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I bared my teeth. “Hardly, but he stays here.”
Drachu scoffed. “Very well.”
The priestess’s chest rose and fell quickly with each breath, and the contempt I’d detected from her scent morphed into fear as she climbed the stairs. All of us followed, except for Tylen.
At the top, my guards positioned themselves around the circular design, and Genoova waved toward two divots on the floor.
“Stand there, Ilara, as you did last time.”
Ilara stalked toward the temple’s center, her aura rising. Agitation oozed from my wife’s pores, making the dragon inside me writhe and snarl.
“The necklace, please.” Genoova held her hand out to me with trembling fingers.
I leaned down and said quietly, “If you fail to return all of my mate’s power to her, and if you keep any bit of it for yourself or anybody else, I shall filet the skin from your bones inch by inch, and then I’ll call a healer, have you fully healed, before I do it all again. You shall suffer for winters under my brutality if you even think of betraying us.”
She paled, and her eyes whipped to mine. A sour stench rose from her so violently that I was surprised she wasn’t wetting herself.
“Yes, my prince.” She dipped into a hasty curtsy, and the second I dangled the pendant over her palm, she grasped it in a trembling grip and scurried away.
“Was that necessary?” Drachu asked me in a mocking tone. “Priestess Genoova is a gentle creature.”
Ilara’s lip curled. “I disagree. She was more than happy to see me suffer under your command.”
The priestess’s steps slowed as she approached my mate.
“And,” I added with an arched eyebrow, “considering the priestess is loyal to you, yes, it was necessary.” I didn’t put it past Drachu to try and find a way around the bargain, and Genoova tethering Ilara’s power to her, instead of the king, seemed the easiest option.
The Lochen king scoffed.
Genoova placed the pendant between the divots my mate stood on. She straightened, again putting distance between them. “Close your eyes and open your mind. Like last time.”
Ilara’s nostrils flared, but she did as the female asked.
Genoova began to chant in the Lochen tongue, an ancient one from the sounds of it. Her chants grew stronger and faster until air was whipping through the temple, and sand was flying from the steps below.
Ilara’s hair lifted from her shoulders as a void seemed to fall around her, and if she hadn’t appeared so calm and so focused, I would have been ripping her out of that magically spiraling tornado.
The priestess’s chants grew louder until a thunderbolt of magic cracked the air around us.
In a brilliant flash of light, the pendant sitting between Ilara’s feet exploded with power. When the blinding magic dissipated, Drachu’s necklace remained, along with the huge diamond that held my mate’s magical essence.
Drachu strode forward and snatched his pendantoff the ground before I could blink. He secured it around his neck, his eyes shining with victory before he pulled a portal key from his pocket.
The diamond that had burned into my skin from our bargain flared and then fizzled out of existence, just as a similar flash came from Drachu’s arm.
A relieved breath left me. Our bargain was fulfilled, and the only way that could happen would be if Ilara was no longer tethered to that necklace or the Lochen king.
“Our bargain is complete. This pendant is mine, and you can never take it again.” Drachu laughed and nodded toward the diamond. “Have fun trying to extract your mate’s magic from that.”
What?
I roared and flew toward the Lochen king, but in a whisper of the portal key’s magic, he and his son disappeared from the realm just as my arms enclosed empty air.
CHAPTER 21 - ILARA
“What did Drachu mean by that?” Norivun snarled at Genoova.
I snatched the diamond off the floor. The gemstone was large and heavy and throbbed with magic. Its power felt familiar and beckoning, and without even looking at it, I knew this diamond heldmypower. Yet it was still within the gemstone. It wasn’t back in me.
