I wake to the sound of a chair creaking.
My hand moves to wander aimlessly over the space Greystone was sleeping next to me. But it’s empty yet still warm to the touch.
I open my eyes, blinking several times before the cave ceiling comes into focus. I shift to where the sound came from, a chair in the corner of the room. Dessin is lacing his boots up, glaring at me.
“What?” I ask, but I know. I wish I didn’t. I screwed up big time.
“I’ve been filled in.”
I use my elbows to prop myself up. My lips bunch together to keep from blurting out apologies.
“You know, I really miss the asylum. That chickenshit was too scared to ever come to the front then.” He’s annoyed. Not angry. My shoulders slump a little.
“You don’t like him either, huh?” I ask.
“What’s there to like?”
“Well—”
“Don’t answer that,” he orders.
I laugh. “Are you angry with me?”
Dessin lifts his chin to look down at me from under his lashes. Considering.
“No,” he says.
“No?”
He finishes the last loop of his black laces.
“You’re the one that had to sleep next to him,” he says, cringing. “You should be the one that’s upset.”
“Do you think Kane will be mad?”
“No, he’ll probably laugh. For the same reason I’m annoyed.”
I sit up, clutching the blankets close to my chest. Is what I did not wrong? Shouldn’t they be jealous or furious or hurt? I stew in my thoughts, trying to understand the meaning of all this.
Dessin kneels down on my side of the bed, looking up at me the way you would a child.
“I can see your wheels turning,” he comments. “You don’t understand how this works.”
I really don’t.
“The way I’d react to you being touched by other men versus another alter will be night and day. It’s not the same. I’d cut down a man for even glancing your way. But—we all use the same body. It’s different.”
I sigh, a cloud of confusion thickening over my thoughts.
“Okay,” I respond.
Dessin continues to watch me, eyes trailing curiously over my face.
“Get dressed.” He stands, holding his hand out for me. “It’s time to continue our ruse.”
~
“Sleep well?” Runa asks, wearing a see-through dress that barely covers her bottom and thigh-high boots. We can see every detail of her backside as she walks.
Dessin has an arm around me, holding me tight to his side. I have to pretend it’s normal. I have to act like being this close to him is an everyday occurrence for us. But I’m elated on the inside. My heart taking a lap around my chest like a wild stallion. I breathe through my nose to capture the scent of cedar and wood dust. Commit it to memory.
“We’ll eat, then we’ll be on our way,” Dessin says, stroking the side of my arm with a calloused thumb.
I look up at him questioningly. I thought we would hear about the prophecy. About why the elders want to help us?
Dessin catches the question flinging from my gaze.
“I don’t like staying in one place for too long. It makes us sitting ducks.”
“Fine,” Runa calls over her shoulder as we enter the cave tavern. “But they’ll want to see you before you leave.”
As we walk past the tables of clanking chalices, moaning women, and men devouring their breakfast—we’re hit with the scent of cigar smoke, freshly baked bread, and leather.
Our hoods are up to disguise us, and I’m under Dessin’s arm. He makes no effort to hide his aura of dominance. The shadows of death and destruction follow him everywhere. A king sauntering among peasants.
And I’m wrapped in his possession.
We take a seat at the table closest to the bar. Dessin sitting across from Runa, he glances over at me. “Up, in my lap,” he commands.
It frightens me that I hardly give a thought to obeying. I’m up. I’m sliding into his lap with ease. His arms circle my waist like that’s their resting position. That’s where they belong.
Runa’s eyes bounce between the two of us. She blinks those feline black eyes as if she’s staring at a couple of ghosts.
“Out with it,” Dessin grumbles from behind me.
“It’s odd,”—Runa shakes her head—“seeing you two after hearing all of the stories.”
“Is anyone going to tell us these stories?” I ask.
“I—” She pauses, shrugging her shoulders. “We’re not allowed to. Telling you what is destined to happen could ruin everything.”
Dessin is still beneath me. Deciding whether or not she’s full of it.
“The elders will only tell you what the prophecy asks of our people. Instructions.”
“Instructions?” Dessin asks.
She nods, smiling up at the man who sets breakfast plates down in front of us.
“From what I’ve heard, yes. Although no one knows what is to be given to you. It’s been tasked with each generation of elders since—a long time.” Runa digs into her grits and porridge.
I politely push around my food, taking tiny bites before I realize Dessin can’t reach his with me in his lap. I look back at him, my eyes signaling to his food to ask, Want me to move?
Dessin shakes his head. “Eat.”
But every couple of bites I take, I pass him a piece of fruit, forming a system. I try and shift my weight forward so I’m not suffocating him while he tries to enjoy his food. Still, he refuses my distance by tugging my hips backward, pinning me against his chest.
I fight to not let the satisfaction show on my face in front of Runa.
“What didn’t you two like about the city that you’d venture all the way out here?” she asks between bites of food.
“Was it the starvation or the misogyny? Or was it the stupid bubble bath shit?” she asks again.
I scoff with a mouthful of food. “Yes.” It was all bad. I’m still fighting the gnawing pains of the starvation. For some reason, I can’t shake the need to continue my routine of eating only when I feel I might faint. It’s sick. It’s an illness, perhaps? And I’m careful, secretive, even, to hide these unhealthy compulsions from Dessin and Kane.
Runa nods. “You know the seven colonies don’t control women the way your people do. Gender is of no importance to the way our society is run. Only heart and will. That’s all that matters.”
“Must be nice,” I say tightly. And I mean that. I would love to live in a world that doesn’t let a label limit your worth. If we cared less about a woman’s appearance and more about what she could be capable of… wouldn’t that be a society worth fighting for?
“How do you know so much about the city? They don’t even know you exist. There are myths and rumors. But Demechnef isn’t aware of your actual existence.” Dessin isn’t eating anymore. He’s interrogating her. Uncertain of her motives.
“We have ways of watching.” A knowing smile. “But there’s only one colony that gets involved. Only one that watches and moves among the rest of you without ever being spotted.”
“Who?”
“Crimson Kres. From the Red Oaks. They went missing after the slaughter of the RottWeilen.”
My jaw drops. I turn back to Dessin. He blinks at me with the same question in his eyes.
“What do the RottWeilen have to do with them?” he asks.
“The RottWeilen were guardians to that colony. When they were slaughtered by your people, the Crimson Kres disappeared. But we think they are spies among your people. A rumor that they’re pulling the puppet strings without being detected.”
“What—” I set my fork down, swallowing my shock. “What do you think they’re doing? And why?”
Runa leans in to whisper. “No one knows. But we can guess it has something to do with the prophecy. All seven of us have our own pieces to this puzzle.”
For once, Dessin is wholly withdrawn. Unsure. Even a little confused.
I keep my eyes on him, a tickled smile blooming over my cheeks.
“What.” Not a question. A demand. He doesn’t even look at me to know I’m amused at his expense. My chest pressurizes with laughter.
“Am I funny to you, Skylenna?” His words are laced with edgy irritability.
I laugh harder.
“Secrets aren’t so fun when you’re on the outside, are they?” I’m grinning now.
He rolls his neck, his stare of steel and ice flicks to me. He is not entertained by my laughter. “Yuck it up, beautiful. You’re on the outside of their secrets too.”
“Careful, little girl,” Runa warns, cleaning her plate. “You wouldn’t want to see the other people that live in that mind of his.”
Her comment is casual, yet a pang of annoyance hits my gut. How is it she knows more about his mind than I do? I want to be the only one that knows his mind in and out. I want to be the only one that knows his secrets.
Dessin seems rubbed the wrong way too. His daring eyes narrow at her, belittling her entire being with one look. “How the fuck would you know anything about that?”
Her white eyebrows rise. She realizes where she went wrong.
“Speak,” he demands with that darkened voice he uses when he’s about to attack.
“We,”—she gulps down the last of her food—“know almost everything about the two of you. You’re in our mythology.”
“Mythology?”
But I’m not listening. That rotten jealousy that I buried early has come back full force. I’m seething beside him. My hands grip the edge of the wooden table. I’m a doll made of stone in his lap. I get it. They know things. But hearing Runa speak about Dessin to me as though she’s an old friend, someone who knows him so much better.
It pisses me off.
“I really can’t talk about it,” Runa says stiffly.
“I don’t like my identity being public knowledge.” Dessin’s hands tighten around my hips.
“Well, it is, and there isn’t anything you can do about it,” Runa says.
“No? You don’t think so?”
And I can practically hear the earth rumbling with his wrath. Dessin loves proving a point, and he’ll stop at nothing to find whatever holds this information about him. Even if he has to burn down everything in these caves to do it.
“You won’t because we’re leaving. Now.” I push off his lap, storming out of the tavern. But I made a thoughtless mistake. My hood flies off my head, falling down my back and unveiling my face for all to see.
A man with white hair braided down to the base of his neck snatches my arm midstride.
“I knew something didn’t belong,” he muses, eyes a mix of charcoal and ash. He’s middle-aged, lean frame, with a tunic open at the chest. “Hello, lost one.”
I try to yank my arm from his grip, but he’s cold metal. A grasp of pure testosterone and dark elven blood. Great. I had to be the one to blow our cover.
“Let me go,” I say under my breath.
He laughs loudly, alerting his chatting comrades that he’s got something they’ll want to see. I act quickly before they can turn around. My foot jerks forward, kicking him in the shin. He hisses at the sudden pain, and his grip loosens, allowing me to yank hard enough to free myself. But I overshoot. I pull too hard, fumbling toward the ground.
But instead, I slam into something solid and unmovable. A wall of granite muscle.
That presence can be felt before it is seen. Like a fog rolling over a mountain, thickening the air in your chest.
His hands curl around my arms to keep me steady as he stands me upright. And I don’t have to turn around to feel the violence dance around him. Because he stills behind me. Signs that cold rage boils under his surface.
“Who the fuck are you?” the braided-haired man spits.
Dessin’s next movements are swift and clean, rotating me behind his back. Safe. Guarded. I stand on my tiptoes to peer over his shoulder at the soon-to-be-dead man.
“Sorry, I didn’t quite catch that?” Dessin’s voice is relaxed and almost polite with his request for the dead man to repeat himself. He sticks his neck out in emphasis.
“She’s a—”
The jab to Braid Man is quick, sharp, fluid. And he’s on his knees gasping, choking on his own saliva. Dessin clutches his hand just under the man’s chin, yanking him upward. And it’s a terrifying sight to see. With one hand, Dessin holds my assailant above his head. Feet dangling like low-hanging fruit inches above the ground.
Braid Man’s throat gurgles; bubbles of saliva foaming at the corners of his mouth.
“Apologize before I cut out your tongue with a rusted knife.” His threat is a mountain falling from the sky, dropping down on the man’s back. It’s a storm ripping through the musty cave air.
The other men rise from their seats, hopping over the tables to aid Braid Man and attack Dessin with brute force.
And truthfully, I would be confident with the outcome of Dessin winning. But we don’t know the capabilities of the dark elven descendants.
They charge like a swarm of bees to defend their nest, and all I can hear is Runa’s voice shouting for them to stop.
He has to drop the man. We need to leave.
“DESSIN!” I scream at the top of my lungs, tearing from the depths of my stomach and scraping my esophagus on the way out.
The shouting of men and clattering of falling silverware fade into a slowing pace of confused looks and wide eyes. They stop themselves moments before they barrel into him. And it’s a moment of caution. The way you would step away from a lion when seconds before you thought you were petting a cat.
Their gazes flicker from him to me and then to each other.
“That’s right, assholes.” Runa shoves past me to stand between Dessin and me. “Prophecy is real. They weren’t scary stories to tell at night to scare little children.”
Scary? What is said about us that could be scary?
I look up at Dessin, still strangling Braid Man.
Ah, yep, that checks out.
“Put him down,” Runa barks.
I can only see the back of Dessin’s head, but if looks could kill…. He lowers Braid Man to the ground. Sobs and guttural choking sounds escape him as he fights to survive the attack to his windpipes.
The men and women gather around us, gawking as if they are seeing a living, fire-breathing dragon.
Accusations are thrown from all angles.
Impostors!
Not real!
Spies from the city!
And the crowd turns from stunned to skeptical to outraged. The next moment combusts into masculine chaos. The tavern seems to decide on our fraudulent status collectively, telepathically. The cave rages with violence in the blink of an eye.
They rush Dessin like a tidal wave of white hair, black leather, and snakelike movements. They are trained. And they are deadly.
But no matter how good they might be, Dessin is worse. As I whip my head back to him, he doesn’t look nervous, doesn’t seem overwhelmed. He’s a plague of destruction.
Their attacks are clean and precise, but Dessin anticipates every fist, every kick with calculated maneuvers. He uses them against each other, ducking when someone swings, knocking out their fellow comrades. His arms are deadly whips, devastating detonators of impact. They can’t react fast enough. It’s as if his actions are choreographed. Preplanned. A death dance. A symphony of organized chaos.
Except this cave is a fortress to them. They must have prepared for intruders over centuries of paranoia. Generations of planning. Two contraptions of chains fall from the ceiling, a cage of metal thorns trapping him midfight.
“No!” I howl, but it’s too late. A pair of arms wrap around my body, keeping me from running to him. “Dessin!” I scream, watching blood drip down his arms from the spikes that puncture him in place. He can’t escape without tearing holes into his muscles. And I know he would do it. He sees my struggle. That stare of insidious intent and possessiveness takes over.
I’m being hauled backward. But I kick and scream, thrashing against their hold. This is my fault! I’m the reason we blew our cover. I’m the reason Dessin had to fight at all.
“Please,” I beg, my screams hoarse and rusty.
A woman dressed in a full-body lingerie set pulls a red poker from the giant fireplace, rushing to Dessin’s cage, handing it to a man that seems to be in charge.
“Who sent you?” He taunts Dessin with the blazing tool, sizzling with unbearable heat.
But Dessin is silent, in fact, he’s not even paying attention. His eyes have gone vacant, distant, unable to process the new information.
Is he… Is he switching alters? NOW? Who could possibly be more capable of handling this situation than him?!
He blinks, adjusting his focus on the poker. His gaze is lighter, less violent, and unlike anything I’ve seen from him. He’s excited.
“How hot is it?” this new alter asks, breaking into a poisonous smile. “Is it searing? Hot enough to burn through flesh?”
The man holding the poker pauses, resting the sharp tip on the bar of his cage.
“Go on,” the alter croons. “I’m itching to feel it.”
What?
That voice never loses its weight that drops down to my gut. It’s deep and low, but with a wicked humor and playfulness that I haven’t heard. He likes the pain.
Trauma.
This alter was split to withstand torture. An alter that would enjoy it.
A shiver melts over my skin. I break out into a sweat, trembling in the arms of my captors.
No… I can’t let him go through this. I don’t care if this alter enjoys it or not. It’s my fault. He won’t suffer because of my stupidity.
“Stop! He’ll never talk but I will!” I shout to the man waving around the unconventional weapon.
The new alter turns his head to me, faster than taking a breath. “Don’t.”
The man with charred eyes and wispy lashes barks a laugh at me, turning back to the new alter to begin the interrogation.
But I see the flaming pointed end of the tool inching to his flesh, and I can’t hold myself together. Tears spring to my eyes in a flash flood. I had to sit silently while he was tortured in the asylum. I had to hold myself together. But not here. Not again.
My agony is unleashed. I lurch forward, despite the unbreakable arms around me. And I let out the most devastating sound that has ever left my lips.
A cry for help.
A howl of endless torment.
It ripples out of my lungs like a never-ending horn of battle.
And there’s a moment of silence before we feel it. A moment of peace. An energy thrumming through the earth. A rumbling like from a galloping herd of buffalo. But more than that, it’s the energy of a firestorm rage that crackles through the air.
And it’s not coming from the man in the cage.
A monster roars in dark fury outside of the cave, scorching the tavern with vehemence, like the devil emerging straight from hell to annihilate us all.
DaiSzek gallops from the blackened shadows of the forest like a murderous devourer of worlds. And his eyes glow crimson red.
I laugh through my tears, gasping at how his entrance has paralyzed my entire body in divine awe. The beautiful, terrifying beast charges for us, feral energy pulsing through every man and woman around us. They scatter like rats in a sewer pipe.
DaiSzek leaps in front of Dessin’s cage, or whoever is in there now, guarding his friend. And I run to them. The arms have dropped from my waist. I’m sprinting like a madwoman to the cage, to the unfaltering protection of DaiSzek’s ferocious stance.
When he sees that I am safely behind him, his snarl pulls back, showing off the deathly fangs that could rip a tree in half. A warning that whoever crosses him will lose their flesh, their organs, their souls.
And the crowd obeys. Staring in shock, in horror, in soul-shattering disbelief at the beast. The legends of which myths were written.
Our friend. Our protector.
