Page 75 of The Songs of Fate (War of Fate)

Chapter Fifteen

The One You Seek

Alarms pierced though the darkness. The guttural shouts from male voices outside my door made me open my eyes. I awoke from a drugged sleep. The stiffness in my limbs made me believe I’d been out for hours. I was alone in my room, no doctor, no food or water either.

The elevated voices were rapid and vulgar over the sound of the alarm. These men were confused, fear edging every word. One guard shouted about reporting to the main level. The other man responded with a few curses and something about not evacuating when a thunderous boom shook the concrete floor. Large cracks fissured through the ceiling and down the walls of my cell. Tiny pieces of debris fell from the ceiling. A thin gray powder puffed underneath the door.

I flipped onto the floor in an ungraceful thud and rolled under the metal frame of my cot.

The lone guard cursed me and himself before the locks on the door grinded. Dust and light filtered into the room as the door crashed open. A dark-haired man appeared in the shadowed doorway, stood over my half-naked body sprawled on the cold floor.

The guard looked as confused as I was. He paused his steps and then withdrew his pistol on his thigh.

He hesitated before he aimed the black sidearm at me.

Oh, please, don’t do what I think you’re about to do.

Suddenly, frigid water blasted down from a sprinkler system on the concrete ceiling. The guard looked up at the deluge pouring on us. I withdrew the needle I’d confiscated from my pants.

The needle was my only weapon.

The guard turned back to me, and I tried to summon my light, but I knew it was useless. They had dosed me again. The drugs weighed down upon the spark inside me, smothering it.

It took so much strength just to stand and face the man who intended to shoot me.

His finger moved over the trigger.

I sought his eyes, pleading for pity or amnesty or some way out of here.

“It doesn’t have to be like this. You can let me go. I won’t hurt you. I can barely move.”

He tightened his grip on the gun, and I closed my eyes. My hand released the needle, and it fell to the ground. My legs couldn’t hold me up in any longer.

I wonder if death will hurt as much as being alone?

I expected the quick flash of pain from the bullet, but after a torturous moment of waiting, it never came. I opened my eyes to find the man sagging to the floor. Bronzed sculpted arms tightened around his neck, guiding him to the flooded concrete.

The man shadowed in the doorway stood to full height.

The lean, dark figure stood in the threshold. He paused his step forward, waiting a breath, before stalking into the room. In two graceful strides, he was a few feet from me.

Then he held back, assessing me like a jaguar before it pounced.

The shock of his presence cleared a bit of the drugged fog.

I knew who it was before I saw his face. I sensed it in my mind, in my bones, in my soul. He was real. He wasn’t a nightmare. He was flesh and blood, and my light called to him. That was more terrifying than any creature. A part of me—the light, still strangled by the drugs—reached for him.

But he was a killer, my killer, wasn’t he?

He finally came for me.

It only seemed fitting in this dark prison it would end by his hand.

We were closer than lovers. He had shared my most intimate moments and my darkest thoughts—never straying far. He looked like the warrior I had always imagined.

He withdrew his blade.

The glow from his gray eyes confirmed what my soul knew. His silver eyes were unnatural, almost alien, even stranger than my dreams.

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