I shrug away from his touch.

“Don’t you hear that?” I snap.

“Hear what?” Gabriel’s brow furrows. “Step back, we need to—”

“No!” I take another step toward Will, and the voice brushes against my mind, an obscene caress.

“You’re almost there,” murmurs the voice—his voice. The Underling general. “Together, we will find the Relics of Night and finally put an end to all this needless suffering. Together, we will shape a new world—a new future.”

I feel the moment the voice releases me from its grasp—gone, like a whisper on the wind. But whatever holds Will doesn’t let him go, as if to drive home a point.

Pulsing black veins crawl up Will’s face, squirming like worms beneath his pallid skin. And his eyes…

His eyes are like two wells of pitch-black ink.

I think of the wards Killian placed around Bludgrave to shield Will from the nightmares he has suffered since the first time he returned from war. But this isn’t an ordinary nightmare.

He’s here.

The Underling general wanted me to know this was his doing. I haven’t had a nightmare since waking on the Red Island, and though I should be glad, icy dread sluices through my veins. If only to remind me of his power—his control over me—the Shifter who bit me as a child has somehow shielded me from the terror I often face in sleep; meanwhile, Will’s condition worsens, subjecting him to this state of inescapable horror.

“Will?” I take a step toward him, straw crunching underfoot.

Snap.

His neck pops as he cranes to look back at me, teeth bared. He drops to the floor with a sickening thud, twisting onto his belly. His arms bow as he rises into a wolfish crouch.

I kneel, putting myself at eye level with him.

“I’m here,” I say, my voice hoarse but unyielding. “I’m right here.”

A scream rips from his throat, his body trembling violently.

I grind my teeth, fighting back tears. “Come back to me,” I whisper as I move closer, following a trail of blood that I trace to his fingertips, where he’s dragged his nails across the wooden boards. “You can fight this,” I say, even as his shoulders coil. “You have to wake up,” I plead, even though he looks like an atroxis preparing to pounce. “Annie needs you, remember? We need you.”

He cocks his head. Clicks his teeth.

And I brace myself, shutting my eyes tight as I unsheathe my dagger. Time slows to a crawl, but the racing rhythm of my heart seems amplified by a second pulse that comes alive the moment Will lurches for me.

“Aster!”

His voice.

Titus’s voice.