Page 96 of Forged Bonds

The shackle opened.

Caspian lunged forward until his face was pressed against the bars. I heard his hiss and cursed internally as I realized the bars were iron, too. Why wouldn’t they be? I imagined plenty of Kylan’s prisoners were fae, only here long enough to be tortured and killed.

He snarled and tried to shove himself through the bars, hurting himself. I wanted to lunge forward and grab him around the waist, hauling him back, but I couldn’t move. My bonds hadn’t been removed, and if I moved, his attention would come to me.

Grey was determined to have that happen regardless of how hard I tried to stay silent and still. Pulling a piece of metal from his pocket, he tossed it through the bars of the cage toward me. My mate spun around, his mental capacity at about the level of a dog.Follow shiny object.

He stared at me for a split second before he barrelled forward with a roar.

I slammed my eyes shut, clenching my hands into fists. If he killed me, it would abate some of his bloodlust and give him a chance to live long enough to have Freya save him. What happened if he stayed like this for too long, unable to satisfy his cravings? If he was lost forever in this feral beast I was as good as dead, so he might as well satiate himself by killing me.

The pain I’d expected never came.

Opening my eyes abruptly, I saw him stopped short, inches away from me, sniffing the air.

There was none of Caspian in his eyes. They were black holes like they’d been before, but there was a hint of recognition. On a primal level. He knew I was his mate, and I’d been right from the beginning.

I sighed softly and it drew his attention to my lips, then down to my neck.

Before I could comprehend what he was doing, he’d surged forward and sank his thick fangs into my neck. The bond between us shivered, but the empty void it had been on the other end faded. I felt turmoil, fear, pain, feral affection, and a need to own. I cried out from the pain and shock of the new bond, the mark on my neck sending searing pain shooting through my body. He kept his fangs in me for far too long, preventing my angel healing from working and sending blood dripping down my chest.

When he withdrew his teeth he spun on his heel and went to the bars again, snapping at the people on the other side like a mindless zombie.

He wasn’t mindless, though. I knew that now, from the new side to the bond.

This was a creature who lived off death and despair, but at a base level it was Cas and felt what he felt. Shame over the desire to kill. Fear of doing so. Worry for me.

My neck had healed, but the mark remained like the original Alpha bondmark he’d left, except different in some ways. Grey was staring at it curiously, unconcerned with the possibility of Caspian getting out of the cage and coming for him.

“Put it to sleep,” Grey ordered the witch, gesturing at Caspian. “Kylan will be intrigued by this development.”

Gritting my teeth, I avoided saying anything. There was nothing I could do to stop him from taking Caspian. If I struggled, all it would do was give him leverage to use against me.

After a couple of failed attempts at a spell that Freya could use easily in the heat of the moment, the witch had Caspian unconscious on the ground and was running to grab some guards to transport him. Grey stepped closer to the cage again without the risk of nails ripping through his flesh.

“It’s a shame he didn’t kill you,” he said. “I’d expected he wouldn’t recognize anyone in this state, mate or not.”

I stayed silent.

“I still might opt to kill you, but it’s better I wait and ensure he doesn’t die. If I have neither of you, I have nothing. If I have one, but kill the other… it might spur the Omega into action sooner.”

Guards appeared from down the hall, the weakling witch trailing behind with a sheen of sweat on his skin. I doubted he could keep Caspian asleep for long, with how strong my mate was when he was feral. If we were lucky, Cas might get free and kill them all. Then again, it wouldn’t end well for him. He’d proven he had no care for his own safety while he was like this. Freeing himself would get him killed.

That witch better keep him asleep until they got him restrained again, wherever they were taking him.

The way they picked him up with no care for his slowly healing injuries made me growl under my breath, revealing how furious I was for the first time. One guard looked at me and scoffed, his attention on the bindings I couldn’t free myself from. He’d been the one to create them; he was the fallen angel I’d briefly bested before being captured. I spat in his direction, losing my cool more and more.

He responded by punching me across the face, and I kicked him in the shin because it brought him close enough for me to do it. Another fist to the face, my injuries healing as fast as I got them. The second one shattered my nose, closing my airway as blood dripped into my mouth, but it righted itself quickly and there was the unexpected angel perk of not needing to fucking breathe anyway.

“Leave him,” Grey commanded.

The guard huffed but obeyed, helping the rest of them lug Caspian out. My cage was locked and closed again, and after a few moments of huffing, all sounds disappeared through whatever doors led out of here.

Later, but before I felt Caspian wake up again through our bond, Iris shuffled up to the bars of her cage. Hers must not be iron because she pressed against them and looked both ways down the hall. She was merchandise, and we were prisoners. They wouldn’t want her to be able to mar her pretty features. Well, her features which had no doubt been pretty at one time. Now they were hollow, greasy, and gaunt from lack of food.

“I understand why they had you chained up, now,” she said, squinting as she peered at me. “Did Luther get you good?”

Luther was one of the men she would kill if given a chance. Apparently, he was as quick with his fists when it came to Omegas as he’d been when it came to me. It made me wish I’d been able to do more than a weak, poorly positioned kick to the shin.

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