Page 380 of Primal Bonds

“Don’t move. Don’t even breathe. Understand?”

Luc hissed as the poisonous metal seared his skin. He stilled, resignation sketched on his face.

“Speak.” Adric pressed the sharp edge a little deeper. “Tell me you understand. You won’t move until I say so.”

“Yes.” Luc swallowed. “My lord.”

Adric sheathed the dagger and dragged off his quartz, dangling it from his fingers. Blood ran down his arm. He ignored it to swing the stone back and forth on its leather cord. Deep within, a fiery bronze mixed with blue flared to life.

“Look at my quartz.”

“No.” Luc squeezed his eyes shut.

Adric growled. “Look at it, you son of a bitch. Now.”

Luc shook his head, but Adric was still his alpha, even if he was technically no longer a member of the clan. His wolf wouldn’t let him fight too hard, especially now, when Adric’s command didn’t interfere with Blaer’s geas.

He opened his eyes. They were dull gold. Flat, hopeless.

Adric gave a hard swallow. For a few desolate seconds, he was back in the abandoned den where his uncle had imprisoned Luc for twelve long months.

By then, Adric and Marjani were on the run from their uncle. Leron Savonett had tortured and starved Luc for months, but he’d never given up their hidey-holes. Adric knew he’d have died rather than betray them.

When Adric and Marjani had finally tracked Luc down, they found him manacled to the wall with an iron cuff around one wrist. The constant exposure to iron had weakened him, making it impossible for him to heal. He lay curled up on the stone floor, his body a rack of bones on which to hang his skin. Open sores on his manacled wrist. His back bloody from a recent beating.

The eyes Luc had lifted to Adric and Marjani had held that same bleak hopelessness. Even as a teenager, the wolf fada had rarely smiled.

But at the sight of them, a corner of his mouth had lifted. “About time you showed up.”

“Don’t do this,” Luc rasped now. “Just kill me.”

Adric’s throat worked. “I can’t,” he whispered.

Back and forth.

Luc might hate Adric for hypnotizing him, but at least he’d be alive.

“Damn you to Hades.” The wolf’s gaze locked on the quartz swaying, pendulum-like, above his nose.

Adric pumped energy into the crystals. Inside, the flames flared brighter until they were reflected in Luc’s pupils, eerie blue flames in the glistening black circles.

“You’ll take me to Lady B.”

“Yes,” Luc said in a flat voice.

“Can you get me through New Moon’s wards?” He’d planned to use his Gift of hypnotism to trick a guard into sneaking him inside, but entering with Luc was even better. The wards would open for Luc, and Adric could slip inside with him.

“Yes.”

“I want your promise on your honor as a wolf.”

“Yes. On my honor as a wolf, I will get you through the wards.”

Gotcha. Adric’s mouth curved in a feral smile. “Where are your clothes?”

“There.” Luc’s arm swung up, pointed into the trees.

“Take me to them.”

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