Page 28 of The Eternal Mirror (Lucifer’s Mirror #3)

Prison Therapy

B y the time we come to a halt in front of a cell door, I’m almost unconscious, hanging limp between the two guards.

Actually, unconscious sounds like a really good idea right now. But I fought it all the way here. I didn’t want to pass out; I was scared I’d end up in that mirror chamber hooked up to the silver vein thing, having my life force sucked dry.

And let me tell you, the whole plan would have been overhauled before I let that happen. But we’re in the main part of the dungeons, not far from the cell with Winter’s brother.

The guard on my left unlocks the door. They heft me inside and lower me gently to the floor. It’s the first sign of kindness I’ve seen from them, and maybe an indication that I’m not seen as enemy number one around here .

However, I’m guessing that however much they dislike some of Khronus’s more extreme actions, they won’t go against him, whether through belief in him or fear—I’m betting on the latter—I don’t know.

Neither of them speaks, and neither do I. I need to appear broken—or rather, more broken than I actually am. It’s part of the cunning plan. I lie there as the door slams shut behind them, the lock clicking with a finality that echoes in my bones.

I stay still for a moment, just breathing, just appreciating the fact that I’m still alive.

But finally, I know I have to move, take stock.

The first thing I notice is how hot the room is. And not in a nice day-at-the-beach kind of way. It’s the kind of hot that clings to your skin like sweat-drenched guilt and makes your eyeballs consider staging a revolt.

I’m lying with my cheek resting on what I presume is straw, and from the smell, not particularly clean straw. Forcing my hands under me, I push up slightly and take a deep breath. I immediately regret it. The air smells like rotten rust, with a tinge of old blood and the sour stench of urine.

The floor has a layer of thinly scattered straw; through it, I can see the stone, slick in places—and I don’t want to think too hard about what it’s slick with. There’s a drain in the center of the room. It’s stained black.

I have a gag reflex at the thought of that.

There’s no obvious light source, but the place glows with a faint, sickly green. The walls are dark stone, like the floor, with chains hanging at regular intervals.

At least I’m not chained; I can move around within my little cubicle. See? I’m thinking positively.

Not surprisingly, the place reminds me of the cell I rescued Khaosti from all those weeks ago. Except it’s not quite so smelly. Yet.

Finally, I push myself up, every muscle screaming, and drag myself a few feet across the floor so I can rest my back against the wall.

All right, that’s enough self-pity for one day.

I close my eyes and draw up the magic. It’s sluggish in this place, as if the air’s soaked in spells designed to smother—but it’s still there. Still mine.

I press my hands to my ribs, to my bruised cheek, to the hollow ache in my belly. Magic trickles through me, pale gold and shaky, but it’s enough. It knits the damage. Knits me. Not perfectly, but I don’t need perfect. I need functional.

“You’re stubborn as hell, you know that?” A voice whispers through the bars of the cell door.

Khaosti.

Of course.

I lean my head back, eyes closed. “I thought I told you not to talk,” I say. “You’re not supposed to do anything to draw attention to yourself. ”

“And you’re not supposed to be getting punched by my father’s guards,” he counters. “Besides, they’re gone. There’s no one to hear me. Except you—and know this, they will die before this is over.”

“I didn’t want to be punched. But I didn’t see a lot of options.”

Silence. Then, “I wanted to kill him,” he says softly.

“But you didn’t. Hey, you’re learning restraint. Who says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks?” I sigh. “I wanted to kill him too.”

Then he asks, “Did he break anything?”

I let out a tired breath. “Nothing a healing spell couldn’t fix. I’m good. I promise. I’m just not too keen on the accommodations.”

Hopefully, I won’t have time to get used to them. With luck, Khronus is just flexing his muscles, making a point. Or maybe he’s waiting for something. I just wish I knew what.

“Why can’t we kill him?” Khaos asks softly. “Why don’t I get you out of here, and together we go kill my father? He might be immortal, but he can still die.”

I wish it was that easy. But it isn’t. “We can’t.

At least I’m pretty sure we can’t—like ninety-five percent sure.

He’s warded with some really powerful dark magic.

” I’m guessing powered by the magic he drained from the witches.

He’s been doing it for hundreds, maybe thousands of years. So much magic.

“So what can we do?” Khaosti asks. “I take it you have a plan. What happens now? ”

“Now we wait, and you stay hidden,” I say. “At the moment, you’re my ace in the hole. No one knows you’re here. If things get too bad, you can get me out, and we’ll run.”

“Promise?”

“I promise.” But what does too bad look like?

No food, maybe. But that won’t happen. Khaosti can sneak into the kitchens and steal me some.

What else? I really don’t like the idea of torture.

I’m not sure how well I’d hold up. But why would Khronus torture me?

Just for fun? Maybe not torture me, but something else, something worse?

I remember that look in his eyes when he talked about my mother.

I suspect he had a serious crush on her.

And he’s starting to see me as some sort of substitute. Ugh. I think I’m going to throw up.

I definitely don’t want to go there. Not even to save the world and everyone in it.

I shift my weight—the floor is hard. But at least I have company.

“What was it like growing up with Khronus as a father?” I ask.

I suppose it goes a long way in explaining how he became the man he is.

I don’t think I’m being overcritical when I say that he was an asshole when I first met him.

I mean, I was seriously worried about my taste in men.

Because however horrible Khaosti was to me, I still wanted to shag him.

Anyway, he’s not so much of an asshole anymore. At least not to me. But I’d love to understand him better. He’s always been reticent about his past. But then, so have Zayne and Josh. I guess when something’s so bad, you don’t want to talk about it. You just want to forget .

I’ve given up on him answering by the time he finally speaks. “He didn’t play a huge part in my life when I was young,” Khaosti says. “I saw him every now and then. But he was distant. I wouldn’t have even known he was my father if people hadn’t called me Prince.”

Aw, poor little boy. “So who looked after you?”

“A lot of people. Sheela was there much of the time. And then, when I was five, Khendril was injured and came back to serve my father in the palace. He was good to me. He was the first person who voluntarily spent time with me, almost as though he liked me. It was strange.”

“Oh, that’s sad,” I say. “I’m sure Sheela liked you.”

“Maybe. But she’d lost so many people already, that she kept her distance. And now I understand—she hates my father, with good reason. She lost both her mother and her father to Khronus.”

“I always think it strange when people say ‘lost’—like you mislaid them or something. But I think you’re right. It makes you wary of allowing yourself to be close to anyone again.”

“I suppose that’s what happened to me after Khendril left.

It nearly broke me. That’s how I ended up in the dungeons the first time, forced into my wolf form.

My father got so pissed off at me for trying to make him go after Khendril and rescue him.

I was sure something terrible must have happened to him. When, in fact, he just left us.”

“He had his reasons,” I say.

“Yeah. He left me...for you. When I first met you, I hated you for that. ”

“I noticed.”

But actually, it’s good to understand his reasons. And I can’t really blame him. If Zayne up and left me with no explanation to look after some stranger, then I might be a little bitter.

“He used to talk about you a lot,” I say.

“Yeah? Did he tell you what an asshole I was?”

“He said you were the hope for the future, and it broke his heart when he had to leave you. But he had no choice. And when he needed to send me somewhere safe, then he sent me to you.”

“Fucked that right up, didn’t he?”

“He did what he could. The shadowguard came for me. I wanted to stay and fight, but he said I wasn’t ready.” I’d been sixteen, and I’d lost so many people. I hadn’t wanted to lose Khendril. But I did. And I found Khaos instead.

“Was Khendril your only brother?” I ask. “I mean, surely if Khronus is that old, he must have had other children.”

“There were others. But none that survived.”

“Do you think he killed them? His own children?”

“Maybe. He’d kill me if he could. Maybe if they got too ambitious. Or just pissed him off.”

“Not a great dad then?”

He snorts. “No. You and I have that in common.”

I glance toward the door—not that I can see him, but I can feel him.

The bond is like static, always humming at the edge of my skin.

We’re bound together, whether we like it or not.

Sometimes I like it a lot; those are usually the times when we’re not talking.

I have a flashback to the feel of his hard body covering me, filling me. ..

Sometimes not so much.

“Back to that plan,” Khaos says. “If we can’t kill him, what are we doing?”

“Well, I was hoping to free the witches and Winter’s brother, get them out of here, destroy all the mirrors, and get away ourselves. Go to Valandria or Earth—anywhere but Astrali. Khronus would be stuck here. I thought it was poetic justice. Except...”

“Except?”

“Except...” I sigh. “That was before I met the rebels and the Wolfpack and even some of the people in the palace. They don’t deserve Khronus.”

“I thought you were done with saving people.”

“So did I. But there’s more than that. Khronus has that creepy mirror and he’s siphoning off mirror magic from the witches.

So maybe destroying the mirrors will do no good.

Maybe he’ll just make more. And then he’ll come after us, wherever we are.

” I think for a moment, trying to make sense of all the threads.

“Then there’s his plan to find the Eternal Mirror. ”

“The mirror that started it all.” I can hear the frown in his voice. “Is it even real?”

“I don’t know.” But in my mind, I see that vision, the silver rings spinning in the void.

“But I think it might be. And while I have no clue what it can do, I’m guessing—at least in Khronus’s hands—nothing good.

He told me it will give him the power to destroy whole worlds.

And he thinks that’s okay because he can just make a new one full of people who will worship him. What if he’s right?”

I wait for some sort of answer, but he’s quiet. So I offer him an alternative. “Maybe we should just go to Hawaii and lie on the beach, make mad passionate love, and drink pina coladas and forget your father.”

“I’ll take that option.”

“That’s what I was planning as we flew away from Hell. You, me, and a beach.”

“One day,” he murmurs.

I look around at my horrible cell. “Yeah, but not this one.”

He’s silent again, and I give him time to think.

“This time it’s different,” he says. “We had no choice but to go to Hell and destroy Lucifer. He was coming after you, and he would never have stopped. It was always going to happen. But this...? This is not your mess. Maybe you should go. Go back to Zayne and Josh and get away from here. Back to Earth. Have a life. I’ll deal with my father. ”

I grit my teeth so hard my jaw aches.

I can’t believe he fucking said that.

“What, you think I should go back and find another man to lie on the beach with? To make love with?” Asshole. “You know, I think I might just do that.”

A low growl rumbles through the door. “If you do, I’ll find you, and I’ll rip him to pieces, and then I’ll fuck you until you can’t walk.”

“Then do I get a pina colada? ”

“It’s tearing me apart.” His voice is a raw growl, full of pain and frustration. I know how he feels. “I want you safe, but the thought of you anywhere but right beside me rips me to shreds. And the thought of you with another man...”

Okay, I forgive him. I sigh. “So now we wait.” Khronus is punishing me, but hopefully he’ll get bored and come and get me, spill all his secrets, and we’ll—

“We just wait? That’s it? The plan?”

“There is one thing you can do,” I say. “Actually, two things. Can you get a message to Warden Corvus Vahl? Don’t talk to him, don’t let him know you’re here. Just write him a note saying: Tell the Wolfpack that Khaosti is alive and I have proof .”

“I can do that. And the second thing?”

“Get me some goddamn food. I’m hungry.”