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“We’re not too late.” Hope bubbled in Alexei’s chest. He rushed toward the vehicle, but her guard met him by the driver’s side.
“Prince Maronov.” With the formal title and a slight bow, the man opened the door to the backseat.
Yulia sat there—alone.
“What have you done?” Alexei needed her to tell him he’d assumed wrong, that Joelle was somewhere safe and hidden.
“I did as she asked me. To save Kyle. To save you.” Her haunted gaze swung to his. “She gave herself up to save our kind when she’s not one of us.”
His heart ached at how perfectly she’d described his woman without understanding her at all. “She’s my mate.”
“Then I wish you wouldn’t have lied although I don’t know that it would’ve stopped her.” Yulia sounded as if she had aged ten years since they’d spoken half an hour or so ago. “I am truly sorry for your loss.”
“Who took her? How? Give me details so I can go after her.”
“On a suicide mission after she traded her life for yours? You don’t honor your mate’s sacrifice.”
How could she be so calm, so solemn when each second that slipped away put Joelle in more danger? He resisted the urge to shake her until she talked. Instead of shouting or violence, he resorted to his scariest and most effective tactic, softening his voice until the malice swept like feathers over the listener’s skin, until the words turned to weapons as much as his wings could. “I willnotlose my mate. She’s the only one for me, and I cannot exist without her. I will tear apart this city until I find her, until she’s safe, and I won’t hesitate to destroy anyone who gets in my way. Do you understand?”
She looked past him to the water. “They took her out there. A grey-haired woman came ashore in a small vessel with two guards. Noxx, your mate called her. Eyes colder than a pit viper’s.” Yulia’s mouth took on a pinched flatness, one of pained penitence. Not that he would forgive her part in this. “She cuffed your mate. Not with handcuffs like the police use, but rough stones melded together. It seemed so primitive.”
“The same as the inside of the leg shackles you brought?”
“Yeah, now that you mention it. Your mate—she didn’t put up any fight, didn’t resist at all. Yet this Noxx seemed so happy to put her in chains. She said she’d been waiting for her stolen property to return to her, that she would make sure she never escaped again.”
Alexei’s heart bled, pounding so loud and hard that he wondered if he might not die along with Joelle if he couldn’t save her.She would own him into the afterlife—the sunny, summertime half of his soul. Heaven could fucking wait for his angel. He wasn’t done with her yet. But first, he needed to know.
“What did you give Noxx? Other than my mate?” He put unmistakable menace on the last, daring her to lie, to say she hadn’t asked for something for herself other than getting Joelle out of the way of a political arrangement.
“She vowed that she would not harm me or mine. I had to protect Tai.”
“He’s not here?” Gods help him if the woman had been arrogant enough to bring a child to a deal with the human equivalent of a devil.
“He’s away and safe with his guards.”
Which was more than anyone could say for his mate. “You believed the promise of a human who hates us?”
“She swore a blood oath.” Yulia held up a smeared palm.
“Which means nothing to her. You gave up my mate for an empty vow. Go home, Yulia. You’re no longer welcome here.” He started toward Eddie, Alys, and Nita to make a plan to save Joelle.
“What if you’re too late?” Yulia shouted.
He couldn’t stomach thinking of such despair. “You’d better pray that I’m not, or I’ll avenge her—starting with you.”
ChapterNineteen
Joelle focused on her breathing, the slowinandoutin measured beats, to calm the excruciating pain that throbbed in her wrists. Whatever Noxx had put in the cuffs was double the potency as she’d had in the leg shackles which meant there would be scars on her arms to match her ankles. If she ever managed to escape the damn things which didn’t look to be a possibility.
Since she’d boarded the ship, she’d been stripped, searched, and scanned for trackers.
Returned property, Noxx had called her. Even now, the words sent a chill through Joelle that had nothing to do with the thin hospital gown they’d put her in or the cold wind whipping along the ship’s deck. A guard yanked her arm, pulling her to the stairs and barely stopping to let her catch herself when she stumbled.
“Hurry up,” Noxx called from below deck. “Magic to examine. Monsters to exterminate.”
The rough steel grates cut into Joelle’s bare feet, but those scratches and slices didn’t compare with the icy burn coming from the cuffs.
“Let’s see if the Maronov prince can find us when we’re a moving target.”
