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Wings tight to their backs, they ducked down the hall, and when they reached the end, a loud creak followed as the dungeon’s main door opened and closed. After that, the dungeon grew eerily quiet. Everyone’s eyes fell upon me, and then their whisperings began.
I knew if I strained to hear, I could probablydecipher what they were saying, but I didn’t want to. If it wasn’t lewd comments, it would likely be questions or wanting to know why the crown prince’s mate had been locked up. None of those curiosities were anything I would reply to.
I shifted my attention to the cell next to me. A wall of bars separated us, and a male lying on the floor was plainly visible. He hadn’t moved since I’d arrived. Huge, limp wings flopped to his sides. Overgrown hair hung past his ears. The only reason I knew he was alive was from the slight rise of his chest.
“Vorl?”
His head lifted slowly, and I crept closer to my cell’s bars so I could see him better. Shock bolted through me. “It is you.”
Vorl pushed to sitting, his eyes going so round I thought they’d pop out of his head. “Ilara?”
I tried to hide my reaction, but I’d never seen him look sodefeated. “Fancy seeing you here.”
My wry comment had a cruel smile curving his lips, and inadvertently, my heart began to race.
But it was an age-old response. A learned response from seasons of abuse under this male’s hands. But I wasn’t weak or defective anymore. And I wouldn’t be his prey again.
My fingers curled around the cell bars that connected us. Our gazes locked.
Dirt covered Vorl’s face, and the stench reeking from him made me wonder if he’d been allowed to bathe at all in the three months he’d been down here.Knowing the crown prince, probably not. And considering Vorl hadn’t used his magic to self-cleanse, I couldn’t help but wonder if my former archon was also being starved to suppress his affinities. He was certainly thinner now, his bulky muscles leaner and more defined.
Vorl rolled to his feet. Life seemed to flow into him when he prowled toward me, but I didn’t back up.
Another tingling of my affinities rumbled in my belly. The brief touch from Tylen was beginning to wear off, thankfully, but that wasn’t the only reason I refused to cower. Never again would I show submission before this male.
“I knew he’d tire of you.” Vorl’s smile grew. Despite his once-huge build looking considerably thinner, his demeanor hadn’t changed. A familiar sadistic gleam entered his eyes. It was a look I’d spent my entire childhood running from. “Did the prince finally tire of his favorite whore?”
My eyes narrowed. “What did you call me?”
Vorl spat on the floor, then grinned. “His whore. It’s what you are, isn’t it?”
“I’m hiswife.”
His eyes flared briefly, but then he laughed and said sarcastically, “Oh, right, his wife, because a member of the royal family would undoubtedly be sent to the dungeons.”
I scoffed. “Ock, Vorl. Suit yourself. Believe what you want.”
“Oh, I will, just as I know that youarehis whore.”
My jaw locked, the muscle pulsing in the corner. I gripped the cell bars tighter. “Don’t you feel any remorse for what you did to me? Do you feel any regret at all for how much you abused me?”
“Regret? When you were a subject under my command? As your archon, it was within my right to treat you as I saw fit.”
“That’s not true, and you know it. Being an archon doesn’t give one the right to hurt another.”
Vorl shrugged, and his wings lifted higher along his back, making him look more like the male I remembered. “I disagree.”
My jaw dropped. “You’ve really learned nothing during all of the months you’ve been down here? You truly don’t believe you ever did anything wrong, much less feel remorse for it?”
“The only remorse I feel is not killing you when I had the chance.” Vorl strolled forward until only the bars separated us.
Another stirring of my affinities swirled inside me, and I stoked that flame of magic.
He smirked. “Besides, something tells me if you’re here, the prince and king agree with me that you’re nothing but a worthless fairy who deserves every bit of punishment I ever inflicted on you.”
Before I could react, his hands whipped through the bars and encircled my throat.
For the briefest moment, shock rendered me frozen, but then I jerked my arms up fast enough that theyblurred, and I had Vorl’s thumbs in my grip in a move Sandus had taught me months ago.
