fury, crawling forward and throwing my hands towards him as Geraldine stepped from the trees too, a triumphant look on her face even as tears streaked down her cheeks.
Shadows burst from my palms as I directed them through the bars of the cage they'd trapped me in. But the moment the dark fog got close to the metal it ricocheted back at me, sending agony burning all the way down to my bones and making me howl in pain.
"That cage is made of night iron. The shadows can't pass through it and every time you try to force them through, the power you use is going to strike back at you instead," Darcy said grimly as she landed on the path ahead of me just as Geraldine melted the ice out of existence.
Darcy dissolved her wings, shifting back into her Fae form and making sure there was no chance of me replenishing my magic from her flames.
Seth appeared next, wearing sweatpants now with Max stalking over to stand on Darcy’s other side, his face set with determination and my Atlas in his hand.
"When my king hears about this you'll all pay," I snarled at them, my gaze shifting between my sister, Geraldine and the Heirs before realising that one of them was missing.
"That's a risk we're willing to take for you, sweetheart," Caleb said, cocking his head as he looked down at me crouched in my cage.
I couldn't even stand up in this thing and when I reached out to grip the bars, they burned my shadow coated hands until I felt the skin melting on my palms and I was screaming in agony again.
"Stop, my lady!" Geraldine gasped in horror as I wrenched my hands back, panting and sweating, my body trembling with the pain.
"Let me out," I demanded but Darcy shook her head, her eyes wet with unshed tears but her expression firm and unyielding.
"You're not coming out of there until you're yourself again," she growled and before I could reply, a mournful roar sounded from somewhere overhead.
I shrieked in fear as I looked up through the bars of my cage and found Darius diving from the sky in his golden Dragon form. His gaze was set on me and the fear I always felt around him intensified as I found myself so helpless before him.
The cage juddered as his weight collided with it and I fell flat on my back as his enormous claws wound around the metal bars above me and I was suddenly lifted into the air.
I yelled and cursed and swore retaliation against all of them as he flew me up above the trees and I felt a concealment spell sliding over me and my cage as one of the others cloaked my presence from below to make sure no one spotted him kidnapping me.
The flight didn't last long and Darius landed awkwardly on the roof of King's Hollow before ripping a hole in it and depositing my cage inside the central room in front of the unlit fireplace.
I scrambled for the door of the cage as he released me from his golden talons and managed to force the shadows back enough to lessen the pain in my hands as I worked to break the lock open. But the thing was sealed up tight in some way I couldn't even begin to figure out and the longer I worked at it, the more the flesh was burned from my body wherever I touched the metal bars.
Darius dropped down into the treehouse in his Fae form and I scrambled back to the middle of the cage as I watched him warily, my gaze shifting over his powerful, naked body as fear swept through me and I wondered what the hell he was going to do to me.
He grabbed a pair of black sweatpants from a chest at the side of the room then turned to face me, his face pinched in pain like he wasn't happy to find me here. But that made no damn sense.
"What are you doing?" I growled, fighting not to show him how much pain I was in even as the blood from my nose dripped over my lips and flooded my tastebuds and the scent of my burned flesh filled my nostrils.
"Will you let me heal you?" he asked, his voice tight and rough.
"No," I growled because if there was one thing that could make my situation worse right now, I knew that it would be allowing him to lay