Page 49 of Happily Ever Bitten (Underworld Royals 2)

“He does, so it’s technically a guest room, but I’m the only one who ever stays in it.” Not frequently, just when I wanted to avoid my mother as well. “It should be pretty clean, as Adrik has some sort of service that stops by biweekly to clear all the dust.”

I flipped on a few lights, then went to the security panel just beside the door and armed every feature. If anyone tried to come in through the windows or doors, or attempted to arrive via a portal, we’d know.

“This place is like a fortress,” Zaya said, gaping at the screen on the wall.

“Adrik grew up paranoid,” I replied, thinking about our youth. “As the last Shadow demon, he couldn’t take many risks. So he armed himself appropriately.”

“Because of Necros.”

I nodded. “Yeah, largely because of Necros.” The asshole former King of Caluçon had killed Adrik’s entire family. Had my mother not taken Adrik in as an infant, he would have died, too.

Silence fell between us, the darkness outside denoting the late hour. We’d been traveling for a while, yet my exhaustion gave way to my need for answers.

“Can you tell me what you remember?” I asked her. “About Yakariah.”

She cleared her throat and shook her head. “I… I went to change, and the next thing I knew, I was covered in Yakariah’s blood.”

“So when did you take down Cyprus?” I asked her.

She just shook her head again. “I… I don’t remember attacking him at all. He was in the sitting area… and then… I don’t know.”

I studied her for a moment. “The memory scan I did before was crude and quick,” I admitted. “Can I do a deeper dive?” Breaking through the mental barriers of another demon wasn’t exactly something I enjoyed, and I only ever did it out of necessity. Hovering on the periphery of a mind—like I did with her now—was an entirely different situation. It came more naturally to me, yet I’d avoided it with her for the better part of a year. And now I couldn’t seem to release her.

“Aren’t you in my mind right now?”

“Sort of,” I admitted. “I can hear your louder thoughts, and I can sense your general emotions, but I’m not fully immersed. Your memories exist on a deeper layer, one that requires skilled prodding to tap into.”

“That sounds painful.”

“It can be, but only for the one diving into the mind. I’ll experience your memories like they’re my own.” Which was the other reason I never did this to her. The situation with Necros lurked in her mind, and I never wanted to experience that pain. Ever.

“I can feel your hesitation,” she said softly, her own mind brushing mine. “You left the doorway open for me to enter your thoughts.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Because if you’d been able to contact me before, I never would have found you half-dead in the dungeon, I told her, pushing the words into her mind.

She frowned at me. “You left me there for weeks.”

“Three days,” I corrected. “But that doesn’t make it any less forgivable.”

“I thought you hated me,” she whispered. “I thought that you… that you had given up on me. Especially after Napia told me about the wedding being brought forward.”

“What?” Napia? “When the hell did she say that?”

“While I was in the cell…” She trailed off, her hazel eyes taking on a faraway gleam. “She said you didn’t want to see me and that Valora was the only reason you hadn’t killed me yet.”

I grunted. “Bullshit. I spent the last three fucking days watching the footage of you on repeat. It didn’t make any sense. Why the hell would you rip out his heart?”

“I wouldn’t,” she said. “That’s… that’s barbaric.”

“Yet you did it,” I replied. “And it doesn’t make any sense.” I just kept going back through the loop of how she murdered Yakariah. Over and over and over again. When I tapped into her recollection earlier, it jumped in time, just as she said. However… “I only skimmed your memories before. I want to dive deeper to see if I can find the lost time somewhere in your mind.”

She swallowed. “Okay,” she said slowly. “But I want to see it, too. Is that possible?”

Yet another indication that she had no idea what happened or how. Which just added to the mystery. Had she been so distraught by the event that she’d blocked it?

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