Page 6 of What Lurks Between the Fates

“You would give me your own flesh to protect hers?” Mab asked as I spun in front of my mate. Putting the iron spike at my back and leaning into his body, I stilled his hand as it went to the buttons fastening the leather he wore atop his tunic. “It is always such a shame to ruin the skin that so many would appreciate if given the chance.”

“No,” I protested, shaking my head as he tried to shake off my grip.

“This is nothing compared to the misery I would endure if it meant you would never know pain again,min asteren,” he murmured, guiding my hand away and slowly unfastening the buttons.

I glanced at where Mab stood, staring at her nails and toying with the shadows extending from her hands. Her eyes connected with mine, a tiny smirk gracing her blood-red lips as if she knew as well as I did that watching my mate endure my fate was worse than if I suffered it myself.

I closed my eyes, imagining that bedroom window held tight against the cold lurking outside. Reaching up with trembling fingers and preparing myself for the unique sense of wholeness that came with being connected to Caldris, I flipped the clasp open. A gust of wind blew them open, surging into my lungs and burning me from the inside out with the warmth of the hearth in winter.

Caldris’s eyes glowed with a frosty blue, a surge of gold tinting the edges of his irises for a moment before the light faded from them and I wondered if I’d imagined the entire thing. So caught in the wave of feelings coursing through me, I brushed the unfastened leather off his shoulders until it fell tothe floor and pulled his tunic free from his trousers, shimmying it up his body until I could pull it free from his head and drop it to the floor while I looked around his form and met Mab’s dark stare.

I raised a tentative hand to grasp the iron shackles above our heads. Lifting one of his hands to them, I ignored the searing of both our flesh as I clanked it closed around his wrist. I repeated it with the other wrist, touching my ruined skin to his cheek gently as he bowed his forehead toward mine, his eyes fluttering closed as he let out a shuddering breath.

“Until chaos reigns,” I whispered.

He flung his eyes open the moment he sensed my intention coursing down the bond, no longer hidden in the deepest recesses of my mind. “My star,” he said, shaking his head as he struggled against the shackles holding him prisoner.

I sensed Mab’s whip of shadows preparing, gathering at her side as she allowed one of her minions to sprinkle it with iron dust, as clearly as if it had been an extension of me. I smiled sadly for my mate, knowing he would have given anything to prevent me from taking his pain.

He’d suffered long enough. He’d been tortured for longer than I remembered existing, feeling me and never having me whilethiswas his reality.

The whip cracked as I stepped around his tense form. His body shifted as he tried to prevent me from moving into the path of harm. Mab’s court cheered as the whip cracked through the air, eagerly waiting for the agony that would follow when the shadows struck against Caldris’s skin.

I turned my face to the side as I blocked it with one arm, thrusting the other up above my head to catch the blow. The whip wrapped around my forearm, searing into my skin andimbedding itself there as it sank through my flesh. I pulled my face away from the hand that had sheltered me, watching my flesh melt as the iron burned me. My bones throbbed, but I turned my glare to Mab and forced myself to wrap the shadows around my hand.

It burned its way through me, but I grabbed it with a firm grip, anyway. Melding it into my body, accepting it as part of me until we forced it out from the valley it created in my skin. Mab narrowed her eyes as I wrapped my fingers around her whip, then glanced at the court who had suddenly gone silent.

I screamed through the pain, raising my arm up even higher and then forcing it down toward the floor. The whip slammed against the floor, cracking the stone in a distinctive path toward Mab. It moved as if in slow motion, echoing the movement of the whip as Mab’s weapon came back toward her.

The whip left her hand, pulled from her grasp with the force of my fury. The very tail end of it sliced her cheek in an upward swing before it dissolved into nothing. It vanished in a slow arc toward me; the very thing that seared my skin disappeared without a master to empower it. My skin hung in ruined tatters, gaping and open where the shadows had once filled it.

Mab’s eyes dropped to my arm, studying the slight, pulsating golden glow that filled my flesh as my body worked to repair the damage. Cold filled the marks, soothing the burns as she and I watched my skin knit itself back together. The wounds healed slowly, the golden light spreading through them. Only I saw the golden threads wrapping themselves around my forearm.

Mab reached up a hand to touch her cut cheek, her crimson blood covering her fingers as her own wound sat unhealed.

None in her court dared to move. Part of me was convinced that they didn’t dare to breathe while her jaw was clenched. I took a single step forward, pausing only when she raised a hand and Caldris groaned behind me.

I gnashed my teeth together, gritting out the words. “I do hope that doesn’t scar.”

“It seems having a mate is not the only secret you’ve been keeping, my darling Caldris,” Mab said, ignoring me entirely as she stepped forward. “She’ll make such a fun new pet for me to play with.” She paused at my side, glaring down at me as I lifted my eyes to hers. Caldris’s chains rattled as he struggled, while Mab’s men let him loose from the chains.

“The last person who tried to own me now lies dead,” I warned, forcing myself not to look away from her as she tipped her head to the side and smiled at me.

“Is that a threat?” she asked, a slight giggle slipping free from her lips. “It has been so many years since someone dared to threaten me, I’d almost forgotten what it feels like. I believe I’ve missed it.”

“You could have all the threats you wanted if you released the children you’ve collected and allowed them to return to their families. Only a coward would use them to maintain power,” I said.

Caldris sighed. “Min asteren—”

“Better a coward than dead,” Mab said, shrugging her shoulders as she turned to look at Malachi, severing the eye contact I hadn’t been willing to be the first to break. “Take them to the dungeon until I’ve decided what to do with my new curiosity.”

She turned away, leaving us to the men who looked at me as if they weren’t certain they wanted to risk touching me.Caldris struggled in his chains, trying to get free from the shackles so that he could get to me.

His fury was tangible in the air, and because of the bond, I knew it was rage for me.

I’d revealed too much, played my hand too soon, but I would never regret getting between him and the pain coming for him. Not when I suspected it was the first time anyone had ever done something like that. Beneath his fury, I felt his confusion. Even a God wanted to be loved so thoroughly that someone would sacrifice themselves to protect him.

The hilt of a sword crashed against my temple, forcing me to stagger on my feet and stumble to the side. Malachi caught me, steadying me as he raised his sword once more.

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