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Yep, I’m pretty sure that’s exactly what I’d said the last time, too.
Weird.
But I was on a bed—pretty sure I’d roused on the ground the last time. I lay on a cot in some kind of room made of stone walls with one door and one window that let sunlight stream through the clear rock. But that told me basically nothing.
Needing answers and feeling an urgency to get them, as if I had somewhere important to be, and time was imperative, I sat upright, only for my stomach to revolt at the sudden movement.
“Christ.” Spotting a chamber pot by the door, I dove toward it, landing on my knees and vomiting everything inside me.
What the hell was happening? Something felt wrong. Inside me. There was this cryptic emptiness I couldn’t explain.
It scared me.
The door opened as I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand.
A male silhouette loomed in the entrance. “Indy,” a solemn voice greeted before Prince Erick stepped into the room. “How’re you feeling?”
“I…” I shook my head, beyond confused. “What…?”
Then it all came back to me: Erick’s men capturing me after I tried to take them on a wild goose chase so Quilla could escape.
“Quilla!” I gasped, surging to my feet and then slapping my hand against the wall to brace myself when dizziness assaulted me.
What the fuck?
“Whoa. Steady there,” Erick told me, catching my arm. “Your body’s still trying to adjust to the change.”
“What change?” I asked, shaking my head and trying to swallow down the nausea as more rose. I let him lead me to the bed, where I sat and tried to collect my thoughts.
The first thing I needed to do was find out if Quilla was okay. She’d been in so much pain that last time I’d—
Blinking, I realized I couldn’t feel her at all. No echo of emotion, not even a signal from my mark telling which direction to go to get to her. It felt as if I didn’t have a mark at all.
Since the moment I’d first sensed her, my mark had always been locked on to her in some way or another. It had been my own personal security system, letting me know she was well and still alive out there, and it always directed me to where she was.
But for some reason, there was nothing.
Lifting my hand to the mark, hoping she was still alive, I realized the same temple where my head was bandaged was the same side the mark was on.
The first hint of panic stirred. I lifted my gaze to Erick.
His eyes filled with regret even before he rasped the words, “I’m so sorry.”
I shook my head, not understanding.
Refusing to understand.
“Sorry about what?” Fumbling, I gripped the edge of the bandage and yanked it off.
“You have no idea how hard I had to beg the king to convince him to spare your life at all after he found out you were mated to a Graykey. Jesus, Indy. He wanted you executed on sight. But I was able to talk him out of that, at least. You could be dead right now. This, though…” His gaze filled with regret as I gently prodded the area where my mark was supposed to be, only to find an open wound.
“This I couldn’t get him to budge on.”
My love mark was gone.
“He ordered it to be cut off you,” Erick explained.
A sob exploded from my chest. “What?” I whispered. No!
