Page 68 of Realm of Wind and Vines
“Selena,” Galen calls from somewhere behind me. “What’s going on?”
“She’s torturing him!” The words rip out of my lungs, full of desperation and tasting like blood.
Rage and hatred and undiluted terror tear through my chest, and I force more magic into the flame of despair in Bane’s chest. He screams. His body shakes violently, and he starts banging the back of his head against the chair.
Another massive spike of pain shoots through my and Draven’s mate bond.
I increase the strength of my magic until Bane’s mind almost breaks. I can feel it, like a fragile eggshell that only requires one more tap to shatter. That ruthless ocean of unforgiving hatred inside me almost makes me do it. But reason manages to break through first.
If I kill Bane, Jessina is going to kill Draven. And I didn’t do all of this for no reason. I did it so that she wouldstoptorturing Draven.
With immense effort, I pull myself back from the edge and cut off the flow to my magic.
“Stop showing him the memories,” I tell Orion.
Yet again, the Unseelie King thankfully does what I tell him without issue.
Bane slumps back in the chair, his chest heaving. I reach out with my magic and connect to the spark of tiredness again. Then I steadily increase it until he passes out.
The moment that Bane’s agony stops, so do the bursts of pain from Draven. For another minute, I just stand there, watching Bane sleep slumped in the chair like that. But no more spikes of agony come through my and Draven’s mate bond.
“What… happened?” Galen asks hesitantly from behind me.
Dragging in a deep breath, I try to pull my sanity back together again. It’s getting harder and harder every time. After raking my fingers through my hair, I draw in another breath and then turn around to face the others.
“Jessina was torturing Draven,” I explain. My voice comes out shockingly flat. As if I’m just reciting last week’s weather. “I could feel it through our mate bond, which has started to reconnect at times lately. So I showed her what will happen if she hurts Draven. And now, she knows.”
Several of them exchange a glance that I can’t muster enough fucks to interpret.
“So,” Lyra begins. “She’s not torturing him anymore?”
“No.”
Both she and Galen let out a shuddering breath of relief.
I start towards the door. “I’m getting him back.”
To my surprise, it’s Orion who grabs me by the arm to stop me. “No.”
That horrible flat emptiness in my voice remains as I glance down at his hand on my arm and simply declare, “I suggest you take your hand off my arm.”
“Stop and think for a moment,” he grinds out, but he does release my arm. “Jessina Iceheart is viciously smart. This is what she wants. She wants you to get emotional and charge in there to save him so that she can capture you too. So we need to be smarter.”
Galen forces out a long breath, his pale brows drawn down in a scowl. “I hate to admit it, but he’s right. If we just charge in there now, we’re only going to get Draven and all of us killed. It’s the middle of the night. We’re all angry and exhausted and worried. We need to get some sleep to clear our heads. Then, we will make a proper plan.”
“If she was torturing him just now, it means that she can’t have flown all the way back to the Ice Palace,” Isera adds, her sharp gaze moving across all of our faces. “She must have landed somewhere else.”
“That’s a good point,” Lyra agrees. “Based on the average flight speed and time that has passed…” She trails off for a few seconds while staring out at the wall, as if counting in her head. “The only other village within that distance is Hunter’s Marsh.”
“Okay.” Galen nods several times, but it looks more like he’s trying to settle his own nerves than reassure us. “So Draven and Jessina are in Hunter’s Marsh. That’s good. That’s a start. Let’s get some sleep to clear our heads, then we make a proper plan in the morning.”
The others nod in agreement.
I just stalk past them and out of the dungeon without another word.
In the morning? I don’t fucking think so.
I am getting him back.
