Page 110 of Elas

Silence falls among the group as panic closes my throat. “What?” I manage, and Elas’s expression shifts into shock as he loosens his grip on Ronan.

Ronan shoves Elas back, dusting himself off aggressively as he glares at me. “This is my oldest friend. My fuckingbrother, and the only family I have left. If you take him from me…” His voice cracks, an angry sneer pulling on his face at the vulnerable sound. “There are very few of our kind with a heart like his—one who puts others’ needs before his own. Maybe at one time we weren’t all so ruthless, but the good ones were destroyed with our home. Those of us on this side? We don’thelp, August, not unlessthere’s something in it for us. We manipulate and force and take. Slaughter, if we must. The guards at that base? They won’t hesitate to put a sword through either of your necks. You’ve played your detective games, had your adventures, but this ends here. It ends now. Rightfuckingnow.”

“You would ask me to do nothing, then? To sit back and pretend this isn’t happening?” I say after a moment of heated silence, trying to keep the waver out of my voice. Elas finally leaves Ronan’s side and returns to mine, wrapping an arm around my waist and pulling me against him. “How many people have done nothing? Looked the other way, and said it wasn’t worth the risk? There is something bigger going on here. Bigger than all of us. I know it.”

“You knownothing,” Ronan says with a growl. “You just want to believe it’s true because you need to play the hero. All of this, this moping around and manipulating Elas’s guilt, asking him to risk his fucking life is so you can feel important.”

“Ronan,” Elas warns, but I pat his stomach and grip his shirt to keep him from leaving my side. Ronan has every reason to be worried.

“What if we can make something right?” I ask, and Ronan’s nostrils flare indignantly. “Someone has to break this cycle of inaction. Even if there’s not more to these experiments, if they’re simply trying to understand the bond… what about these people locked up inside Ljómur? How many sets of mates haven’t been given the chance to have what we do? Peace? Safety? And we’re going to just accept that? How many of them havediedat the hands of these monsters, and forwhat?”

Everyone stares at the floor now. “It doesn’t have to happen to you to matter to you,” I finally say, and Elas holds me tighter against him. “And thismatters.It’simportant. All these decades have gone by, and no one has raised a finger to help these people. We could be the only ones who have the chance to do something, and if we don’t?”

Ronan’s eyes flick to mine, colored in brown again as the black recedes. I shake my head and offer him a sad smile. “If we don’t do something, we’re no better than them. We might as well be holding the knife ourselves.”

Dead, excruciating silence hangs over all our heads, until the tiniest creak makes us turn as one. Nyx stands in the doorframe with Boomerang at his side. The morning sun illuminates his mossy green skin, and his giant eyes radiate fear as they catch on mine. His gaze darts between the group, then finally drops to the ground as his fingers curl into Boomerang’s fur.

“Ljómur?” he asks, his voice barely more than an exhale. It’s soft and melodic, musical in the hushed way it cuts through the quiet.

“Yes,” I respond just as softly. His small body quakes, but he stands firm. He’s terror-stricken, but brave enough to push through it. Admiration straightens my spine as I watch his shaky hand tuck a few loose strands of his waist-length hair behind his ear, exposing the pointed tip. “You’re Nyx, correct?”

He glances up at me, the pale sage of his eyes assessing as he grips Boomerang tighter. It feels like we’re all holding our breath as he finally nods, placing his hand overhis heart and letting his long, thin fingers splay across his narrow chest. “Nyx.”

“I’m August,” I say, repeating the gesture. “This is my mate, Elas…” Elas steps forward to my side, and I don’t miss the sharp, scared inhale that comes from Nyx. “… and our friend, Reyes.” Nyx’s eyes unglue themselves from Elas and dart to Reyes, who stands a few paces behind me. Another inhale stutters into his lungs, the tips of his fingers clutching his shirt.

After a few deep breaths, Nyx turns to Ronan and speaks in a low, rolling language I heard occasionally on base. Elas’s ears perk up as he listens, but he doesn’t interrupt the terse conversation between Nyx and Ronan. The language is beautiful, though curiosity has me dying to know what’s being said.

A couple of minutes later, Ronan nods, and Nyx’s gaze drops to the ground again. Heavy resignation weighs on Ronan’s tone as he says, “He wants to help.”

“Help how?” I ask, keeping my voice gentle.

Ronan swallows as he glances at the tiny figure shuffling between his feet at the door. His protectiveness over Nyx is obvious, and it’s understandable, given the condition he was in when they found him. It’s also no surprise that out of everyone in the room, Nyx trusts Ronan the most. It’s clear in the way the tension in his shoulders lessens ever so slightly when he looks at Ronan, and how he’s able to maintain his gaze longer than the rest of us.

“Nyx says…” Ronan trails off, and Nyx whips his head up. He narrows his eyes with a sternness so sharp it makes me want to grin. I hold it back, though Ronan snorts an amused huff of a laugh and holds his hands up insurrender. “He says he can share what he knows about Ljómur.”

My eyes drift to his small frame, and I keep my voice gentle. “How much does he know?”

Ronan glances at Nyx again, who gives him an encouraging nod. “He was one of their test subjects. He spent… years inside the base.”

“How many years?” I ask, horrified even as I try to school my expression.

“He didn’t say, exactly,” Ronan says, and Nyx watches him like he’s trying to make sure he doesn’t miss something important. Ronan asks him another question, and when Nyx gives his soft answer, Ronan’s face pales and Elas chokes a quiet, pained whine. Profound sadness weighs Nyx’s eyes as he speaks quietly for a few more moments, unspoken grief so intense that tears spring in my own.

“Fuck,” Ronan mutters, rubbing his hand over his jaw and glancing at his mate. Cameron must see something in his expression, because he braces himself. “He says…” Ronan gets choked up again, his nostrils flaring as his tails twitch, vibrating like agitated rattlesnakes. “He was very young when the veil opened. His people are peaceful, and didn’t support our army’s plan. They didn’t understand everything that was happening. One day, he was in the forest and found a passageway. A small one, undetected by the leaders, and he got—”

After a pause, he swallows again, and his voice is thick when he continues. “He got curious and came through. He was…fuck.” Ronan swipes at his eyes as Nyx wraps hisarms around his narrow chest. “Was looking at the flowers and never saw the soldiers until they grabbed him.”

Cameron sniffles as Elas hugs me tighter, and Ronan lets out a heavy sigh that’s almost a pained gasp as he reaches for Cameron. “They took him and held him when Ljómur was nothing more than a few tents occupied by the human military. Once they sided with our kind, they kept him there as they built the base.”

“He’s been there since the veil fell?” I ask on a horrified whisper. “That’s been almost a century.”

“Ninety-one years,” Elas confirms quietly.

Ronan hugs Cameron tighter as tears fall behind his glasses. “Yes,” Ronan says. “Nyx has been in captivity since the veil fell. He was test subject number one.”

Elas

Stunnedsilencepermeatestheroom, our scuffle forgotten for the moment as we all stare at Nyx. Ninety-one years as a prisoner. Panic clenches my stomach at the mere thought, and it makes his malnourished, bone-thin limbs and the exhausted circles beneath his eyes more devastating.

---