Page 5 of Claws of Death

“That’s between Herinor and me and none of your business, Ayna. Behave and I might not cut off Kaira’s fingers.” He steers me past a corner I recognize—the one where the guards once surprised us on our prison break. I almost feel Myron’s presence, his magic as he silently eviscerated them to clear our path. Then I remember that I’m the prisoner now, and Ephegos won’t lift a finger to help me.

“Why her?” Perhaps it’s a bold question, but if I want to find a way to get her out, I’ll need to gather information. The more Ephegos gives away about his thought processes, the more likely I’ll be able to outsmart him later. At least that’s what I hope. She is a part-Flame after all, a member of the Flame tribe, even if merely a minor one. “Why would you capture one of your allies?” I should have asked this question a long time ago when Kaira was put into Ephegos’s service at this palace.

The smirk Ephegos flashes makes me wish I’d never met the Crow. “Does it matter?”

It does, but I don’t tell him that. Instead, I give him a mock grin as he comes to walk by my side, claws locked so tightly around my biceps my arm has gone numb, and sword casually at his side. At least, that dulls the throbbing pain enough to let me think straight.

I haven’t had a chance to speak to the Crow alone since my attempted escape almost two weeks ago, and now that I’m alone with him, I wonder if I should use the opportunity to push for information he might never reveal in front of the King of Tavras.

“It matters if you want to step into the Flame Matrone’s footsteps one day. Isn’t she grooming you to be the next leader of their kind?” Holding my breath, I wait for his claws to rip out a chunk of my flesh, but all he does is stare me down with those too-warm brown eyes. So I push harder. “Or should I sayyourkind. You seem to be on the side of the Fire Faires more these days than on the side of your own kind.”

If the hiss gurgling from Ephegos’s throat is anything to go by, he is one wrong word away from tearing out my throat. Good Erina needs said throat to remain intact so he can make me his wife and use me to breed little baby monarchs. Hiding the shudder of disgust behind an even wider grin, I drag my feet to a slower pace, forcing Ephegos to take more of my weight as he marches me through the narrow corridor into the area where cells line the dusty rooms.

“It’s none of your concern what I do and why.”

True. It isn’t. “As long as it doesn’t put me into a forced marriage and hurt everyone I care about, it isn’t.” I hold his gaze, my entire body trembling from fear of what he’ll do if I push him too far. If he’ll snap my neck if I shatter his control.

“I’ve said it once, Ayna, and I’ll say it again so you remember: It’s nothing personal. If Myron didn’t love you, I would have never dragged you into this. I’m not a monster after all.”

My opinion differs. A lot. “Nothing personal?” I grit my teeth against the shivers that come with the exhaustion of staying on my feet so long after a whole dayof audiences in the throne room. Even my undrugged self would have been ready to drop into a bed and sleep for a full day. But this version of myself is ready to collapse on the spot and never get up again. Only, I don’t have an option. It was me who wanted to see Kaira. Me, who demanded it. So I’ll have to see it through. “Sure feels personal being strapped to a torture table.” The memory alone is enough to make me flinch at the phantom pain where the leather straps once cut into my wrists.

Ephegos’s laugh is as unexpected as it is cruel. “It certainly is personal with Myron, and you’re his mate.”

That says it all.

“Kaira isn’t my mate, though. If you consider the Flames your new family, why not her? Why lock her up and use her against me?” If only it were that easy to get the Crow to spill all his secrets.

“She’s a tool in a longer game, Ayna. You are too young to understand the makings of immortal war, but you’ll understand in time. You’re no longer human after all.”

“Not entirely,” I agree, even when I can’t access the magic slumbering deep inside of me or even think of shifting into my Crow form. The first female Crow in millennia.

“Give it a few hundred years and you’ll be cut out to play this game yourself. You’ll learn that friendships and alliances are fleeting. Only bargains guarantee loyalty. Those, and power.”

I don’t want to know what his life has been like to make him into such a monster. With all the hardship induced through a curse he had no part in deserving, with beingdriven from his homelands and then locked in a tiny forest for ages?—

A twinge of pity flickers through my body, but then I remember Myron remained good through it all. Myron and Royad.

Ephegos tugs me around the next corner, his footfalls silent on the dirty floor while my own feet alert the entire dungeon.

“You think too much, Ayna. We all would have been better off if only you were nothing more than a pretty face.”

Before I can demand to know what he means by that, he points ahead at the end of the corridor between cells at the thin shape in rags huddled on a palette of straw under the high-up window.

“Kaira—” I whisper.

The Flame stirs with a groan, and the sight of her haughty features, half-starved, bloodied, and dirty, makes my knees buckle.

Ephegos drags me on until I get my legs under me again, but it’s an effort driven by the need to avoid the pain of his claws bearing my entire weight at my arm, not because I feel sudden strength.

Because I don’t. Strength leaves me completely when Kaira’s dark eyes find mine across the torch-lit distance, stumbling toward the bars separating her from freedom.

“Ayna!”Kaira is smart enough to use our mental connection to express the relief of seeing me alive—and all the panic as her gaze slides to Ephegos.

“I won’t ask if they are treating you all right, because it’s obvious they aren’t.” I make the accusation clear with asideways glance at Ephegos while in my mind I say, “We need a plan to get you out.”

“You mean both of us,”Kaira corrects with a frown that makes the crusted blood on her forehead flake. Aloud she says, “They have been feeding me enough to remain on my feet, which is more than I expected of those bastards.” She doesn’t hold back with the hatred in her stare as she directs it at Ephegos once more.

I’m surprised the Crow doesn’t punish her for her boldness. Then, I should be used to Ephegos not being predictable in any way. Had he been, I’d have seen his betrayal coming. What I do know is he probably doesn’t see Kaira’s imprisonment aspersonaleither.

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