Page 253 of Storm of Secrets and Sorrow

“I don’t know,” he rasped, feeling blood dripping down his chin, and he thanked the gods he’d been smart enough not to contact Tristyn.

His father scoffed as Mansel yanked harder, the knee pressing to his back shifted, centering on his forearm.

“Where is she, Axel?” his father repeated.

“I don’t know,” he spat again. “I made sure I didn’t know.”

His father straightened. “But you know how to find her.”

Axel shook his head, drops of blood splattering with the movement.

“Then you are telling me you lost our fire Fae. Am I understanding that correctly?”

“I didn’t lose anything,” he sneered, his shadows beginning to stutter as they battled against Julius’s power and tried to pry Mansel off his back at the same time. “I saved her. From this. From you. From?—”

That was when his bone snapped beneath Mansel’s knee, and he bellowed as Julius made it feel like every bone in his body was doing the same. Black spots danced in his vision, and bile rose in his throat, mixing with the coppery taste of blood.

His father gripped his face, his power batting away Axel’s shadows as if they were nothing. They were at this point. Nothing but wisps of dark mist feebly trying to save him.

There was no saving him.

Not anymore.

The pain eased just enough to keep him conscious. He could see Julius still circling, but he held chains in his hands now.

Chains that would keep his power from replenishing.

“One last time, Axel. Where is the fire Fae?” the Arius Lord asked, his voice as dark as his soul.

And Axel laughed as a smile filled his face because in this one thing, he’d won. He’d finally beaten his father at something, and if his prize was unending agony, he’d suffer through it for her.

“You find this funny?” his father demanded, his rage clearly rising as Axel only laughed more.

“He’s lost his mind,” Mansel said, his hold loosening some.

“Not yet,” his father said. “But he will. Eviana, come here.”

The Fae appeared, lowering to her knees beside where her Master was crouched. Without a word, she held out her arm. In the next blink, his father sliced a blade across her arm from wrist to elbow. Blood immediately welled, and Axel went utterly still as the scent of it hit him.

With a snarl, he lurched forward, every part of him honed in on the one thing that could restore him, protect him, save him.

His father smiled. “You think you’ve won something here today, don’t you?”

Axel hardly heard him. Not until his face was wrenched back to his father’s did he process what had been said.

“I don’t see her here. I don’t see her broken at your feet, so yes, I’ve won,” Axel rasped.

His father motioned to Julius, who stepped forward with the chains.

“Make no mistake, Axel, I am going to find her. But until I do, you can besavedthe same way you saved her. Hidden away where no one can find you.”

A manacle was clamped on his wrist, and Axel bellowed another cry of pain as his broken arm was jostled. A few light slaps to his cheek had him breathing through his teeth as he focused on the Arius Lord once more.

“And when I find her,” his father continued, “I will bring her to you.” Axel was already shaking his head, and his father’s smilewas growing. “She’ll be bleeding from so many places, you’ll be able to take your pick.”

“I’ll kill myself before I touch her,” Axel snarled as the other manacle was secured to his wrist. Another set was fastened to his ankles, and then he was jerked to his feet. He stumbled, his knees buckling slightly due to the stab wound in his thigh that Julius was continually making worse.

“The only person you’ll be killing is her,” his father sneered, darkness starting to swarm around them as his father prepared to shadow-walk them all, presumably to the Underground. “Then you can tell me how you won with her blood on your hands and in your veins.”

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