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Chapter Three

ARABELLA

A force collided with what Arabella thought was her face.

Her body felt distant as she swirled between dreams and waking. There was a distinct throbbing in her jaw. The pain had the hushed voices around her solidifying into words. But no matter what she did, her eyes remained firmly shut.

“If you hit her again, Brynne, I swear I will punch you in the face.”

It was Jessamine’s voice. It sounded both nearby and like it echoed across a great hall.

“What’s wrong with her?” came Cora’s voice. “Could it be Elias again?”

Arabella tried to open her eyes again, tried to speak, but her body felt foreign to her. It was as though—in that place of endless darkness—she’d shirked her flesh. And now that she was forced to don her skin, muscles, and bones once more, everything felt unwieldy.

It was all just a dream , she realized. None of it was real .

Why did that thought hurt so much?

Her head throbbed even as hunger burned in her gut. As her stomach rumbled loudly, the enchantresses fell quiet.

“Are you fucking with me, Arabella? Did you really just pass out from hunger ?” Jessamine’s voice was closer now, just above her. Fingers pressed against her forehead.

Why did it feel like Elias just fed on her? When he’d taken too much of Arabella’s essence in the past, he’d given her snacks and told her to rest. She’d quickly learned that being with an erox meant she needed to eat more to keep up her strength.

But Elias was in Magnus’ camp. There was no way he could have fed on her. She could feel the tugging in her chest, pulling her toward the forest and wherever Magnus’ army hid their encampment.

Even still, the hunger in her gut felt all too real.

After several more attempts, she managed to open her eyes.

Blinking, the first thing she noticed was that she was lying on the ground outside the main doors to the castle.

There was a grassy clearing with a path to the stables in one direction and the gardens in the other.

A few hundred feet beyond both, the forest loomed, enclosing the clearing with dark, branching fingers.

Jessamine and Cora knelt on either side of Arabella while Brynne stood a few feet away with one hand resting too casually on the hilt of her sword and positioned her body toward the castle doors.

“I am hungry,” Arabella admitted, her mouth feeling strangely dry. For a moment, she thought she noted a lingering scent of citrus and pine on her skin.

Cora helped her to a seated position and passed her a piece of bread. “Have this.”

Arabella bit into it. “Breckett…?”

She doubted the erox was the reason she’d blacked out, especially after Jessamine’s reaction. If he’d attacked, the enchantresses would have had him trussed up, or they’d be in pursuit if he’d fled.

Jessamine shook her head.

Fuck.

If Breckett hadn’t knocked her unconscious, that meant there were yet more unanswered questions.

Tentatively, she felt down the bond.

Compared to before, it was strangely quiet on the other end. She couldn’t sense pain or any strong emotions. Had Elias passed out? Some part of her hoped that he was unconscious if only to give him a respite from whatever Magnus was doing to him.

She took another bite of bread, not bothering to stand from where she sat in the grass.

“Will you use it?” Jessamine asked, nodding to where Arabella had sheathed the syphen.

There was no accusation or disapproval in Jessamine’s gaze.

Like Arabella, Jessamine had been forced to make hard decisions in Shadowbank. Sometimes, saving loved ones meant hurting—or not protecting—someone else’s loved ones. There was so much gray in survival.

“Maybe,” Arabella said, chewing.

Once, she’d thought Elias was an enemy for the simple fact that he was a demon. But he’d shown her that actions were what made someone.

Some of the erox in Magnus’ army were far from innocent. A few had tried to kill her when she’d been a captive in Magnus’ camp—to rape her and consume her essence until there was nothing left. It was possible some of them hadn’t wanted to be turned. Some could be in the army against their will.

But there was no way of separating the good from the bad.

Until Elias was safe from Magnus, these other erox weren’t her priority.

She’d protect her mate, and then she’d free them.

She wouldn’t become like Magnus and use the males against their wills for longer than it took to rescue Elias.

But she wouldn’t hesitate to use everything—and everyone—at her disposal to protect her mate.

However, to find their way out of the forest, they needed Breckett.

Elias had stepped between shadows when he’d brought her to his castle in the forest, and he’d done the same for the other enchantresses. While she estimated Shadowbank was within a day’s ride, they had no way of knowing which direction the village was.

Damn her for not thinking of that earlier.

She didn’t regret taking the syphen, but she also knew she owed Breckett an apology. If a blade could take free will from her or those she loved at a moment’s notice, she’d be possessive of it, too.

For the first time, she wondered whether Magnus had turned Breckett with this particular syphen or if Breckett had been made with Elias’ syphen.

Swallowing the last of her food, Arabella said, “I don’t like how close Magnus’ army is to Shadowbank.” She ran a hand over her hair. “Maybe the head enchantress will have some ideas on how to take down a sorcerer.”

When Elias had gone to Shadowbank for help to get Arabella’s memories back, he’d given the head enchantress the amplifier—and whatever power remained within it to strengthen the village’s failing ward.

It had been that very magical artifact that had caused her so much trouble.

It was why she’d bargained away her memories to the Witch of the Woods—in hopes of saving both the goblins who hid within Elias’ castle and the humans who took refuge in the village at the edge of the world.

Arabella hoped the head enchantress, the woman who’d been like a mother to her, would have some guidance.

As Arabella rose to her feet, she noted a flash of movement in the line of trees in the distance. It was beyond the gardens—to the right, near the lake.

Squinting, she tried to make out whatever had caught her attention. But the line of trees was distant. It could be a trick of the shadows. Stranger things had already happened that day.

But there was another flicker of movement as though the deeper shadows stirred.

On instinct, her feet were moving.

Something was beyond the ward. Could it be another alabaster, a type of demon that fed on sexual shame? She didn’t have Elias to save her this time if it sucked her into its clutches.

Or had the worst happened—had Magnus found them? Had he tortured Elias until he revealed the castle’s location? No. Elias wouldn’t have broken so quickly.

As she neared the line of trees, her shadows bloomed beneath her until they were thrice her size. Then they surfaced from the earth like colorless vines sprouting from liquid black. Veined with darkness, they curled around her feet, moving in twisting waves as she walked.

The shadows had changed since she used the amplifier before she’d been captured by Magnus.

It was like the artifact had unlocked something in her—unleashing the shadows from whatever had tethered them.

Then they had changed again when her memories had returned.

They were stronger now and far more wild, as though they had a will of their own.

They responded to her baser emotions—fear and anger—and were eager to serve.

Instead of reaching for the shadows, she sought the earth’s magic.

Outside the forest, the earth held a golden hue of light as though infused with sunshine.

It was the power of growing things and new life, which was so unlike the shadows.

However, in the demons’ territory, the earth held a darker hue.

The natural magic within the land had been corrupted.

Pulling several strands of the sticky earthen magic into her, she wove them together, prepared to lash out at whatever might move in the dark beyond the ward.

Something moved in the trees to her left, and she spun toward it.

Jessamine and Cora were at her heels and mirrored her movements, blades drawn. Where had Brynne gone?

“There’s more than one,” Jessamine said, voice low.

Arabella’s eyes narrowed as she scanned the trees.

Suddenly, a sound like an explosion beneath water sounded from her right.

Turning, she saw the very thing she’d feared.

An ogre the size of a two-story building had emerged from the forest and slammed a fist into the ward.

For a moment, she was back in Shadowbank on the day the soulless had broken through Shadowbank’s ward.

The same day she’d gone with Nemera to rescue Rowan on the road beside the forest. A horde of the soulless had appeared and chased them back to Shadowbank.

The demons had climbed over each other like insects to get into the village, uncaring of their burning bones as they touched the magical barrier.

It had bent inward before tearing—and the demons poured in.

She was jerked back to the present as the castle’s ward stretched.

It thinned out where the ogre’s fist had connected with the magic.

The color leached from that section. For a moment, the ward appeared as little more than a thin film of water.

Waves rippled in every direction, making the dome appear to shiver.

“Fuck,” Jessamine hissed at her side.

They found us.

That one thought kept circling through Arabella’s mind even as fear laced her veins. Magnus had taken Elias, and now he’d come to claim the syphen Breckett had stolen—and likely to kill her for all the trouble she’d caused him.

“They can’t see us,” Cora whispered, her two short swords drawn. Uncertainty laced every syllable. “Breckett said this ward keeps them from seeing the castle.”