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But his touch couldn’t chase the chill that settled over me, as if my body knew exactly where we were, despite never having laid eyes on the space.
“Is this…” I trailed off, mind still trying to process what I was seeing.
“Where you were kept? Yes.”
The walls were lined with more of the same strange flames from the tunnels beneath the mountains, giving light to a space that was antithetical to the darkness where I had been chained. Down a hall, wood doors stood ajar, and in the closest room there was a bed and a small dresser, presumably where the guards had slept.
“I want to know everything that happened to you here. I want these bastards to feel the full force of my fury, and I want to make them pay for every last thing they did to you,” Ruslan growled, placing his hands on my knees and leveling me with the most violent, serious expression he had ever offered.
Though it had only been months since I’d last been in this cave, it felt like a lifetime. So much had happened since the day Kazimir and the Nighthounds appeared in the darkness like Goddess-sent saviors. The female who came of age that night was fearful, untrusting, ignorant, and powerless.
But my time with them had not been as true as I had once thought.
Kazimir had lied to me, manipulated me, and after seeing him again in the Iron Realm, I understood there were parts of him that had been kept hidden away – purposefully. I had trusted him, trusted all of the Nighthounds, thinking that anyone who claimed to have spent so long searching for me only had my best interests at heart. While the other Nighthounds may have, Kazimir did not. Kazimir had thought of only himself, and what I thought was infatuation was only obsession – and not of the type that made me feel safe and secure any longer. Mates may have had an extraordinary connection that made them closer than any two who naturally chose each other, but Ruslan had proven that there could still be a healthy balance to it, one that Kazimir did not offer, or know how to offer.
Kazimir may have helped me trust again, he may have shown me how to be powerful, but it was I who claimed that power for myself, who worked so hard every fucking day to rise above what had happened to me, and who chose to live instead of survive.
I was no longer a victim; I was an insidious bloom, thorns hidden beneath a pretty exterior, with a wildfire inside, ready to be loosed upon anyone who dared hurt me again.
I was a powerful Félvér, and I would bring the whole continent to its knees before me.
But first, some males needed reminding that they could not fuck with me and live to tell the tale.
So I opened my mouth and spoke every vile action and cruel comment into existence, unburdening myself to my mate.I recounted the faint memories of a kind caretaker who gave her life for me. I gritted my teeth and forced out the memories of my subsequent keepers and their visits, during which they forced me to recite poetry, to become elegant, eloquent, and intelligent in preparation for my noble role. I told him how I never believed them, because the moment they left and banished the light they’d brought with them, the worst of the guards would slink into my cave and whisper the opposite words into my ear, and then whip me if I fought them in any way. Then days later, the nicer ones would appear with treats, fresh clothes, and apologies on their lips. The cycle repeated itself, and I marked the endless passage of time by the arrival and departure of the females and the few hours of sound sleep I managed.
While I spoke, the air around us simultaneously chilled and heated with Ruslan’s unbridled fury. He had to remove his hands from my knees, and by the way they gripped his own, I knew he would leave deep, purple imprints there. The way he vibrated with barely restrained anger would have once frightened me; now it made me burn for him in the best way, and I knew without a doubt he would go to the ends of the earth to avenge me.
Despite his own rage, he knew and understood this was something I needed to do.
Shucking off the blanket, I pushed to my feet and looked at my mate. “Where are they?”
I was ready to take my revenge.
“Chained to the wall they kept you on,” he replied, rising smoothly to his feet. “Though there will be light while we kill them. I want to see the looks on their faces as they die.”
From my time chained there, I knew they could hear every word that cut through the deathly silence of the cave. “Then we’ll have to blind them one by one so they know what it is like to be kept in the dark.”
Ruslan’s expression turned feral, a darkness flashing in his eyes that made my toes curl. “So wicked, sprite. Who knew something so pretty could be so deadly.” He placed his hand on the small of my back, guiding me away from the large living chamber and down a hall lined with torches. After a minute, the first place I ever saw beyond my wall appeared up to my right, the natural opening of the cave revealing the black of night beyond. The walls glittered in the firelight just like I remembered, the black stone creating a rough arch that disappeared into the darkness above. I paused mid-step and turned toward the mouth of the cave, faint childhood memories drifting into those of the night of my rescue.
Endre unlocking my chains. Kazimir scooping me into his arms. The free fall as we flew away from the cave. The smell of amber that filled my nostrils as I clung to him. The brilliance of the stars overhead, and the jagged, snow-capped peaks all around me.
A gust of cold air slapped my face as I reached the entrance, the overhang stopping only steps before a lip of jagged rock. The moon was full and at this altitude, it looked close enough to touch if I reached out my hand. A million twinkling stars gazed upon me, caressing me with their light among the endless dark around us. The view was breathtaking, and when Ruslan joined me, he wrapped his arms around me protectively.
“The day I arrived to take you home, I stood in this very spot, gazing over the peaks and wondering where you had gone. I thought I knew then what love was, and what a mate bond should feel like, but I was irrevocably mistaken. We haven’t even accepted the bond yet, and I know that my heart would shatter if we parted. My life is yours, my heart is yours, my soul is yours, and without you, I am nothing. You are everything to me, sprite, and there are not enough words to express the depths of what I feel for you.”
I tried to picture Ruslan standing here on his own, looking down at the world below. The male who came to Este Castle to take me to the Iron Realm was so different from the one safeguarding me now. Ruslan still held his cocky attitude and ruthlessness, but somehow he had softened, especially with me. I loved when he grabbed me like he’d never let me go, kissed me like I was the air he needed to breathe, and caged me beneath him while we moved together. He made me feel safe enough to let go and trust that he would take care of me; he never made me feel trapped and powerless.
“We’re both so different than we were that night,” I murmured, taking one last look at the star-dusted sky.
Ruslan kissed the top of my head. “And better for it.”
I slid my hand into his, and we retraced our steps, entering a hall with fewer torches, the end of it disappearing into an endless black. Tingles raced across my body as we stepped beyond the firelight, from both anxiety and adrenaline. I was returning to the place where I had been endlessly abused for countless years, and my every nerve was alight with anticipation.
And I was not alone.
Ruslan’s hand tightened around mine as if he could sense the direction of my thoughts, and with his free hand he called black flame to his palm to light the way. A serrated breath passed my lips, and I called white bubbles of light to my hand, then threw them into the air around us, lighting the path to the males who had abused me.
As we crept along the hall, muffled whimpers and the smell of urine reached my senses, along with the occasional scrape of iron against rock – a sound that would always be familiar to me. A chamber opened on our left, and I froze on the spot, heart hammering wildly as my magic was swallowed in the void only a few feet ahead.
