shoulders like a fluffy heated cocoon.
Cool, brisk wind kissed my cheeks, settling the turmoil within my stomach. The night was a perfect rendition of the Court of Darkness: black skies, the moon shielded behind a cluster of thick, dark clouds, and just a sprinkle of stars. If I concentrated hard enough, I was transported back there, to my room in the princeling’s home, gazing up through the glass ceiling above the bed.
It was ironic. I spent the entire three months I’d been in the underworld plotting my escape, and now that I was home, I thought of nothing else but the demon who had stolen me from my home.
I told myself over and over again that I didn’t care for the demon, but it was all lies. I might not know the depths of my feelings, but I also never got the chance to find out if I could fall in love with him.
He had been ripped away from me.
Mate or not, I wanted to know—needed to know. The not knowing was driving me insane, making me irrational and miserable. I wasn’t myself.
The longer we were separated, the less I felt like me. I was losing pieces of my humanity, of what made me, me.
I stayed up on the roof, bathed under the night sky, until I drifted off into sleep, thoughts of the violet-eyed demon on my mind.
It wasn’t the first night that I dreamed of Ashor, but it was the first time the dream blurred the lines of reality. If you could call what happened dreaming, because it felt like so much more.
My head hung forward, dark strands of hair curtaining my face. Both my wrists were shackled to the wall, keeping me upright. I was shirtless, and my eyes grazed over the ripple of abs on my lower abdomen, where a V of dark hair disappeared.
I blinked, a groan of pain escaping dry lips.
Not my lips. Not my chest, not with the black ink tattooed into my skin that appeared to swirl and dance like living art.
Ashor’s.
This was like no dream I’d ever had before. I was seeing everything through his eyes instead of gazing down at him like a movie. The aches and pains were real too. My wrists stung from the twisting and rubbing against metal that burned. Not my wrists. Ashor’s. It was hard to differentiate between him and me.
“Look who is finally awake.”
At the sound of the queen’s voice, Ashor lifted his head in a slow, unhurried movement.
Kali stood at the opening of the iron-barred door, long ebony hair twisted in a series of braids. She rapped her pointed nails against the bars, night and wrath coiling around her. With dangerously elegant features and a supple body, she was the epitome of a dark queen. I hated every fiber of her being.
“I didn’t have much of a choice,” Ashor replied flatly.
“Hmm. True,” the queen mused. “But really, you have only yourself to blame. You twisted my arm.”
“I could say the same,” he rasped.
“You think she is protected? You think I can’t get to her?” A dark chuckle left her crimson lips. “All you accomplished was to delay the inevitable. I will reign over the underworld. And you will never see your mate again.”
His gaze sliced through the darkened cell. “You can’t keep me here forever.”
“I can until the next Hunt,” she reprimanded with a cluck of her tongue, opening the cell and strolling inside. “It’s all you’re good for these nights. So get comfortable, my son; you won’t leave this cell until I say so.”
Coldness trickled into his veins, and I felt his shadowy power rise up in his blood. I thought he would rip the chains off the wall and blast his mother across the room, but the power singing inside him went no further.
His eyes flickered to his wrists. It was the shackles that restricted his powers, preventing him from being able to shift or unleash the darkness circulating within him. That was why he wasn’t fighting back.
“Ashor,” I whispered.
His body stiffened, eyes widening.
They scanned the shadows beyond the queen, searching.
Had he heard me? If so, could the queen?
As if we had the same thought at the same time, his gaze swung to his mother. “Did you just wake me up to talk me to death or is there a reason for this little visit of yours, Mother?”
She shook her head. “How did you become such a disappointment? All because of a girl? You don’t need a Kynt. Renounce your claim