Page 98 of Commanding Blood And Bonds

“Did you bring me here to murder me?” I joked, though Reagan’s betrayal crept to the front of my mind. My spine straightened as I scanned the space—one hallway, two doors, a fridge growing horrors of its own, and a stairwell I could only assume led to the basement.

“Not funny,” Ansel growled, heading straight for said stairwell. Dust clouds puffed under our steps as we descended the nightmare carpet.

“How old is this place?” I asked.

“Older than your last life,” he wagered. “Come on.”

“Of course. Why wouldn’t we walk into a murder basement?” I muttered, eyeing a suspicious splatter on the wall. Rust. Hopefully.

When we reached the door at the bottom, Ansel turned to me. A somber burden carved into his features, eyes dropping to his boots in that way a doctor would before they proclaimed the death of your loved one.

Voice feeling rather brittle, I tentatively asked, “Dad?”

“Not everything we do, we do because we want to,” he said. “Okay, kid?”

“You’re freaking me out,” I admitted, my chest tightening. Was this some fucked-up torture chamber? The hidden underbelly of the only hierarchy I actually believed in?

“Aren and Ally have a relationship built on trust. They back each other’s plays. She leaves him trails through time, and he follows because they communicate freely.”

“Okay?”

“But early on in this life, when she was still catatonic after…”

“Losing Michael,” I finished, watching his expression crack under the weight of it.

“Yeah.” He took a steadying breath and re-sliced the mark on his arm, the skin already starting to knit together. He scooped up the blood with his thumb, deliberately showing me, then drew a cross over the metal door and brought what remained to his mouth. “She wasn’t talking, but we started to understand her gifts. And,” he paused, head shaking, gaze heavier now, “one night, somebody took her.”

My breath hitched. He held up a finger, asking me to wait, and opened the door.

This one didn’t creak. The hinges were smooth, and a warm gust of air swept in, lifting my hair.

“Or we thought they did,” Ansel corrected, stepping into a chamber of pitch black. Without hesitation, he kept walking, and fluorescent lights hummed to life along the ceiling. I turned in slow circles, mouth falling open as an endless hallway gradually lit ahead of us.

“She’d gone home—maybe looking for answers, maybe for some piece of her mate—only to find it burned down. Nothing left of her mortal life but ash. According to her reading, a man in a demon mask set the fire.”

Goosebumps erupted down my arms. I didn’t know if it was the story or the creepy ass hallway that felt so damn haunted. I glanced behind us, watching the lights flicker off as we moved forward, the path gently sloping deeper into the earth.

“While she was missing, while we hunted with Griffin and Yvaine—Alec and Fae to you—Marcus, and Saraya, we started to grasp her potential. We knew she’d become the gift any Commander would kill to claim. The hierarchy’s greatest asset. But also…a liability. You know what she is as a reader. How quickly her mind dissects everything. Have you ever encountered a mentalist?”

He looked over his shoulder. Our footsteps echoed down the concrete corridor, and I swear the air got heavier with every step.

“I’ve read about them,” I said, remembering Reyna’s study and the refresher I’d done just days ago. The opposite of Ally’s gift—where she drew knowledge from the world, mentalists could implant it, deeply and in detail.

“Between mentalists and Aren’s near brush with the reapers, we decided we needed strongholds. Just in case. Because great knowledge comes with immense power…but also immense vulnerability. If your mates fall into the wrong hands, so many of our secrets—Aren’s secrets—live in her mind. And all that stands between them, and exposure is her will. And that infamous ‘fuck you’ attitude she’s known for.” He paused. “But spite only takes you so far, kiddo.”

I nearly walked into him when he stopped abruptly and pushed open one of the metal doors.

My breath caught.

Massive overhead lights clicked on, illuminating a cavernous space larger than Grayshell’s great hall. I blinked at the rows—no, acres—of tables stretching down what looked like the world’s most absurdly oversized cafeteria. Hidden beneath a hill in the middle of bumfuck nowhere.

“Aren has a theory,” Ansel said, stepping inside, “that for every power born into this world, there’s an equal and opposite.”

“So if Ally’s that strong⁠—”

“Then her counterbalance is, too.”

I saw him then. Our enemy. Standing beside his brother, cold and regal.