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Chapter One

Coen

Ineed to check on Neith. She was hurt, not too severely. She probably wasn’t even aware that she was bleeding, but I know that it was bad enough that she needed to be healed. I’m sure that Doc has taken care of it. Cam has always been good at that sort of thing. I haven’t seen him interact much with Neith, but from what I have seen, it’s easy to tell that he feels the same way as I do about her. They all do. Even though I know all of this and I know that Doc has healed her by now, I still need to check on her to make sure that she’s okay, for my own peace of mind. Plus, knowing that she’s in the castle and so fucking close, is just too tempting. She’s my home, she always has been, and right now I am feeling on edge and raw after what I’ve just been through, I really need to see her.

In other words, I am being a selfish bastard and want to find her for me.

“Where is she though?” I ponder aloud this time.

This castle is truly massive, and I only have a small window of opportunity to find her and spend some time with her and maybe even the guys, before Kylen is going to realize that I’ve been gone for too long and summon me back in order to make me do some sort of asinine task for him.

I blink stupidly at the floor under my feet, the same floor that is still soaked with my blood, as it begins to glow.

Fucking glow.

Rubbing my eyes, I make sure that I’m not seeing things, because a glowing bloody floor really is out of my realm of normal, and that’s saying something because I am nowhere near normal, but even after I have rubbed my eyes, the glow is still there. Reaching out with the little bit of magic I still have access to, my eyebrows rise in surprise when I realize that it’s the castle itself making it glow. At least I am pretty sure that it is. The problem is, I don’t know why it’s glowing.

My eyes widen as I remember that I asked a question out loud. Maybe it was answering my question somehow? Maybe it was telling me that it knows where Neith is?

To be honest, it really wouldn’t surprise me if Neith had made friends with the castle. She makes powerful friends wherever she goes. Dimitri was proof of that.

Shit, Dimitri.

That’s a whole other can of worms. After experiencing how completely I have been controlled, I am even more convinced that the same thing is happening to him. It’s the only thing that really explains how he could treat Neith like he did. He loves her like I do. He would, and has died for her, several times, not that she’s aware of that. Then there’s Kar and me, we were all family, it has never sat right with me that the way that he treated us switched up so much. I had planned to try to figure it out with Kar, but then I got pulled under Kylen’s control, and I didn’t think it was safe to contacteither of them anymore. Kylen still to this day has no idea that there is a connection between Dimitri and me, hell, no one did, apart from Neith, and until recently, not even the guys.

I had this overwhelming need to keep the guys and Dimitri separate, except it was more than my own desire and was instinctual. Looking back, I now fully believe that I wasn’t supposed to tell them for a reason, and I would be willing to bet that reason had something to do with Neith. If I had introduced Dimitri to the guys back then, I would have introduced Neith as well, and just like with Dimitri, I had the overwhelming urge to keep her secret.

Something bigger than me was at play, I know that now.

Whatever has its claws into Dimitri is stronger than what Kylen is using to control me, a lot fucking stronger. Dimitri is not the kind of supernatural that’s easily controlled, and it should technically be impossible.

Over the years though I have come to realize that nothing is impossible.

There’s a buzz from under my feet that brings me back into the present. Oh, shit yeah, the castle.

“Can you take me to Neith?” I ask, feeling a bit stupid. The stones beneath my feet glow brighter. I’m going to take that as a yes. As I start to move forward, I catch sight of my extremely bloody clothes and realize that I can’t go walking through the castle looking like this. “Wait, I need to change first.”

Kylen doesn’t want anyone outside of the team to realize what he does to me, so he made me bring a spare change of clothes down here with me, when he had me set it up for him, because as if it’s not fucked up enough that he tortures me, he also makes me set up his torture spaces for him.

How nice of him.

I’m going to enjoy making him bleed.

It takes me no time at all to quickly wipe myself down and then change into the clean clothes, with them on, you would have no idea what happened.I probably should wait longer to heal, but it should only take a few more minutes, and then any sign of the stab wounds and burn marks will be gone. I don’t want to wait any longer to go and find Neith. I’ve already waited over an hour, nearly two, and I’m pretty much healed. I’ve stopped bleeding at least. Thanks to the suppression that Kylen’s control puts on my magic, I heal a lot slower than I should.

I want to see Neith, and the guys too, it would be nice to be around people that actually give a fuck.

I glance down at the still glowing stone, “Okay, I’m ready.”

The glow immediately starts to move, skipping from stone to stone, leading me from the cell, and I follow it eagerly.

I’m coming, Love.

It does occur to me that I might be being led into some sort of trap, but honestly, I’m willing to take the risk right now, simply on the off chance that it really is leading me to Neith. I know Neith and the guys, and I’m pretty sure that they’re going to be concerned that I wasn’t at dinner, because they absolutely would have noticed the way that Kylen treated me in the Choosing trial.

It’s late, long after dinner, by the time that I start to recognize some of the hallways, and I frown. I didn’t think that it took me that long to heal, especially considering that I’m not technically healed yet, but it must have taken longer than I thought. I should probably be concerned that I seem to have lost a chunk of time, but I really can’t be bothered.

I don’t see any of the staff around which is probably a good thing because we were told that we weren’t allowed to know where Neith’s room is, which I was really fucking pleased about because I wouldn’t put it past Kylen to try something to make her comply like he’s done to me.