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“Wait, Akari.” Diora’s hand caught my bicep, and I spun around to face her. My chest was rising and falling more rapidly than it should’ve, my heart pounding angrily in my chest.
Stars, how I hated the man I’d been tied to.
“You don’t have to do this.” Her gorgeous golden eyes pierced my fucking soul. They were the same eyes she’d had as a one-year-old, staring up at me in my arms as I’d cradled her to my chest and fed her both of our rations in the fucking prison we’d shared for so long. The same eyes that had been rimmed with tears when she walked out of the torture room smelling of blood, sweat, and agony.
The same eyes that had been the reason I forced myself to continue living day after day in that fucking hellhole.
She had needed me—and I had done everything I was capable of to keep her alive and well in the hell we had both survived.
“Even if it was possible, killing him wouldn’t take away the pain of the past.” Diora’s eyes were fiery, and the confident way she carried herself now was so different than it had been the last time I saw her that I almost felt like a failure of a mother, though I’d been forced by our circumstances to become that for her.
If not for the horrific memories surrounding my motherhood role, I probably would’ve felt that way. But because of them, I was just glad that I’d survived.
That we both had, and that Vena had too.
Stars, it had been hell.
I forced those memories and emotions away, letting my anger rise in their place.
The sadness, or sorrow, or pain… those emotions, I couldn’t do anything about.
The anger, I could allow to consume me. I would survive my anger.
But my sadness, I wouldn’t live through.
Not really.
The moonlight shining off my hair grew brighter as my anger boiled. “He’s responsible for my pain, Diora.Ourpain. Ending his life won’t take it away, but it will ensure that the same thing doesn’t happen again.”
Diora shook her head quickly. “The men were unconscious when we were taken away. They didn’t know what was happening, or where we went. They—”
I cut her off. “The head of our prison had moonlight in his eyes. You never met him, because I kept him away from you, but he knows Espen. They’re friends. Somewhere in this castle, our torturer sits on a cushy bed, eating rich foods and wearing white silk, getting off to the memories of our suffering.” My words grew lower and fiercer by the moment. “They’re responsible for the hell we lived, and they are going to pay.”
Stepping around the pregnant, dark-haired beauty, I strode down the hallway.
Espen was going to know true pain, one way or another.
It didn’t takeme long to find the throne room—I could remember very clearly my one trip from there to the dungeon. The bastardly king had only given me one bored look after I tried to kill him, before I was dragged away by his many guards. My magic was wild and uncontrolled, but with the king’s help, they had been able to keep me restrained long enough to throw me in a cell.
The king had never so much as visited me, so I figured he either didn’t know what we were to each other, or didn’t care.
Probably the latter.
Diora caught up to me and strode beside me, sticking with me even though she’d made it clear she didn’t agree with my plan. We weren’t sisters—I’d lost my only sister to the night bastard’s men—but we’d become family all the same.
We came upon a number of guards on our way, and I flashed my moonlight in their faces to knock them out without a fight.
I wasn’t letting them stop me.
I wouldn’t letanyonestop me.
We continued down the hallway, not even pausing when we came upon another group of guards we needed to take care of.
“What do you want me to do?” Diora asked, as she somehow used her shadows to knock out a set of guards herself.
Shedefinitelyhadn’t known how to do that the last time we’d seen each other.
“Just let me take care of it.” I didn’t so much as hesitate, or consider letting her in on the mess I intended to create.
