Page 74 of Heir of Broken Souls (HOBF #3)

Chapter 74

Delilah

I ron.

It surrounds me everywhere I look.

Yet it’s pointless. The needle I was injected with when they threw me into this iron prison cell blanketed every drop of power within me.

Along with it my mating bond, the only tether to Knox that could have told me if he survived. The only thing that could have told me if Axel got to his king in time.

The tears haven’t stopped flowing. The emotions have been unlocked within me and I have never hated myself more for the turn of events.

I had him in my clutches.

I had him on his knees.

I had him afraid of me.

I could have killed him, but that portal would have disappeared, taking Knox and the demonic world he had chained him to with it. If I didn’t do what I did, I would have never seen him, and yet something tells me I never will now. Gods know how much time has passed.

I’m inconsolable. Guards and demonic creatures have hissed and snarled at me to shut up, but I can’t seem to care, not when my heart has truly broken. Not when I don’t know if Knox survived that fatal blow.

He has to, though. It’s Knox.

My Knox.

My gorgeous, charming, cocky Fae bastard of a king.

He wouldn’t leave me. He wouldn’t die on me. I never told him I loved him so he can’t die. It goes against the rule of the I love you curse…right?

Between my hiccupped sobs, something moves in the cage beside me, enough to make me pause. I hold my breath and squint into the darkness.

“Hello?”

Nothing responds, but a shadow looms closer.

Something within my gut twists, making me back up as I call again, “Hello?”

I shouldn’t have wasted my breath because as the shadow moves out of the darkness and into the light of the gas lamp hanging between our two cells, I cease to breathe.

The gasp that flies from my lips is muffled by the hand that slaps over my mouth as I sob once more.

A man comes into view, with a pair of eyes I could never in all my wildest dreams forget.

Scrambling forward, I wrap my hand around the bars and reach through them, tenderly touching his cheek. As I come into contact with warm skin, I whip my hand away as if I was burned.

One word, one name, rings through my mind. It should be impossible and yet the ghost from my past looks at me through the iron bars as if I am his salvation.

An ethereal voice begins to whisper in my ear, chanting the phrase over and over.

Open your eyes and come alive, golden one. It’s time for their demise.

The chanting stops as soon as it started, adding to the shock thundering through my bloodstream. Words finally rise up my throat, moving from my mind to my tongue.

“Is that really you?” I ask.

He heaves, his eyes filling with a sheen that make my own tears fall.

“I’ve been waiting for so long.”

The sound of his voice makes me want to scream with delight, but all that manages to come out is one single word.

“Ace,” I breathe.