Page 80 of Daughter of the Dark

Oh, how Solana would delight in ripping Killian apart piece by piece. She might even have a muki do it, just so he could know how it felt to die such a gruesome death. And then she would relish the opportunity to kill him all over again when he came back as a muki.

A tear fell from the tip of her nose and splattered against Nikolas’s badge. She ripped it from his cloak and threw it down the hall. It bounced with a metallic clink before it came to rest at the tip of a black boot.

Reyes stood at the end of the hall, brackish blood dripping from the end of a wicked-looking dagger he held in his right hand. His eyes met hers, and there was nothing soft in them. No hint of relief or acceptance. Nothing but brutal, unyielding loathing. His eyes flicked to the badge at his feet, then to Nikolas’s body, then to Solana with his blood on her hands. “What have you done?” he whispered, the sound carrying to her as if they were cheek to cheek.

Her heart broke at his words. How easily he believed the worst of her.

Each of his steps toward her were a fist against her skull. Solana scrambled to her feet and held out her blood-soaked hands. “Reyes, wait. Please, let me explain—”

But he lunged before she could, forcing Solana to rift out of his way. Her gift stuttered midway and spit her out too quickly, close enough that she could see the look of absolute shock on Reyes’s face as he attacked her once again. They collided in a tangle of limbs and carelessly flung gifts.

The cold tendrils of his magic slithered under her skin and held her in place. Solana grasped frantically for her father’s dagger, ready to stab him in the leg to save herself, but Reyes’s rage fueled him, one hand snapping out to slam hers against the ground, the dagger clattering out of her slippery grasp. Panic and instinct kicked in. She lifted her knee and jammed it into Reyes’s groin and punched out at the blade in his hand. When he lost hold of it, she tried to roll herself over and swipe it up, but he pushed her down and pressed his body into her, effectively pinning her against the ground.

Neither of them were armed, and Solana was entirely incapable of doing anything remotely close to focusing so she could rift. She thrashed and bucked underneath his weight like a wild animal, his gray eyes watching her with a simmering disgust that further fueled her anger.

Reyes leaned closer to seethe into her face and Solana instinctively slammed her head upward, her forehead meeting his nose with a crack, loosening his hold just enough that she could partially slide out. She rolled onto her belly and stretched for her weapon. Reyes caught her again and yanked her backward. The stone floor bit into her chin, but when she turned to meet him, it was with a blade against the hard flesh of his abdomen.

“Tell me where the king is and I won’t open your belly.”

“Tell me why you killed Nikolas and I won’t open your belly.” His eyes cut into her sharper than any blade. “Actually, I lied. I’ll kill you either way.”

“I didn’t kill him, you stupid fool. A muki did—and it was wearing a collar that your traitorous king put on it.”

“That’s rich, coming from the woman who disappeared with the traitor of Supay three days ago.”

“Three days?” Solana gasped. Reyes shushed her and glanced over his shoulder toward the end of the hall. “Please. Listen,” she pleaded, voice softer. She hated to be the one to bend, to explain herself as if she were in the wrong, but she knew Reyes was just as stubborn as she was and she was running out of time. “King Killian lied—there’s no way to reverse the curse. He’s trying to find a way to control demons and Masimu tried to stop him twenty years ago and failed and now I need to stop him.”

Something like grief and regret flashed across his face before it disappeared. A sinking suspicion settled in Solana’s gut.

“I know,” he said, voice firm.

The rest of her speech died on her tongue. All along, he’d known and he’d gone along with it. Her hand holding the dagger against his side shook with restraint. “I will kill him and then break the curse, and I will not hesitate to kill you if you try to stop me.”

“You’re hesitating right now,” Reyes said. His hair fell like a silver curtain around his face. One hand was planted on the ground beside her and the other was wrapped around hers squeezing the hilt of her dagger.

“I’m not hesitating,” she lied, pressing the tip in deeper to prove her point, but her efforts were met with pressure from Reyes’s body. It brought them closer together so that she could smell his familiar, smoky scent and feel the heat of his breath wafting over her cheek.

“You’re too late,” he murmured, voice thick with regret. Suddenly, he pushed away, the space his body had occupied going cold with his absence. Solana pushed onto her elbows and watched Reyes approach Nikolas’s body. The gentleness with which he brushed Nikolas’s forehead made her look away. “He made his collars, and they’re all gone.”

Solana snapped her eyes back to him. “Who is all gone?” she asked, scrambling to her feet and swiping up her dagger. Reyes paid her no attention as she stalked closer and stopped at his side.

“The king.” He paused and swallowed, the apple of his throat bobbing heavily. “The muki. All of them. Including my sister.”

Solana froze. Suddenly, Reyes’s desperate, foolish hope and frustration with her recklessness made sense. A sister.

And Sami. In her mind, Solana saw his broken body, his muki eyes full of pleading, the dark and cold future she had led him to.

Reyes called her name, but she was already running.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

The halls were empty the entire way down to the dungeon. There were no guards at the doors blown wide open. No strange men in gray robes. The quiet was an empty one instead of the thick and eerie quiet it was before. There was no pulsing of air, no urge to set anything free. There was just Solana, standing in the middle of a cavernous room, cage doors wide open and the stench of decay lingering lightly.

Rage blinded her as she stalked out of the dungeons, back up the stairs, and down the same long halls. She had allowed herself to become a pawn in the king’s scheme, and she was going to make him pay for it.

Reyes was there and Nikolas’s body was gone. Solana didn’t bother asking where it had gone, and she didn’t stop when she brushed past Reyes and he grabbed her wrist. She yanked on his grip and kept walking with him attached.

“Solana, wait. He’s not—”