Page 40

Ever

D ane throws me back in my cell, the door slamming shut behind him. Thank god Skylar has swift reflexes, or I’d have bashed my skull open on the cement floor.

The heavy thud as Ledger throws himself at the transparent wall, spitting threats at my temporary roommate for touching me, is a comfort I was worried I’d never experience again.

“You’re okay.” Tears well in my eyes as I face the four of them in the adjoining cell.

Logically, I knew Dane would keep them alive to force me into complying with his insane demands, but I wasn’t sure what state they’d be in. Seeing them alive and pissed off enough to try and break through a wall to get to me? It’s a massive relief.

“Don’t worry, he’s not interested in me.” I pin Skylar with a look. “Tell them.”

He rolls his eyes, snatching the blanket off his cot and chucking at me before he lowers himself down on it again.

“Even I’m not that much of an asshole to go after my best friend’s girl.

Besides, I’m wise enough not to get attached to anyone or anything in this place; it’d just be used against me. ”

Bellamy demands, “What’d he do to you?” palm slapping against the barrier between us.

I line my fingers up with his, noting the infinitesimal way his shoulders relax at the phantom touch. Filling them in on everything I’ve learned takes a solid ten minutes, and by the end of it, they’re pacing like caged beasts.

“Hey, it’s not so bad. Free drugs and rent; definitely not the worst place I’ve had to spend the night in.”

The words are barely out of my mouth before I realize I fucked up.

“What do you mean drugs? ” Ledger snarls.

My gaze darts to Bellamy and I cringe. “Sorry for thinking you were paranoid.”

His jaw tics. “Let me guess. He spiked your water with a bonding potion and is hoping you’ll claim the phoenix?”

I tap the side of my nose. “See? Your instincts are great, and we all suck for giving you a hard time. People suck.”

He grimaces. “Not that great. It’s how we ended up trapped in here; he drugged our breakfast.”

“Okay cool, so we were all idiots that walked right into the spider’s lair. Good to know it wasn’t just me.”

Shock is still taking its toll on Myles, his face pale and fingers restlessly drumming along his thigh. His gaze falls on Skylar. “Is that how he managed to kidnap you? Why didn’t you call me after you… I mean… do you like, respawn as a baby or something?”

Skylar snorts. “No, when a phoenix shifter dies, we’re reborn in our bird form.

Stuck that way for a couple of weeks before our human half is healed and developed enough to shift back.

I tried to track you down after that day, make sure you were okay.

Side note; fuck you for not letting on you were a myst before then, you dick.

Things would have been so much easier if I didn’t have to keep secrets from you.

” With a reproachful glare, he continues, “But you vanished without a trace. Nocturne bagged me flying around campus trying to find you and I’ve been here ever since. ”

Seeing the guilty look on Myles’s face, I lock eyes with Ledger, silently pleading, and he comes through in spades, cutting through the heaviness of the conversation.

Playfully nudging his shoulder, he teases, “A long lost brother, fated mate, and your best friend back from the grave? What’s it like to be the Fates’ favorite? ”

Incredulous, Myles gestures at the walls surrounding us. “I’d agree if we weren’t literally standing in a prison cell right now, cut off from our powers, and at the mercy of a mad man that’s been hunting our mate right under our noses.”

Bellamy continues running his palms along every inch of their cell, specifically, the wall with the door, likely searching for a panel he can pry free to get into the wiring.

“At least he only wants Ever for her powers and skills, not romantically. With me also being a mimic, and Myles’s capabilities, we should be able to shift his attention onto us and away from her. ”

Arson’s eye twitches as he goes to spin his knife out of habit, forgetting that he was stripped of his weapons before being thrown in his cell. “Screw the long con, I don’t need a weapon to snap his neck. Next time he opens the door, I’ll handle it.”

“You… do know that these are shock collars, right?” Myles asks.

Arson looks at him curiously. “Obviously. Why, want to bring one home with us when we break out of here? No kink shaming, I get it.”

Ledger scrubs a hand wearily down his face. “By all that is holy, shut up , the both of you. We need to settle on a plan before Dane comes back.”

“Actually, I’ve already got that covered.” They all turn to face me, and I fight the urge to squirm under their scrutiny. “It’ll either go great, or we’ll all die a terribly painful death. So… you’re welcome, I guess.”

“Ever,” Myles asks carefully. “What did you do?”

I meet his gaze. “Exactly what you taught me. Power without an outlet is volatile.”

An explosion rocks the ground under our feet, Bell slamming into the wall and Myles falling on his ass.

I nearly bust my nose on the transparent wall before Skylar dives in to save me once again, acting on instinct to roll us both beneath the feeble covering of the cot as chunks of the ceiling come raining down on our heads.

Eventually, the vibrations fade and the dust starts to settle. I risk peeking out from under the cot just as our door slowly slides open with a riotous screech, sticking partway.

Face pale and looking like it took every ounce of energy she had to make her way down here, Sophia shoves it open enough to squeeze through, leaving a bloody handprint behind.

“Only one more to go,” she pants, eyes clouded with pain and trying to hype herself up.

“I can do this. Just one more to unlock.”

Her hand slips, leaving a red streak behind on her way down. Skylar scrambles out of our shitty shelter to catch her as she collapses, and the small jolt that goes through his body as they hit the ground has me biting back a smile.

Fate, Karma; whatever you want to call it, despite it having a twisted sense of humor, sometimes? It really does give people exactly what they deserve.

Another tremble rocks the house, sending a cloud of debris falling on us all, but most importantly? A massive crack running down on the wall between our cells.

Ledger rams his shoulder into it with the force of a freight train, chest heaving as it finally gives way and collapses into a shower of plastic shards.

Arson helps him to his feet as my mates close the distance between us, smashing me between them and running their hands over every exposed inch of skin.

When they get to the finger-shaped bruises on my arms? Arson’s eyes turn pitch black.

“Hey.” Palming his cheek, I rise up on my toes to kiss him until some life comes back to his rigid figure. “I’m okay now. Be as mad as you want, just use that rage to get us out of here, okay? Then you can come back and make sure that bastard’s dead.”

Sophia flinches, staring down at her bloodstained hands and whispers, “He didn’t make it.”

Ledger seems almost disappointed. “Died in the blast? Or crushed by debris?”

She meets his gaze with a haunted look. “Neither.” And it’s only then I realize that while Sophia’s covered in blood? None of it’s hers.

Skylar clutches her tighter against his chest, arranging her on his lap to get her off the cold floor when a chunk of the ceiling breaks loose above them. Skylar tucks her head beneath his chin, curling his body over Sophia and bracing himself to take the brunt of the damage.

But it never comes, Myles tackling them both out of the way in the nick of time.

The debris slams into his back, and my hands fly up to my mouth, afraid to so much as breathe and break the spell of denial. If nobody says anything, we can all pretend it didn’t happen. That the damage isn’t that bad.

That Myles is okay.

“Shit,” Arson breathes, diving into action and hauling the debris off of him. “What the fuck were you thinking, you idiot!?”

Ledger and Bellamy are right behind him, freeing Myles from the rubble and hauling him out. One of his glasses lenses are shattered, and there’s a slow, dark patch on his shirt near his ribs that’s spreading far too fast for comfort.

Skylar hovers over him, looking positively wrecked. “What the hell were you thinking, you idiot?!”

My mate coughs, managing a pained smile. “That it was my turn to save you this time.”

I’m pretty sure I’m going to throw up. I can’t lose him. I just can’t.

But I shouldn’t have worried, because failure was never an option. Sophia wastes no time setting her jaw with determination and shoves his shirt up, slapping a hand over Myles’s wound and heating it until he’s screaming, but cauterizing the wound completely.

“There,” she pants, face sweaty. “You’ll be oka-” her eyes roll to the back of her head and she collapses. Skylar makes a pained noise, rising to his feet with her clutched to his chest.

Ledger picks up Myles. “Arson, you’ve got Ever. Let’s get out of here.”

I barely take two steps before he throws me over his shoulder and we hustle out of the basement, the mansion crumbling around us. Brief flashes of the staff laying slumped on the ground, faces rapidly decaying, have me closing my eyes shut in denial.

Dane was a necromancer, and somehow, was able to shield us from reading his abilities.

All my years of playing video games, and I never asked myself what happens to all the reanimated bodies once their master dies.

Even if I’d known, it wouldn’t have prepared me for the sight. Or the rotting stench.

Makes sense now why his lawyer and staff never spoke around us. They couldn’t.

Arson said the guy he caught cutting the power to my house refused to talk. Shit, Dane really was pulling all of our strings, manipulating everything to get us here all along and we thanked him for his generosity. Son of a fucking bitch.

“What about our collars?”

Bell swipes a frustrated hand down his face. “We’ll figure something out.”

We make it through the front door without any more excitement, watching the mansion collapse in on itself while lost in our heads about what a mindfuck that house of unexpected horrors contained.

It just goes to show that it doesn’t matter how luxurious something is, a gilded cage is still a cage.

The sparkly ones are just better at tricking you into thinking that you’re lucky to be there.

Sophia rouses, staring down at her palms, and I grimace as I see the right one is seared red and raw from healing my mate. With a wistful smile, she murmurs, “It was nice while it lasted.” She turns to me. “Thank you. Even if it was just for a little while, it was a blissful reprieve.”

Carve my heart out and stomp on it, why don’t you?

“Nope, it doesn’t end like this.”

Determined now more than ever, I snag a jagged piece of rock near my feet and snatch Skylar’s collar in a fierce grip, hacking at the seam until it’s wide enough that I can wedge the rock in and tap in Ledger to wrench it apart with rage-fueled adrenaline.

It falls in two pieces to the ground, the skin on Skylar’s neck raw and weeping from years of captivity.

He tentatively touches the abused skin, swallowing down his emotions.

“Thank you,” he croaks.

“Might want to hold onto that, because you’ll be cursing my name in a minute.”

Without warning, I punch him in the balls.

Those tears he’s been fighting back finally leak out, and I yank out my hair pin, scooping one off his cheek and popping it into Sophia’s mouth, germs be damned.

Because Seraphina may be annoying with her cryptic gifts, but if you can figure them out, they’re exactly what you need. And phoenixes? It’s like Kiara said the day one ripped out my hair for its nest.

‘People think it's their ashes or feathers that make them valuable, and sure, they’re useful to a degree. But the real power is in their tears. All my years working here, and the only time I’ve seen one cry is when some idiot stole an egg to try and raise it as a pet.

One drop, and he couldn’t use his powers for weeks. ’

No wonder the Fates paired Sophia with a phoenix shifter for a mate. He can keep her powers in check, and she’s what he needs to heal.