AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Which is why you didn’t wake up,” I finish.
Carleah doesn’t look at me, but she nods.
“Then perhaps he assumed he would be unable to wake you.”
“But I was awake,” I insist.
“We can ponder the Pegasus’s motives all damned day, or we can find a way out of this,” Alysia snaps. “We’re all together, so how are we going to get out?”
Carleah struggles against the chains binding her once more but winces as they bite into her flesh. “I cannot get free.” Her hands are bound at her sides, legs, throat, and waist pinned against the slab of obsidian, leaving no way for her to break free.
I pull against the chains, yanking until blood trickles from my wrists. I lift my legs and press them against the ceiling above, using every bit of energy I have to try to pull the hooks free—just as I’ve done countless times since we were trapped down here.
The pain is unbearable, but I bite down on the groan as I lower my legs back to the ground.
“The obsidian is blocking the giant blood in you.”
I look to Carleah and nod.
She leans back against the slab and closes her eyes. The defeat is present in the hunch of her shoulders and the softness of her expression. Bowman can barely move. I’m not at full strength. Lacrae and Alysia are both caged—for the first time in my entire life, I see no way out.
No chance of surviving.
Meaning I’m about to lose everything. “Carleah.”
She doesn’t look at me.
“Please, Carleah. Please look at me.”
She scrunches her face on a sob but opens her eyes and stares back at me. Relief floods my body at the sight of her bright gaze, relief that she is giving me a chance to make things as right as I can.
“I am so sorry,” I tell her. “I lied. There hasn’t been a day that I’ve not been desperately in love with you. My soul recognizes you as mine. My heart beats for you.”
“I know that, you idiot,” she chokes out.
I smile. “Yet you let me get away with saying those things to you?”
“What good would arguing have done? You seemed intent on keeping me out of the fight at any cost, and I have been determined to prove to you that I have what it takes to fight and survive.”
“I know you do,” I tell her. “I just—I let down Alex. Your father. Mother. Every last one of your brothers—”
Bowman clears his throat. “I can speak for myself. And I think you’ve done the exact opposite.”
“No. I should have pushed harder to get them to avoid going to that meeting. If I had, they’d all still be alive.”
“You can’t know that,” Carleah tells me.
“Maybe not, but I do know I will never forgive myself for it. It is my job to keep you all safe, and I was so damned distracted that I forgot my sword and allowed that bastard to lock me in a fucking cellar.” I close my eyes then open them again to find Carleah staring back at me. “The point is, I love you, Carleah Rossingol. So fucking much. And my life has been better since the moment I met you.”
“I love you, too,” she chokes out.
“I love you both…platonically, of course,” Bowman chokes out a joke, and I grin at him, seeing a bit of the man I knew him to be showing through.
“This is all so touching,” Alysia quips. “But how do we get out?”
“They have to unchain me, right?” Carleah questions. “If I can get to those knives, then I stand a chance at helping us get out.”
“Except there will be more guards than you can deal with,” I tell her honestly.
