Page 95 of The Veil of Blood and Magic

I don't hesitate.

I let that power seep back into my body, swallowing it down knowing I cannot and will not be the reason they die.

The Collector nods toward his core, and the dozen of them drag a now unconscious Zev and Jagger out of the room.

My heart is racing so hard in my chest ithurts. I'm shaking, my power slicing through my veins, begging to lash out. I can do it. I can kill him and his son both right now, but then they'd kill my Linked.

“Stupid drifters,” the Collector says, tipping his chin up as he surveys me. “Did they think they could waltz a tress through my gates and I wouldn’t immediately know?”

My heart plummets into my stomach.Fuck.

“Gray,” the Collector says after studying me a moment. “You know what to do.”

The prince dips his head toward his father before stepping in front of me, blocking out everything in my vision. He grips my arm, and I fight his hold, trying to pries his hand off of me, but it’s no use. The bastard is strong.

“Get your hands off of me,” I say as he drags me toward the door.

The Collector laughs, the sound booming behind us as the prince ignores me.

I dig my heels in, hissing and fighting and clawing at him.

He lets out a heavy sigh, jerking me to face him, his silver eyes looking like liquid smoke as he raises one hand toward my face.

I glare at him, waiting for him to backhand me, but he waves it an inch in front of my eyes. A flash of heat snaps through my mind that severs all ties to consciousness.

Chapter 24

Zev

Ifight for consciousness, the mental effort like swimming through tar. I kick for the surface of my mind, doing my best to peel my eyelids apart. My head feels like it's been split open, a throbbing ache in the back of it, and along the side of my jaw. I'm pretty sure I have four broken ribs too. Reality comes back to me in a snap, and I jerk awake.

“Jagger,” I say, immediately finding him on the stone floor next to me.

My moves are sluggish, my limbs not cooperating the way they should as I drag myself over to him, looking for the wound I saw in his chest right before the collector core started to beat me with their batons.

There is no visible wound, only the evidence of one—a massive amount of his blood soaking his leathers, still glistening wet.

He struggles to wake, groaning as he opens his eyes. It takes him a second, and then he's sitting up too, surveying our surroundings. “What the fuck happened?”

Thank fuck, he’s alive.

“I don't know,” I say, glaring at the cold, damp dungeon we've been thrown in. The walls hum with magic, some sorcerer's work draining the power, nullifying it in my blood. I've tried to call on it six times already, even using my necklace, and nothing has happened.

“Your succubus isn't exactly what she seems,” a cold voice sounds from the other side of the bars. Lights flicker outside the dungeon cell, illuminating the prince's face.

I manage to stand, forcing my muscles to work as I limp closer to the bars. The prince leans against the door to our cell, arms folded over his chest, amusement dancing in his eyes.

“She's a tress,” he continues, looking at me, then behind me to Jagger, who finds the strength to stand at my side.

“She came about as close to killing my father as anyone has in half a century,” he says. “Whose idea was it?”

I fasten him with a glare that promises exactly what I'll do to him when I get out of this cage.

“How many of you were in on the assassination attempt?” The prince’s eyes dart between the two of us, and he shakes his head. “I can make you talk, you know,” he says matter-of-factly.

I hate that he's right. The prince certainly outranks us in power, but does his work so near the stone drenched in this nullifying magic? I'm certain we'll find out.

His eyes go distant for a moment, and he pushes his tongue in his cheek. “I've only seen power like that once,” he says, almost like he's speaking more to himself than to me and Jagger. He sucks in a sharp breath, pushing off of the dungeon door, looking at us once again through the bars. “She's mine,” he says. “Thank you for bringing her to me.”

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