“You okay?” I asked, flashing him a quick look.

“I’ve been here too long,” he said, shifting his eyes from mine. It was almost as if he didn’t want me to see him in the chains. He wanted me to think of him as the undefeatable being I thought he was.

I held the medallion to the metal, waiting as the lock turned orange from the heat. Unable to resist the urge, I yanked my wrist away.

“You can do it,” Darkness insisted with a confident nod. “Try again.”

“It’s too hot,” I said, trying to remove the medallion from my wrist. “Dammit, I can’t get it off!”

“It’s fully bound to you now,” Darkness said flatly.

I shook my head. “No thanks. I don’t want it anymore. I’m more than ready to give it back.”

With Noah having left me to join The Army of Light, I wasn’t sure what my plans were for my future. I hadn’t gotten any time to give it thought, but I’d probably just end up moving back with Aunt Joyce. The medallion wasn’t something I wanted or needed any longer.

“I do not accept it,” Darkness said, looking into my eyes.

“Are you kidding me? After all the hunting and stalking, now you don’t want it?”

Darkness shook his head slowly. “It doesn’t want me. Maybe it never did.”

“It led me right to you!” I said, ignoring the tension in my brow.

Storm’s groan blew through the room like a humid spring breeze. “Free him already!”

I glanced over to see her helping Nightmare to his feet. He brushed himself off before flashing a look of concern to Darkness and me.

“You need to get me out of here,” Darkness said, his voice hoarse. “Time is running out. Someone will be here soon, and we’re all weak.”

“Why did they even bring you here?” I asked, closing my eyes as I pressed the medallion to the lock again. I needed a distraction to take my mind off the feeling of my skin melting off the bone.

“They want the medallion,” Darkness said gently.

My eyelids squeezed tighter. “You… don’t… have… it.”

“Those that reside in The Underworld aren’t the brightest stars in the sky. They’re waiting for Lucifer,” Darkness said with a soft chuckle as the metal hit the ground with a thud. “Now, the other.”

I was about to open my eyes to look at my wrist when a hand pressed down over my face. Darkness guided my arm to the other lock.

“Don’t look. Not yet,” Darkness whispered as Nightmare and Storm approached.

“It’s really bad, isn’t it?” I asked.

“It is nothing more than you can handle,” Darkness said.

I couldn’t contain the searing anguish any longer. My face contorted in a grimace, and hot wetness welled up at the corners of my eyes, threatening to overflow. With a raw, guttural growl, I pressed the medallion harder against the lock, willing it to break it faster.

“Ahhh!” I yelled as my body shook helplessly.

Nightmare held my shoulders as Storm blew a frigid breath against my arm. My knees threatened to give out under me, but I managed to stay upright until the lock thudded to the ground.

Both Nightmare and Darkness moved at lightning speed to catch me before I collapsed. Their grip was firm, and their touch comforting, but I was struggling to keep my eyes open.

“We need to go, brother,” Nightmare said, his words hastily flooding from his lips.

Darkness swept me into his arms as the world around me blurred, and their voices grew distant and indistinct. The boundaries of reality dissolved into an inky void as I desperately fought to cling to the flickering ember of awareness.

“Hang on,” Darkness whispered, his voice floating through my head as I bounced across the floor in his arms. “We’re going to get you out of here.”

“My wrist hurts,” I mumbled.

“We will tend to it when we’re safe,” Darkness murmured as the aging, weathered wooden planks of the bridge creaked under his steps in protest of our retreat.

My eyes fluttered open just as we reached the other side of the bridge. Tears rolled down my cheeks from the pain around my wrist.

“It stings,” I said, sobbing against Darkness’s chest.

“You will be okay,” Darkness said calmly.

Storm scoffed. “If we can get out of this place.”

“Can you stand?” Darkness asked.

My head felt as though it was only partially attached, but my senses were slowly returning. It was the pain, more than anything, that made me feel nauseated.

“I think so,” I said.

The instant I regained my footing, a massive, scaly tail thunderously crashed into the bridge, shattering it into fragments. A torrent of moat water erupted into the air, splashing down on us with such force it washed us off our feet.

“For fuck’s sake,” Storm said, shakily hopping to her feet. She swiped the hair out of her face as her eyes darted around.

“What was that?” I asked as Darkness helped me to my feet.

Nightmare stood in front of us. “Leviathan.”

Chapter

Eleven

“It looked like a…,” my voice faded as the gargantuan beast rose from out of the water, standing on its hind legs like a dog begging for a treat. The rest of my sentence for my lips. “Dragon.”

The monster had massive claws that could rend stone and fins that would slice through the moat water with deadly precision. Its scales shimmered with an otherworldly turquoise iridescence that sent a shiver rippling down my spine. Fangs jutted out of its wide mouth, looking as though it could easily tear through both bone and iron.

Leviathan loomed over us, a titanic form dwarfing us all as it stood at half the height of the castle behind it. None of us were in any condition to fight off the creature that could destroy us with one swipe of its claw.

“We have to get out of here,” Darkness growled, taking a defensive stance.

“I… I can’t do anything,” Storm said, shaking her hands vigorously.