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Pulling me out of the alcove, he herded me through the tunnel faster, perhaps realizing they were searching for him. Abruptly, he stopped underneath a chute in the stone ceiling.
“Climb up,” he ordered.
I eyed the opening, spying rungs inside the chute. The ceilings were low; Lomax’s horns almost scraped the stone, but, even with a good jump, the first rung was out of my reach. And if, by some miracle, I managed to catch it, I still lacked the upper body strength to pull myself up.
“Do it!” he barked.
“If you think I can reach that, then you may as well kill me now.” My knees shook with fear. Where the bravado had come from, I had no idea. Blood roared in my ears. Please, don’t kill me.
The tunnel was too dim for me to read his expression, but I could feel his gaze. He lunged. I screamed in alarm, but he latched onto my waist with a biting grip and hoisted me into the chute. I grabbed hold of the third rung then hooked my feet on the lowest one and hauled myself into the narrow channel. My legs wobbled like rubber as I climbed several rungs, understanding without being told he intended to follow me in. Fight-or-flight instinct activated, and I considered climbing as fast as I could to get away but rejected it with the certainty it would never work. I had no idea where the chute led, and no way could I outrun him.
A couple of seconds later, he leaped into the chute. “Up,” he ordered.
I obeyed, ascending into pitch darkness, feeling my way rung by rung.
He hadn’t killed me yet—despite my foolish challenge—so terror receded a tad, allowing me to analyze the situation. He spoke only when he had to, in as few words as possible, as if speaking to me was distasteful. The loving man who’d asked me to be his bond-mate had vanished. Could he have been faking the tenderness, the affection, the congeniality? Was this man the real Lomax?
Mind-control reversal did not have a 100 percent success rate. Maybe it had failed—well, obviously it had—but he’d fooled the deprogrammer into believing it had worked. He’d certainly fooled me—and his family. They’d held a dinner to celebrate.
I recalled our conversation about trigger words. Had the deprogrammer missed one? The way he’d flipped in the blink of an eye suggested something had set him off.
I tried to recall the conversation before he had snapped. He and Aeon had been talking, Lomax saying he looked forward to resuming his royal duties after our bond-mating. Aeon had said something about chaos, and he wished for peace in the kingdom. And then he said something in Ara-Cope.
And Lomax flipped out, shouting and hitting the table with his fist. What had Aeon said? Dub…guvik … Dammit! I wished I understood Ara-Cope.
My gut insisted he hadn’t been faking his love and tenderness, that his feelings had been genuine. He’d been his real self, but the subversive programming had lain dormant in his brain until it got triggered.
Regardless, I wasn’t dealing with a prince anymore but an insurgent.
I caught a whiff of fresh air. Continuing the climb, I soon spotted stars high in the sky. We’re almost at the surface.
I have to get away. I have to escape. Time was running out, and I’d blown my best opportunity. I should have called out to the guards. I couldn’t begin to guess where Lomax was heading. Did he have a destination? Or was he just running?
My legs shook with exhaustion and fear, but I forced myself to climb faster, to widen the distance between us. When I reached the surface, I peered out. Lights from a nearby hamlet glowed like a beacon of refuge. If I can get there, someone will help me.
A large metal disk lay in the grass. I guessed the chute was normally covered to prevent accidents. I scrambled out and grabbed the heavy metal plate, dragging it through the weeds. Lomax’s fingers closed around the top rung, and I shoved the disk over the top, trapping him inside.
I sprinted for the hamlet. “Help! Help!”
One moment, I was running. The next second, I hit the ground so hard, it knocked the wind out of me. Lomax flipped me over. Streetlamps illuminated his face. Gasping for air, I stared up at his face. I expected to see fury, retribution.
What I saw scared me even more.
His eyes were dead. There appeared to be nothing left of the man I knew.
Chapter Eight
His Majesty King Saar of Araset
The deprogrammer shall pay!
I paced, unable to sit still, fury and worry roiling inside me. This is terrible. Terrible. Terrible.
“Saar, you are going to wear out the gemstones in the floor. Please, sit,” said Citrine, serenely perched on her throne. I envied my beloved bond-mate’s calm. She was as worried about our son as I was, but she handled it much better.
“I can’t.” In anxious frustration, I grabbed my horns. “What could have happened? The deprogrammer’s glowing report assured us he’d recovered.”
“Her report was quite definitive and comprehensive,” she agreed.
