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Despite my best efforts, every last drop of blood drains from my face.
Madame is efficient in her torture, meticulous, each pinpoint of pain a calculated means to an end.
But Damian is a sadist. And I am already so, so tired.
“Mother.” The plea leaves my lips before I can stop it.
She arches an eyebrow at my audacity to argue with her, and I squeeze my eyes shut, knowing I have just successfully made my situation several times worse.
“The chair, Aika,” she says in a firmer tone, gesturing toward her room of torture like she’s sending a wayward child to their bedroom.
I nod because it’s all I can do.
But I think for the first time since this all began, I’m finally understanding what it is to hate her. To know in my bones that she is evil, that whatever tattered vestiges of humanity she has displayed over the years pale in comparison to the general darkness of her soul.
I force my eyes open, and Damian is there, the corner of his lips tilting in a malicious grin that tells me everything I need to know about how tonight will go.
I will not leave this crypt alive.
He will risk her temporary wrath by removing me from this equation. Any amount of torture would be worth it for him, to kill me. Hell, sometimes I think the sick bastard enjoys the pain she gives him every bit as much as he relishes her praise.
And tonight, there will be no Zaina to retrieve me from the dungeons. No Remy to swoop in and marry me.
I am alone, just as I always knew I would be.
Raising my chin, I prepare myself to make one more argument, one final lie, when the measured sound of damnably familiar footsteps reaches my ears.
No.
It isn’t him.
He wouldn’t come here.
Madame looks sharply to the doorway, Damian following her stare. My eyes move much, much more slowly, like they can’t bear to witness the confirmation of everything my mind has already begun to suspect.
But it can’t be true. Because Remy doesn’t play to lose. He knows when to fold—hell, he taught me when to fold my hand, and surely,surelyhe knows this is not a game he can win.
All that reasoning goes out the window when I finally lift my gaze to meet the furiously burning eyes of the last remaining prince of Corentin.
Against all of his better odds, my husband has come for me.
CHAPTERFIFTY-ONE
REMY
It takes everything I have to maintain any semblance of calm when I see Aika in the hands of that monster.
Zaina and I left as soon as I convinced her I had a semblance of a plan. Which was largely a lie, but a necessary one. We grabbed one of the horses kept saddled for last-minute patrols, double-mounting and taking off before anyone could see us.
She spent the entire ride here preparing me as best she could, given the circumstances.
There’s only so much you can prepare for someone like Madame, though.
Somehow, I’m not surprised that the seat of her macabre empire would be concealed within a tomb. An eerie purple light floods the room from the stained-glass lanterns along the walls, while an actual throne with velvet cushions rests at the center of the back wall.
And there she is. At the center of it all.
Like a queen of death, reigning over the empire she’s created within the shadows of my kingdom.
