I searched the chain dangling from my fingers trying to find the correct key, but I could only see red. Fingers shaking from fury, my first two attempts to unlock the door failed.

“Felrothians do not kill,” I growled, finally slamming the door open.

Ferro looked way too comfortable leaning his back against the wall, legs stretched out and that piece of wood now pointed at me like a gun.

He made the motion of shooting it, together with a sound effect and all, before bursting into manic laughter.

I had my fingers around his throat, yanking him to his feet and slamming his head against the wall. The piece of wood he’d been holding fell from his fingers as he brought his hands up to punch me. I pressed his windpipe tighter. “Where is Isay?”

“I will tell you nothing,” Ferro coughed.

“Kar, stop. We need him alive.” Regar had joined us in the cell, but he wasn’t holding me back. Despite his words, he wanted Ferro dead just as much as I did.

Needing an outlet for the fire inside my gut, I released Ferro, only to use him as a punching bag. He brought his hands up in defence, but the force of my hits made his knuckles slam into his face.

“I will tell you nothing!” he screamed, dropping to the floor and coughing up blood.

“What? No begging for your life? No elaborate descriptions of your plot? No need for justification?” I didn’t care for his reasons, but if I could get him to talk about something, it’d be easier to steer it to the direction I needed the conversation to go.

“You can’t kill me,” Ferro cackled manically, his crazed eyes meeting mine with fervour. “Nobody can kill me now!”

Regar and I shared a glance, but neither of us knew what he was getting at.

“Nobody can. Nobody can! I am invincible!”

He’d lost his marbles, that much was clear. He was completely bonkers. He was also right; I would get nothing from him.

I pulled him up on his feet again, trying to connect to his ecos through the contact, but it was guarded like before. Splitting headache crushed at my skull as I concentrated on breaking through to his life source, all the while he kept on snickering.

Regar spoke from next to me. “Kar, stop. Let’s just leave him. We can go back to the club and ask around.”

I couldn’t accept it. I needed Ferro’s life force, his emotions. There was truth he wasn’t going to say in his energy. If only I could get to it, I could decipher everything he refused to tell us.

“Kar, you’re killing yourself. Stop!” Regar’s voice was quieter.

He was wisely staying away from me. With my power this drawn out, I would decimate him within seconds. The fact that Ferro was still breathing was not a good sign. It meant there was truth behind his insanity.

Nobody could hide from death. Death was the ultimatum that always had its own way. A force to be reckoned with.

The day of reckoning would catch everyone off guard.

Today was Ferro’s day, no matter what he believed to be true about his invincibility. No matter what appeared to be the case when I had no leeway to squeeze through the barrier between me and his ecos.

My nose bled, and my vision blinked when a gateway within me opened. It was nothing like the new sensation of finding a place to store devos. A burst of light and warmth spread through my body. My chest heated with life and love, so much of it I almost couldn’t comprehend the sensations. What I’d felt for Isay before tarnished in comparison.

I’d called it love, but it’d been nothing. Nothing at all. I hadn’t been able to love with this gateway closed inside me. Love had been a myth, an impossibility. I’d felt a connection, sure. I’d desired her, most definitely. But I had not loved her.

I did now. With this warmth burning in my heart. I loved her now like I’d never loved anything in my life before. The light I’d released in my despair to kill a man had opened my eyes and my heart.

I let go of Ferro, not caring for his life force any longer, and that’s when his ecos released over to me. Without physical contact. Without any concentration whatsoever and right after I’d given up knowing what the other fae was hiding. I’d been ready to drive over to the club where we’d been attacked, and I would have searched for clues until I’d found something, anything at all.

Ferro’s ecos simply slithered over to me. I could see the light grey strands woven through oily black as it crossed the air between us. His eyes widened, and he finally looked at me. Really looked at me.

“How?” he gasped, not laughing any longer. “You got to… me.”

Slowly, painfully slowly his body disintegrated.

Regar stared at me just as wide-eyed. “Holy shit, Kar. What did you do?” he exclaimed.

I felt the warmth in my heart. It felt like my own burning sun, tasted like Isay. Sunshine, without flowers. It wasn’t from her, however. It hadn’t come through the mate bond. I wasn’t certain that an energy that magnificent could travel through the mate bond.

No, this had been locked up within me from the very start. It was part of my heritage. Somewhere in my lineage, there had been a life fae.

I turned to Regar in a daze. “I think I just drew from his life.”

“His ecos, yes. But you weren’t even touching him.”

“No, Regar,” I said slowly. “I drew from his life. Like… Like Isay drew from the delthers.”

If Isay was able to draw from life, did that mean that she had a life fae in her blood-line, too? She admitted to not knowing her father. Could it be that her father had been a life fae?

It wasn’t common for them to mate outside their own court. It was more infrequent than cross-matings between any other courts, in fact. Their numbers were low, and they couldn’t afford to mix blood. When productivity was tough for death fae, life fae struggled even more.

They went through life collecting ecos. For centuries the energy would collect within them until it was ready to give life, too.

If a fae did not meet a fertile mate when their energy was at the fullest, it would simply explode back to the environment. If a fae mated with an incompatible female, the energy would explode back to the environment. If one of the fae was full while the other was low on energy, it would also explode back to the environment. Within centuries, only two known Hessian births were recorded.

“You what?” Regar asked, dumbstruck.

“I drew from his life,” I repeated for the second time, more certain now. Like Isay had done. Exactly like Isay had done. What did it mean about our heritage?

Chapter 35

ISAY

I TAKE IT BACK. I TAKE IT ALL BACK. I WAS HURTING ALL RIGHT. Mostly my wrists, and even though I’d attempted to get back on my feet to loosen the pressure, I’d only discovered a dislocated ankle that had my vision black out with its intensity when I’d tried to put my weight on it.

My head swam. I floated somewhere between consciousness and passed-out when Karmuth’s mother entered my cell again. This time carrying a platter of food.

Her eyes were puffy as if she’d been crying. She tried to hide it behind her bangs, but it was the first thing I noticed when she carried the food closer to me. I searched her blue eyes for the light I’d seen in Karmuth’s. They appeared dimmer this time around, even as she raised a fork to my lips.

My stomach growled, and I didn’t fight the urge to open my mouth for long. She had no reason to poison me, as I was already under their control.

After I’d taken the bite and chewed, Karmuth’s mother finally spoke up. “If Terwyl finds me here, we’ll both be dead.”

Lovely.

I swallowed. “Then why did you come back?”