Page 39 of Dark Night of the Soul

“Of what you’ll have to do to keep her.”

He smiled without humor. “I don’t think so. You’re lucky,” he said. “The Brotherhood has killed men for less.”

He took one more step farther into the cell. The faint light flickered over his face illuminating the hard lines of a man who was beyond reason.

It was pointless to ask where she was. Because that’s what he wanted. He wanted me to ask.

“She’s strong. Defiant. I like it.” His grin said he was pleased with his latest pet project.

“What did you do to her?”

“Nothing yet.” His voice was calm, even.

Yet.

“You brought her here to get to me,” I said. “Let her go.”

“I brought her here because of you,” he corrected. “And now she’ll be something we can use.”

“She’s not a tool,” I said.

My hands curled into fists. The truth scraped raw against everything I’d done to keep her out of this.

“You refused the call. Trying to be noble and protect her from the inevitable. She’ll resist. She’ll fight. And she’ll bleed for it, too.”

“Touch her,” I said, voice low, “and you won’t walk out of here.”

“You can try. She’s the one I can break.”

I surged forward, pain ripping through my arms.

White flared behind my eyes. Something in me tore loose, feral and unforgiving. Every instinct in me narrowed to one objective—end him.

“I’ll bring her to you soon enough. So you can see what your resistance means.” He stepped toward the door, then turned back. “Oh, and one more thing? When she begs you not to give us what we want…” A pause. A smile. “That’s when the lesson begins.”

And then he was gone, the cell door slamming shut with a finality.

Time passed. The cell was quiet. There was no movement on the other side of the door either.

I exhaled and rode the pain in my arms until it dulled into something manageable. Pain I could work with. Pain was familiar. It grounded me. Kept my mind from going where Sebastian wanted it to go. It was everything else Sebastian had said that lodged deep, like a festering wound that wouldn’t heal.

Faint footsteps echoed through the hall in the cell block. I remained still, listening. Waiting. There was a muffled thud, then the clink of a key.

Then the door opened.

Silas stepped inside, shutting the door behind him. I looked at him for a long moment, wondering if he was recruited back or if he was still loyal to me.

Trust was a luxury I couldn’t afford, but losing him would hit deeper than I was ready to name.

“I was too late,” Silas said. “To stop what was coming.”

“We both were,” I said, bitterly. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“You need someone on the inside,” he said, voice low.

The tightness in my chest eased. If Silas was here, I still had a line out. He managed to infiltrate their ranks without attracting attention to himself—that’s what he did best.

He cut a glance back toward the door. “The guard is out right now, but he’ll wake soon with one hell of a headache.”