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“It isn’t the time to point fingers, gentlemen,” Rowan said. “More importantly, we need to form a good plan to find Barbie.”
“I shall go to CrimsonTide alone,” I said. “Stealth is the key. We don’t want our foes to move Barbie if she’s indeed in CrimsonTide.”
“We all have spies in CrimsonTide,” Cade said, patting me on the shoulder. “Let’s pool our resources.”
“Happy hunting!” Silas snarled.
For the first time, I didn’t find the shifter heir despicable. I needed all the heirs, who had once been my brothers, and their teams to work with me and find Barbie.
“We’ll find Barbie, brothers,” Louis vowed. “She’s one of us now.”
3
Barbie
Iwoke up to piercing pain that had knocked me out cold when I was sucked into an icy vacuum and found myself prone on the hard ground, with no idea of where I was, since I couldn’t see with the iron helmet clamped around my head.
I lifted my good hand and realized that my wrist was chained along with my ankle. Even with an iron mask silencing me and a torque heavy around my neck to bind my power, my enemies still considered me a threat.
Rage pulsed in me. Fear fogged my mind. I grabbed the iron helmet, trying to lift it off my head, but it wouldn’t budge. An animalistic wail tore out of my throat. I clawed at the iron mask, wanting it fucking gone more than anything. It only pressed tighter against my face, its foul spells and rough edges sinking into my flesh and peeling off part of my skin.
A new wave of pain bloomed in me, adding to the old one. I could feel my face getting wet, not from my tears but from blood. If I didn’t stop my struggle, it might just turn my face to pulp. Icy panic sank into my chest, and my panting pounded in my ears within the confines of the iron mask.
Stop! I ordered myself. I couldn’t afford to have an episode. I couldn’t afford to lose my shit if I ever wanted to escape whatever hell my enemies had fashioned for me.
I forced myself to remove my hand from clutching the iron mask, only to have it fly to the bespelled metal torque around my neck. I gripped it to pry it off. Icy burning shot through my fingers. I jerked away my hand, breathing laboriously, then grasped the torque again to get a feel of it so I could find a way to neutralize it.
It was futile to try to break it with brute force.
Someone besides my father knew about my weaknesses. But how? And what else did they know?
I endured the pain, not releasing the torque until I was certain that it indeed didn’t carry my father’s dark signature and rotten power. It didn’t bear his touch. Did my father have a new ally? But it wasn’t like him. He didn’t share power, only had slaves.
Yet someone had forged this foul thing specifically to bind my type of power.
A terrible thought coiled in my mind. There was another person who knew about my existence, other than Ruin and his agents.
My mother.
Sy and I had never breached the subject, but any bitch who could mate with an original god had to be able to hold her own. Sy and I had already figured out that I was a three-quarter goddess.
If it was my mother, how had she found out I was in Shades Academy in Mist of Cinder? Grabbing me in such a manner wouldn’t endear her to me. But then, she wouldn’t have cared about the rough treatment dealt to me.
A chilling, foreboding feeling twirled in my mind. Would she consume me like my father?
I seized the torque again, hissing and enduring the icy burn. Fuck! The torque had a mixed demonic and archangelic signature. From its vibration, I could tell that it was targeting the one-quarter of my genetic makeup that didn’t add to my goddess essence.
I had one-quarter mage bloodline. I could easily pass as a human when I tried.
A kernel of hope rose in me. If the spells in this torque grabbed hold of my weaker genetic part, then in time, it’d lose its effect and my goddess genes would overrule the binding spells. But time wasn’t on my side when I was being held captive. Whoever was behind this grab wouldn’t give me enough time to break out of this bind.
When the burn became too much, I had to drop my hand from the torque, gasping for air from the pain. Yet there wasn’t enough air within the iron mask. If it’d been anyone else, they’d have been unconscious or even dead by now from the suffocation and bleeding.
Some animals chewed their own legs off to escape. I’d sliced off my wrist to remove the spellbound bracelet, but I hadn’t expected the torque. The one who wanted me had thought of everything, two steps ahead of me.
Think. Breathe.
Rage would do me no favors.
