Page 37 of Claim Me

He lifts a shoulder. “I guess we’ll see.”

“We will,” Fallon agrees, reappearing again in a pair of jeans and a sweater, her feet bare. “Now, if you all are done talking about me as though I can’t hear every damn word you’ve been saying from the other room, I’d like to go watch my mate die. Please.”

CHAPTERNINE

FALLON

It’s time,I tell Issy as I follow Kaspian into a barely lit room.

The Gold and Garnet dungeon is technically connected to the king’s palace via one of the city’s many tunnels—all of which were apparently built when Gold and Garnet refashioned Reykjavik as their House headquarters. But it was a good twenty-minute walk, telling me we are at least a mile away from Kaspian’s home. Perhaps even farther away since we kept a clipped pace the whole way here.

Nox and Bane enter behind me, their presence nowhere near as soothing as earlier at breakfast. I suppose I have Nolan and Kaspian to thank for that. They reminded me that I can’t trust any of these guys, especially not Bane or Nox.

Because they were assigned to me out of an obligation to learn all my secrets. They didn’t hang out with me because they liked me; they hung out with me to interrogate me.

Hearing Nox talk about how he and Bane used kindness as a way to coax me into talking served as the cold wake-up call that I needed.

These men are not my friends. They’re my prison guards.

And now they’re standing on either side of me, taking up their mantles as Kaspian takes over the center of the room.

There’s a stone block situated in the middle, covered in chains. A sword adorned with an ornate gold-and-garnet handle rests nearby, as does an axe with similar markings along the wooden grip.

Which tool will they use?I wonder, aware that they’ll need to sever Klas’s head from his body. He’s a vampire-warlock hybrid; thus there are only a few ways to truly kill him. Beheading is one of them. The fire that’ll follow will just ensure the job is complete.

Bane’s arm brushes mine, his over-six-foot height dwarfing my five-foot-one frame. It doesn’t matter that I put on a pair of three-inch-heeled boots before we left. I’m still nearly a foot shorter than all the men in the room.

Including Klas, I think as Nolan drags him through the door’s threshold.

I haven’t seen him in months, at least not in person. But his presence has haunted my mind every moment of every day.

His hair is longer than I remember it, the dark strands nearing his jaw. And it looks like he hasn’t shaved in months. Maybe because no one trusted him with a razor. I’m not sure.

But his eyes… his eyes are the same twin pools of dangerous ink.

I shiver as his gaze meets mine, the malice dancing in his obsidian depths making my blood run cold. I know that look. It’s calculating. Cruel.Knowing. It tells me he has a plan. Something he’s not saying. A twisted desire he’s about to bring to life.

What is it?I wonder, my heart skipping a beat.What are you planning?I nearly ask the questions aloud, but I can’t seem to find my voice. It’s as though his presence has consumed all the air in the room, leaving me with nothing. Suffocating me like all those times he buried me alive.

My fingers curl into my palms, my nails biting into my skin and reminding me that I’m still here. I’m free. At least from him.

But if that’s true, why I do suddenly feel so grounded? So… trapped?

Fallon?Issy’s voice whispers through my mind, her presence anchoring me in a way no one else can.

Issy, Klas is here. And he… he seems… I don’t know. I don’t know how to explain it. But I think he’s up to something.

He probably knows about the edict,Issy replies.The patriarchs might have found a way to call upon him or to send him a message.

Maybe,I hedge, swallowing.But he doesn’t have a mental link to someone like I do.

That we know of,she points out.And there are other ways to communicate. Like dreamwalking.

True.I clench my jaw, recalling the dreadful spells that allow such intrusion into a soul’s desired safe space.But what if there’s more to it than that? What if he has a plan like I do?

I highly doubt you both have the same plan. And besides, even if he tried the same spell, the cremation would destroy it. Your body has to remain intact.

So hopefully they don’t throw me onto the fire after him,I say, not for the first time since we concocted this insane idea.