Page 50 of Luca

“Reapers,” I answered mindlessly. “I—I don’t understand. The wound was healing. It didn’t look like that this morning, so why is it?—”

“Their weapon was poisoned,” he said, cold anger radiating from every word. “It must have had delayed properties. Whoever hired them wanted the poor boy to suffer. I’ll have to draw it out with magic, but you’ll need to control yourself. I can’t concentrate if I’m worrying over whether you’ll attack.”

My jaw clenched, and I wrapped both my hands around one of Luca’s, giving him a grounding squeeze before nodding my assent. I would bear the urge to rip out his throat. Only because I had just enough coherency to justify that his intentions were pure. That he was doing what I could not and saving him.

Zadok lowered his palms to an inch above the wound before closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. He began chanting, a quick flow of words I had never heard. The purple light returned, filling the space between them. The rotting flesh around the cut slowly knitted itself back together, black webs crawling up Zadok’s forearms and disappearing under his shirt. He was absorbing the poison into himself, taking my mate’s suffering, and that knowledge had the tension in my frame easing and my grip slackening.

Except, before the gash had the chance to heal completely, Zadok stopped with a gasp, a look of grave realization on his face.

His arms dropped to his sides like limp weights.

“Why are you stopping?” I implored. “He is almost healed, why?—”

“I recognize this poison…” His voice was barely above a whisper, almost emotionless. His gaze was distant. “It belongs to the king.”

My gaze snapped to him, eyes narrowing. “What?”

“This was your father.”

That was not possible. He would not risk incurring my wrath. It had been zealots, ordinary citizens who believed my mate was a threat to the future of the Fae. Zadok was mistaken, clearly clutching at straws for an answer, for someone to pin the blame on. An easy target. But… the expression on his face said otherwise…

It wasn’t uncertain or even outraged anymore. It was beaten and hollow, as if he’d already surrendered to an outcome he truly believed in.

The acrid stench of shame swarmed the air.

“How can you be sure?” I asked, though the answer was obvious.

To me, at least.

“Because I’m the one who created it,” he admitted, and it was as if the whole world had tilted on its axis. I didn’t know how to react, could hardly even muster up a breath, or anything that would show I had heard him.

My father truly was the culprit; the certainty was deafening, hitting me like falling bricks. Awareness swept through me next. He’d known for longer than we had who Luca was.He’d known we would come here, had counted on it. There was no other explanation for the cruel poetry of a son being poisoned by his own father’s creation.

The king wanted to kill my mate.

“You have to understand, I had no choice,” Zadok babbled, panic setting in, and whatever mask he had donned before began crumbling under the pressure. “It was one of his many tests to prove my loyalty, forcing me to go against my instincts and show I would do anything he asked. He made me demonstrate it before allowing me to lock it away, where I naively thought it would stay. It’s designed to make the victim believe they’re fine until the moment they’re not, and by that time it’s… it’s too late.”

Too late.

I wasn’t really listening, but I heard the words.

I didn’t understand what he meant.Too late for what?

“If it was caught early, my magic would have drawn it out, but it’s lodged too far in his bloodstream.” The mage began tearing at his hair, pacing, speaking nonsense. The scent of his anxiety was cloying, his rabbit heartbeat like a drum in my ears. I could barely hear what he was saying. “It’s all my fault. I did this. I-I killed my own son, what kind of monster…”

I tuned him out.

It didn’t matter who was to blame. We were wasting time. My mate was dying and he needed to be saved. Nothing else mattered. He had to be healed.

“Try again,” I said flatly, staring at the wound on Luca’s belly as it returned to its festering state. It was enough to snap Zadok out of his stupor.

“Your Highness, I?—”

The glare I sent him made him gulp. “Try.Again.”

Zadok did as I demanded, his chants once again echoing through the room, their sonorous tone rattling my very bones. He kept going until blood started to drip from his nose and his eyes rolled into the back of his head. Once he broke away, he staggered backward, crashing into his workbench. “Shit.”

He scrambled to right himself, swiping his arm across his face before clambering over to the bookshelf on the far wall, his movements unsteady.Deranged. I checked Luca’s pulse—still sluggish but faintly improving—as Zadok rifled and tore through the books until he found what he was looking for.

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