Page 184 of Once the Skies Fade

“The King of Wrenwick may have been the one to order Brennan’s death,” he said slowly, taunting me as if he were dangling a treat before a hound. “But I’m the one who forced him to—a little blackmail over infidelity can accomplish a lot, even the assassination of a king.” He squeezed my jaw harder. “I will have a crown one way or the other, Calla. Brennan would still be alive if you had simply chosen me instead of him. And now Matthias will die unnecessarily—along with all the other pitiful males in these trials—because you could never accept my hand.”

Sliding my eyes open, I shifted my chin toward him and pressed into his grip.

“Let me see my mate,” I commanded.

His eyes narrowed slightly, and I half-expected him to deny my request out of spite, but as I’d hoped, his need to boastwon out. Sighing deeply, he pulled me away from the wall and dragged me into the other room. My legs nearly gave out at the sight of Matthias chained to a metal chair in the center, a large chunk of skin missing from between his shoulders—his tattoo, the one honoring his family, gone. More bile gathered when I realized it was his skin—and were those his fingernails?—on the ground near his feet.

“What did you do to him?” I whimpered, but my heart lit up when Matthias shifted and uttered a quiet groan.

Graham chuckled darkly in my ear. “You haven’t even seen the worst of it.” He shoved me away from him, and I barely kept from tumbling to the blood-splattered floor before I made it around to face my mate.

Dropping to my knees, my hands hovered over Matthias’s knees as I surveyed his injuries. Tears welled in my eyes, making it difficult to assess his condition. Below his swollen jawline, his chest rose and fell with slow, shallow breaths. My gaze trailed down his chest, and I nearly fell backwards in horror at the sight of blood still flowing from the wound in his gut.

Reaching for his face, I stroked his cheeks with my thumbs. “Matthias, I need you to wake up now. I need you to hold on, to stay with me.” His eyelids fluttered weakly but remained closed. Slowly, he leaned into one of my hands and released a hum of a sigh. “I hate you, general. Remember? You promised to take all of my hate, and I refuse to let you go back on your word.”

Matthias still didn’t look at me, but deep in my chest a wave of comforting love and refreshed hope poured in from our bond. Wincing as I lifted onto my knees, I pulled his head forward as far as I dared and pressed a kiss to his forehead.

Graham’s slow footsteps grated on my nerves, poking holes in my heart. “As sweet as this is, I’m afraid that’s all the time you’ll get together.” He paused, and in my periphery I noticed him wave his fingers in the air. Behind him, Ami walkedin, dwarfed by the tall man from earlier standing beside her, dropping an unconscious Asher—now in his human form—to the ground.

Chapter 92

Matthias

The scent of sugared berries and purple blooms slowly pulled me out of the darkness, though I still couldn’t open my eyes to find her.

“I hate you, general.”

Most would have found such words to be daggers to the heart, but for me they were a stars-blessed balm to my battered soul—a lifeline cast out to me on four simple words. I tried to move, but pain stilled me once more.

Don’t leave me,I silently begged her as I leaned into her palms and cherished the softness of her lips against my skin. Her warmth fell away too soon, leaving my skin cold and lonely.

Come back!

She couldn’t hear me.

I tried to pry my eyelids open, desperate to see her, hopeful that perhaps the sight of her might give my body the boost it needed to help us survive these damned mountains. They refused, though, remaining tightly closed.

“Alek,” Graham’s voice pierced my consciousness—the last voice I wanted to hear. “Where are the others? She wouldn’t have come with just him.”

“We shot one of the dragons down in the canyon. The other two stayed with him, but we managed to secure them easily enough.”

“Hear that, Calla?” Graham hissed at my mate. “You’ve lost. Your friends have been captured. Your mate’s at death’s door. You came all this way, only to fail at the last moment.”

“Until I stop breathing, I have not lost,” Calla seethed.

If there were more words exchanged, I didn’t know, as a bolt of pain shot through me—but it wasn’t mine. It was Calla’s.

The tightness around my ankles and wrists eased, though. The pain subsided as quickly as it had come on, replaced with that same burst of excited anticipation I’d experienced before. Testing my restraints, I shifted one of my legs as far as I dared.

The chains no longer held.

I was freed, but how?

This time when I tried to open my eyes, I managed to lift my lids enough to see my mate’s shadows slipping away from the chains. Raising my chin a bit—and swallowing hard against the resulting twinge in my back—I found her staring past me, but her eyes slid quickly to mine.

I yearned to brush her tears away, but not yet. There would be time for that.

“Take her to the humans, Alek,” Graham commanded, and my heart stopped. I finally had her back, and they were going to steal her from me again.

---