back at the sound of Gold’s voice. “Arrow, take that trainee to the infirmary and then bring him to my room. I’d like to have a little chat with him.” His words, dripping with venom, make me smile.
I watch one of the helmeted guards, Arrow, drag his colleague off the floor and out of the mess hall. Hoping the asshole doesn’t fall and break his neck with all his stumbling.
Gold releases Axel and sits back in his throne, his knuckles blanched white from clenching so hard.
I’m okay, I want to shout at him, but I know I need to pretend to hate him. So I glare at him instead.
“You should be resting,” I shout at Axel, marching over to check on him. I’m more concerned than angry to find him away from the infirmary.
His face still flushed, the muscles working hard along his jaw, fluttering like crazy. “Now I’m glad I decided not to.” He spits blood out and wipes his swollen, bloodied hands down his white shirt, leaving a dark red streak.
Luke stands in front of me and pulls me to him before I can speak. He holds me at arm’s length, studying me with narrowed eyes, and my heart stutters at the look on his face. His eyebrows are drawn together with a harsh crease etched between them, and the way he’s looking at me as I’ll disappear at any moment is unsettling me. I’ve never seen him so…vulnerable before.
“What am I going to do with you, jaybird?”
I frown at him, admittedly embarrassed by lashing out at the guard. If I didn’t do that, he probably wouldn’t have hurt me, and then Axel wouldn’t have got involved.
“I’m sorry,” I say, my cheeks heating. “What’s going to happen?”
Just as Luke opens his mouth, Gold stands from his chair and motions more guards over. He’s holding a scroll in his hand wrapped in scarlet ribbon. In the far corner of the hall, I spot a white wolf looking at me. Its lips pull back into a snarl. Don’t tell me Eva’s got a wolf messenger now? Gods, I wouldn’t be surprised. She probably has a white one just to piss me off since it feels like an eternity ago that I last shifted into my wolf form.
Luke snaps his head to the side as if listening for something. It’s then I realise he’s got an earpiece in.”No matter what, jaybird, I’ll protect you.” He says this as if he’s never going to see me again.
I don’t get a chance to ask him what he means because a group of guards rushes around us, pulling me away from him. They drag me and Axel from the hall before we can even ask what the hell is going on.
“Where are you taking us?” I ask after several minutes of walking, my arms twisted behind my back.
The guard holding me doesn’t answer as he drags me down a series of hallways and into what feels like the basement of the prison. The lights switch on when we arrive and I realise it’s not the basement.
It’s solitary confinement.
Fuck!
Opening my eyes to see I’m completely underwater is a good reason to freak out.
I spin around; the salt burning my eyes as I finally see the surface. I swim up, pulling my body to the top of the water and crashing onto the surface.
A tiny island made of sand stands before me and a familiar woman sits on the edge of the shore, the waves crashing over her legs as she watches me. I swim to her until I can walk through the water and sit down at her side.
“Is there a reason this dream started with me underwater?” I ask Kaelah. “Being a shadowborn, water freaks me out. I died in it.”
“The water saved you. You should enjoy it.”
I sigh at the answer and drop down beside her, my fingers buried in the sand. I miss the beach, even if I don’t like the sea. I miss having the freedom to visit it.
“Watch the creation of the Titans,” Kaelah says, “for this is where they were born.”
“Here?” I look around at the endless sea stretching toward the horizon.
The ground shakes beneath me, slowly at first, before building up until it stops. Water shoots up from the surface of the ocean as a green sphere rises from the depths, shimmering in the sunlight. The waves crash harder against us.
I stand up, watching the sphere rise higher and higher until the cloud itself hides it.
“They were born