“Isay is not my mate. She’s not my anything. We’ll find the princess together.” We hadn’t talked about the possibility. We hadn’t talked about where we’d go from here.

The only thing I did know was that she’d avoided my confessions after I’d made love to her. We weren’t there yet, and after today I didn’t know if I’d ever see her again to keep on trying to win her over.

“You just said you can feel her in your blood. That makes her your mate,” Regar pushed, brows furrowing.

“The only thing that makes me is a desperate man.”

We’d come across several groups of fae patrolling the gardens on our way to the palace. Nobody had seen the princess. The courtyard was less busy when we arrived, but the king was standing in front of the palace with his queen and the rest of the elite guard.

Guess who stood next to Hiko and Sinister as if nothing had changed between when I last saw him at the club and now? Ferro. Smug as ever he didn’t even twitch an eyebrow when he saw us coming.

Maybe I’d gotten it wrong? Searching around the courtyard for Isay with my heart racing ahead of me I was ready to admit I’d jumped to conclusions. She was not with them. I hastened our pace until Regar had to pull on my belt to keep me from storming over them. I was still wearing no shirt.

“Kar, don’t do anything rash,” Regar warned me just before we reached the waiting party.

“Where’s Isay?!” I growled, my full attention on Ferro. He didn’t even blink.

“I was hoping you could tell us,” King Grath snapped right back, ignoring me throwing daggers at Ferro altogether.

“Us?” Regar, who didn’t usually talk back to royalty—unless it was Hiko—sounded incredulous. “Ferro was the last one with her!”

The king’s eyes moved to Ferro then back at us, but he didn’t back down. “What have you done to my stepdaughter?”

Ferro had told him lies. That was the only explanation, because the other option indicated that Regar was playing me. If I had to choose between those two males, I’d bet my balls that Ferro was dirty; Regar couldn’t be playing me.

My stomach recoiled as I became increasingly less sure. He hadn’t stopped Isay from sharing her life force with the prince; it could’ve killed her. He also pushed me to leave her with him.

With my hands forming fists at my sides, I looked around the males I considered friends while my whole world was crashing down around me. Regar didn’t look happy to be given the blame, but neither was I, and I fucking knew I hadn’t been the one to misbehave. I deeply cared for Isay and would never do anything to hurt her and they all knew it.

I was going to explode at the thought of her hurt. Regar shifted nervously beside me, but Ferro remained chill as a cucumber. I was going to kill him.

“You should ask Ferro,” I outright snarled. There was, I haven’t done anything wrong calm and then there was, I’ve fucked you over and am getting away with it calm. Ferro was most certainly displaying the second one.

Regar was with us the whole time at the club where this fuckshow started. Regar would not sell us out to Felrothians or put Isay’s life on the line.

“Just as I said, Your Majesty,” Ferro countered, “they’re denying it.”

No matter how tight Regar was gripping my belt, he wasn’t going to keep me from ripping that lying bastard’s throat out. I tore free of his tentative hold and was on Ferro before anyone else could stop me.

With my hand around Ferro’s throat, I kept up the stride, with him stumbling backward along with me until his back hit the wall right next to the palace front entrance. My grip tightened, and he gagged. I pulled at his ecos through the contact, but was met with resistance.

His emotions held no such guard, and I attacked his devos next. His practised ease lifted then, and the panic in his eyes was sweet as honey.

“Where the fuck is she?” I rasped, well aware that I was acting like a lunatic.

With his windpipes closed, the only sounds escaping Ferro were unintelligible croaks. I eased up on the pressure and he gritted through his teeth, “Fuck you!”

I pried at his defences again, looking for an opening to his life force, but he was well-guarded. Way too well-guarded. I couldn’t even feel the pulse of his ecos. I started pounding on his face instead until my fists bled, and until several strong hands dragged me away from him.

“Where the fuck is she?” I shouted in despair. The way my heart ached was making it impossible to think past the fury. All I could do was repeat the same question until I broke down completely. “Where is she?”

My vision was so blurry I could barely make out my bloody artwork on Ferro’s face. My body shook with tremors, and I felt my power reaching out to my captors, who immediately released me to let me collapse on the ground. My knees hit the paved square as I kept on shaking. The pain of impact was non-existent next to the agony spreading through my body, through my soul.

My blood had turned into lava, filling every single part of me with inexplicable scorch. And then it all intensified tenfold. I screamed my lungs out.

A small reprieve later the burn was back, leaving me panting and biting at my tongue. Already on my hands and knees, I had a hard time not curling myself into a ball and waiting it out in foetal position.

I was not going to show any more weakness than this. I needed to get back on my feet and continue my interrogation. Ferro had to break eventually. I couldn’t pull myself onto my shaking feet, however. I was barely getting enough air through my lungs to keep up with the screaming I’d intended to muffle.

“Kar, what in Death’s name are you doing?” Sinister’s voice was closer to my ear than I expected.

He’d crouched down next to me and pulled at my eyelid to examine my pupils. As the pain gave way to another reprieve, I raised my head to see if Ferro was still standing there. He was, but he was now flanked by three guards that had cuffed him in pure iron.

I shook my head at Sinister’s question. I had no clue what was happening to me, but I was ready when the next wave hit me. My voice mixed with a lighter cry, a plea. Isay’s plea, but it was gone when the flames destroyed every ounce of my concentration.

“They are torturing her,” I rasped through the pain and slammed my fist into the tiles to counter the agony with a more tolerable ache. I punched the tile again, and it cracked upon impact. My knuckles throbbed, but the burning was ever stronger. “They are torturing her,” I repeated pathetically, hearing the queen’s strangled gasp before I passed out.

Chapter 31

REGAR

I STOOD FROZEN IN THE COURTYARD AS ONE OF THE ROYAL GUARDS was cuffed and the other lay motionless on the ground. I was the next in line, because it was clear Ferro wasn’t going to confess, and while Kar’s act might’ve won him some brownie points with the queen, King Grath was less convinced.

We were all under suspicion. I hoped to avoid attention altogether but had no such luck. It didn’t help that Hiko’s eyes were glued on me. Worry and accusations mixing all in one fervent look.

He’d told me in confidence that he’d had Isay pegged all wrong, but I knew he was simply starting to accept her presence in the court. He had hated the thought of her, but it had nothing to do with who she was, more like what she represented: competition.

Liking Isay wasn’t hard to do after everything she’d done, and I understood Hiko’s delayed brother instincts kicking in more than he could’ve imagined. He should’ve known me better, though.

Kar had trusted me without a question, and I wasn’t sleeping with him. He’d put his dick somewhere else entirely by the looks of it. How in the world he had managed that was a question he’d effectively avoided answering earlier, and I wasn’t going to ask again, even though curiosity was killing me. Something entirely different did its best to keep him down: the mate bond he’d created with Isay. Now everyone in the vicinity knew about.

“Take the three of them out of my sight.” The king waved his hand with the order. “To the dungeon, preferably. Keep them separated. We don’t need them killing each other before we get to the bottom of this.”

“Shouldn’t you question Ferro,” I asked. Out of line, I was so out of line when the king’s furious gaze practically peeled the skin off of my face.

I’d become too comfortable around Hiko that I’d forgotten his father wasn’t only the one person who couldn’t know of our involvement, but also had the power over my life or death. Whichever pleased him most. Nobody could talk him out of it, either.

I dropped my eyes and my head in a submissive bow.

The king did not acknowledge my surrender. “You have no voice in my court, Regar Tremok. I should kill you now, but your father was a loyal man. Only in my respect for his memory do I keep you alive for interrogation.”

Pressing my lips tight to keep any rebuttals to myself, I begged Hiko with my eyes to do the same, but he’d always been bullheaded, and while he was also pissed at me for whatever I’d done wrong in his eyes, he also couldn’t watch his father threaten my life.

“Father, I know you are angry, but would you not reconsider—”

The king spun on him. “Shut it! Where were you when Isay got captured? Were you not one of her assigned guards?”

“We can’t all stay with her twenty-four seven, Father. We also need to sleep.”