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“How are you both resisting the sun?” he asks as he looks from Baron to me.

“Magic, dipshit. What else?” Baron replies.

Pyre leads us deep into the mountains, far beyond any structure I can remember from my time in the Unseelie Kingdom. Theren and Pyre, however, don’t seem to be as hesitant as Baron and me. We reach the volcano and I see what appears to be a ruin of homes made from bright red lava crystals. Bones litter the ground as though we walk through a graveyard.

“Where are we?”

“Mount Dolgum,” Pyre says grimly. “It’s the birthplace of the succubae.”

I feel my guts begin to twist and churn as memories come rushing back to the forefront of my mind. This is the last place I want to be. I suddenly feel sick to my stomach and I fall to my knees and grip my aching head...

I miss the moonlight of the fae realm, for it always brought me peace. I don’t know where I am or what I’m doing anymore, but she comes to me each day for hours to feed on my lust.

Have the realms forgotten me? Have my allies forsaken me?

I hear the conversations between Lamia and the false king as I lay here on the bed. They whisper about dark prophecies and the rise of a force greater than anything the worlds have ever seen. And Lamia sounds... intrigued by it all.

In my mind, I hope Variant knows Lamia will attempt to betray him for whoever holds the most power. It’s the nature of her kind to do so. The fact that I’m still here after all this time means she just wishes to make me suffer. No longer is this about feeding her darkness, but it’s about watching me squirm beneath her might.

It’s about forcing me to my knees.

The greatest torture of all is knowing I’m a willing victim to her treachery. She owns me, and I feel her possession to the depths of my broken soul. Not even my thoughts are safe from Lamia’s wrath.

It wasn’t always like this. In the beginning, I fought back. I met her assault with violence, but she soon learned violence is what I was born to sustain. So she took that violence away. Now, her seductions are almost as sweet as they are excruciating. Lamia tells me her worries, tells me she loves me, and slowly, the world begins to fade.

Her daughters are no different…

I’m lost.

Every voice from the past is barely a whisper in the back of my memory. I struggle to remember the taste of mead and roasted pork. To remember what it feels like to soar across the sky with my army of gargoyles. It’s all gone, stolen from me in such a way that I’ll never recover. Each scent is replaced by the musk of her pheromones that cling to the bedsheets. I know only the feeling of Lamia using me until I lose consciousness from the lack of strength in my body.

My eyes open and I take a deep breath. Pyre’s holding me and he helps me lean against one of the lava crystal homes, but I can’t bear to feel the crystal against me. I fall once more and expel the contents of my stomach onto the ash-covered ground.

“Why did you bring me here?” I ask Pyre.

He opens his mouth to answer, but Theren’s next to fall. Theren doesn’t pass out from the weight of the memories pushing in on him—he succumbs to his own wounds. Pyre scoops the former Unseelie King into his arms and carries him closer to the volcano.

“Because here the ethers are thin and I may be able to cast a portal. It wasn’t my intention to wound you, Dragan. I only wish you peace from the darkness of the past.”

Closing my eyes once more, I breathe through my mouth to keep the nausea at bay. I shouldn’t be here, kneeling beside the bones of Lamia’s people as if I, too, am nothing but a corpse left behind to rot in the aftermath of her fall.

I fucking hate it, but she still has a hold over me, even after all these years. After so much time spent thinking I was free…

My eyes turn to Theren. He will never be free, either. Morrigan had her claws in him for far too long. We’re both hopeless.

“No,” Baron says suddenly, glaring at me. “Whatever you’re thinking, cut that shit out.”

“This place is…” I start.

“I know,” he sighs. “How do you think I felt, seeing Morrigan standing over Cambion with the same dagger she gave Variant to kill me? It brought up a lot of bad shit for me, too, but I pushed through it and you need to do the same.”

“Fuck off,” I growl at him, which seems idiotic considering I’m still on all fours and heaving up nothing.

“Whatever could break you before is meaningless,” Baron continues as he walks over to me. I look up at him and watch as he extends his hand. “There’s nothing you aren’t strong enough to overcome now. Even your own demons.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

MORRIGAN