years of your time down there. To us, we lived a thousand lives.
“If we died, we just came back to repeatedly live a nightmare until we no longer felt anything but pain. You want to know what is down in those caves? Hell is. A beautiful paradise with monsters that destroy your soul until you have nothing left for them to take,” Asher said softly, his eyes haunted with the memories.
“You let Syn jump into a fucking hole and then left her there?” Adam asked, narrowing his eyes as he stood, staring daggers at me from across the maps. “You just threw her away?”
“I’m teaching her a lesson. She isn’t accepting this world. She’s fucking stuck with her feet in both, and Faery is dying because of it. My people are dying because she can’t let go of the guild. If Synthia reached for her powers, she would be unstoppable. She isn’t reaching for them. She’s holding her hands closed at her sides, refusing to accept that this is her world now and where she belongs.”
“She’s your fucking wife, Ryder.” Adam glared at me, his brands pulsing as he shook his head in anger.
“Faery is a living, breathing thing, and if she rejects it, it will wilt just like anything does when neglected. Our people are dying while she drags her feet. What the fuck was I supposed to do? Wait until there’s no one left to save? We’re at war, Adam. Gods are trying to fucking kill us! I did what I thought was best in order to get through to her. I didn’t know the cave was filled with monsters. It was believed to be empty!”
“You’re expected to want her to be herself! To be the woman who died to bring your children into this world. She’s my best fucking friend, Ryder. Where the fuck is she? I need you to tell me, and we need to go get her now!”
“I’m with the Prince of Darkness,” Asher shrugged.
“Adam is the Dark King, not the prince,” I corrected absently. My mind rushed through scenarios as my gut twisted and plummeted to my feet. Everything in my mind rebelled against the idea of her suffering where I’d chosen to leave her.
“Little young, isn’t he, to be the king of an entire kingdom?” Asher asked.
“Who the fuck gives a fairy fucking granny two tits?” Adam snapped impatiently. “Can we go?”
“Let’s,” I grumbled, letting my power fill the room before I took everyone in it to the cave where the Seelie princes had been entombed for over a thousand years—longer, if Asher was to be believed.
I looked into the hole, staring at Synthia’s huddled form as she peered up through violet-blue sleepy eyes. Her body was covered in dirt, just as it had been for the past three days. Her outfit was ripped, but she’d pulled it over her arms as her mouth opened and closed while she stared up at me with pleading eyes.
“She looks exhausted but otherwise fine,” I muttered.
“What the fuck are you looking at? That’s not Syn. That’s a fucking corpse missing half its fucking body,” Adam clipped harshly.
“What?” I tore my eyes from Synthia and looked at the men. They were peering down into the pit with looks of unease and horror. “She’s right fucking there!”
“Nah, Ryder. You see what the monsters want you to see. Your wife is gone. She’s not down there.” Asher scrubbed his hand over his face with a haunted look in his eyes. “She entered the caves. Fuck. Who knows where she went or what got her. That thing down there is nothing but what the kid says: a fucking corpse. That isn’t Synthia.”
My heart beat wildly as denial screamed through me. My head swung back to the body, watching as it decayed before my eyes. Black lifeless pits formed where her eyes had been seconds before. The creature beckoned, standing up on nothing but bones before it began laughing coldly.
“More pretties for us to play with, please?” it hissed, then cackled before crumpling to the