them, devour them, kill them, then bring them back to life so she could do it again.
And they knew it.
They broke apart and ran, stumbling in their hurry, and not one of them looked at Brasque for permission.
They went to find a fucking hat.
Even the shimmer lord trembled beneath her fury. “Rune. No. This is exactly what she wants.”
She might have listened had he not shot out his claws, perhaps as an automatic response to the threat that was Rune Alexander—and that goaded her already enraged monster into a frenzy of bloodlust and madness.
Her monster burst loose from the confines of her caution and sanity and went after the lord of the Flesh Shimmer.
There would have been nothing sweeter than ridding Skyll of the man before her. Nothing better than tearing into him with her claws and fangs and bathing the ground with his blood.
She caught movement from her peripheral and spun around to see Matthew Matheson running toward them.
There was only terror in his face. “You cannot kill him. Please.”
Rune shook her head like a maddened bull, trying to clear her mind. “He’s full of evil. He needs to die. The world needs him to die.”
“No,” he said, gently. “You are emotional. Your friend has been…” He glanced down at Owen, disapproval and disgust in his eyes. “Has been tortured. It’s understandable that you would want vengeance.”
He walked closer, not the careful walk of someone who feared her, but the walk of a child who sensed no danger. “But my lord is not the enemy.”
“Have you seen the dim?” she asked him. “Have you seen the people he tortures?”
His face softened. “As you would punish the ones who hurt your man, so would my lord punish the ones who hurt his people.”
Brasque watched the exchange, unmoving, silent.
She hated him with everything inside her.
“Rune,” Matthew coaxed. “He is the only shimmer lord we have left.”
“What did Owen ever do to him?” she asked. “What would warrant such extreme sadistic torture?”
He nodded toward his lord. “Ask him.”
She turned up her lip. “I wouldn’t believe his lies.”
Brasque held out his hand. “I can show you. Take my hand.”
She paused. “You’re not of magic.”
“Oh yes, yes, I am of magic. All shimmer lords contain a little of everything, my dear.” He sobered. “Take my hand.”
She lowered her hands but didn’t retract her claws.
She was scared.
“Princess,” he begged. “Take my hand. You need to understand.”
It would hurt him.
She didn’t know how she knew that, but it was true. Whatever he was about to do would hurt him.
She pulled in her claws.
And she took his hand.
The power burned through her, hitting her body with little droplets of fire, but it was a mere annoyance on the edge of her mind, there and gone.
Because she was once again on the path.
Sort of.
Chapter Twenty-Two
She was inside Brasque Dray’s mind.
His memories were her memories, his thoughts her thoughts.
“Why?” she asked. “Why can we do this?”
“Because you are flesh of my flesh.”
“You’re my father?”
“I am one of them.”
“Nicolas—”
“Lent his seed in the making of the princess.”
She shuddered. “You?”
“I lent my flesh.”
“What does that mean?”
The path swirled and burned and flashed, and she forgot her question when she saw Owen being forced into restraints in the dim.
“No,” she cried. But when she reached out, she touched nothing.
She was nothing.
Nothing at all.
“Owen,” she cried, and he stilled his thrashing and looked up as though he’d heard her.
But soon the questions began.
The torture began.
She wanted to run, but didn’t know how to. Back in the world the shimmer lord held her hand, and unless he released her, she was trapped in his mind.
Trapped.
“Hush,” he said. “Listen. Watch.”
“Five,” the shimmer lord said to Owen. “Five returns.”
Owen said nothing.
“Owen of emotions,” the shimmer lord continued, pacing back and forth before the restrained man. “You weren’t created with that ability. We cannot figure out how you achieved it. None of my doctors have the answer.”
“I am the sky,” Owen whispered. “I am the air.”
“You are dead,” Brasque told him. “Do you know—of course you know—that when you left, the ones I set you to guard were taken. They’re dead. You killed the ones I loved.” His voice was so calm, so…reasonable.
“I am the land. I am the sea.”
“I need one thing before I take your eyes,” the shimmer lord continued, ignoring Owen’s words. “I need to know why you came back. You could have stayed there. You could have avoided this risk.”
Rune’s heart picked up speed, beating so hard she was afraid it would burst