Page 76 of To Crave Truly

Chapter Thirty-Three

Lori

This place was a goddamn maze. How was I supposed to find anyone in here, let alone someone who wasn’t technically alive. Heartbeats I could hear alarmingly well now, thanks to Mordecai’s little plan, but Iveri wasn’t alive.

It didn’t help that every corridor seemed to look the same. Guess décor wasn’t high on the list when it came to dungeons.

“Can you sense her?” I asked my demon hopefully.

Yes. But she seems to be beneath us.

Great. We were heading lower. Just wanted I wanted to hear as we walked down the dark corridors in a dark dungeon. Just fucking peachy.

I turned to Jasper. “We need to go deeper.”

He nodded, his back straight, head on a swivel. “Okay. Let’s go.”

I found some stairs and we descended all the way to the bottom. “I think this is as deep as we can go.”

She’s here.

What I didn’t get was why Iveri had been put all the way down here. It wasn’t like the place was overflowing with prisoners. “Something doesn’t feel right.”

“Agreed,” Jasper said curtly. “Up ahead.”

A strange red hue started to glow brighter the further we advanced down the corridor. I didn’t like this. As we got closer, Jasper tugged me behind him.

“Hey—” I started, but he cut me off with a flat look. Fine, if he wanted to go all protective, then who was I to stop him.

He held his hand up and stopped. His broad back rippled under the Elite shirt he was wearing, but he was blocking the tunnel.

“What is it? What do you see?”

“Iveri.”

I pushed him to the side, scurried past and came to a halt when I saw Iveri. Well, what was left of her.

She was suspended a foot off the ground, arms and legs spread wide, and she was fading. Her skin had turned translucent to the point where I could see right through her to the ground below. White tendrils of magic were wrapped round her limbs and pulsing like a heartbeat. They were like vines, growing from the earth below.

“Violette must be syphoning the magic,” Jasper said, his gaze assessing the scene.

Of course. With the witches and their magic vanishing, Violette must have felt her powers weaken. The magic Selene used to create Iveri was old magic. Ancient and powerful.

I stepped closer. “How do we get her out?”

“I don’t know, but I don’t think it will be easy.” He pointed to the runes marking the floor which glowed the same bright white as the vines. “It’s all connected.”

“Can you help?” I asked my demon.

She frowned and pursed her lips. Maybe, but I’ve never seen anything like this before.

“Well, we need to try. I can’t leave her.” Not like I had last time.

The Sin Reaper stepped into my skin, the coolness of her touch sending a shiver down my spine. “I’ll never get used to that sensation.”

Maybe you don’t have to.

“What?”

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