Page 67 of Darkness and Deceit
My mate.
Burned. Broken. Healing.
I glance at his wound—raw and blackened where the blue fire touched him. I’ve felt the echo of it through the bond, cold and wrong, like something slithering through his veins that doesn’t belong. It’s not just pain. It’s erasure. Like it wants to strip him down and rebuild him into something else.
It doesn’t simply scar—it warps. Breaks magic apart and puts it back together wrong. And that’s what scares me the most.
It’s not fucking fair. Kai has already been through more thananyoneshould. He’s already held together by scars and fury and whatever scraps of softness he has left for me.
I can’t let this take the rest of him.
A soft knock raps against the door, and I turn just as it eases open. Augustus steps inside, still in his Keeper robes. So they finally send one of their own.
I shouldn’t be surprised. But it still makes something in me go cold.
His expression is unreadable, but his eyes go straight to Kai. He studies him silently for a long beat before glancing at me.
“The Keepers felt a disturbance,” he says. “From you. From him. They want to understand what it means.”
I rise from the chair slowly, but I don’t let go of Kai’s hand. “He’s still in there,” I say, voice thick with emotion.
Augustus gives a short nod. “We need to talk. Soon.”
I straighten my spine. “Good. Then you can explain why your people stood there and let him rot,” I say, voice low and burning. “Why they watched while the flame ate him from the inside out and did nothing.”
His gaze lingers on me longer than it should. Then he nods toward the hallway. “When you are ready. We are establishing a base in the old astronomy annex.”
The door clicks softly behind him.
I glance back at Kai. His hand is still in mine, his breaths shallow but steady. Still holding on.
But for how long?
The blue flame hasn’t stopped. It’sinsidehim now—eating at his magic, burning him from the inside out. The healers won’t say it, but I see it in their eyes.
And the Keepers? They know more than they’ve admitted. I can feel it. In the way they avoid my gaze. In the way they speak in half-truths. In the way they look at me like I’m something they don’t know how to name.
I brush my thumb along Kai’s knuckles.
The next time they ignore me, I won’t knock. I’ll tear the damn door down.
Twenty-Two
LILITH
I squeezeKai’s hand one more time, then gently set it back on the blanket. His chest rises and falls shallow, but steady.
“I’ll be right back,” I whisper, brushing a stray lock of hair from his forehead. “I promise.”
With one last glance over my shoulder, I slip into the hall.
The chaos hasn’t stopped. The corridor outside pulses with low voices and the shuffle of exhausted feet scuffing over stone. The air reeks of antiseptic, smoke, and something coppery that won’t quite fade.
Healers move between cots pressed haphazardly against the walls, their arms full of vials and gauze. Magic sparks from their hands in soft flickers, crackling like static in the dim light. A student whimpers behind a cracked door—a sound caught between pain and panic.
Still, I keep walking. Step by step, breath by breath. If I stop now, I’ll unravel.
The deeper I go, the more the academy feels wrong. Tilted. Like the stone itself remembers the screams. The walls pulse faintly with leftover magic, and outside the nearest window,the forest still smolders—charred black and skeletal beneath the morning sky.
