Page 195 of Infernal Secrets

Maybe bitterness wasn’t fueling his defiance, but I’d had enough of his attitude.

I stopped and turned to him. “You took her necklace. You held her against her will. You said awful things. You—” My breath shuddered when Ezra’s hand landed on my shoulder. I closed my eyes and whispered, unable to hide the pain, “How could you?”

Cyn’s hands dropped. His gaze drifted to the twisted trees lining the lane to our home. A strong breeze stirred vines and thick blooms dripping from their gnarled branches.

“She tricked us,” he said. His bright amber eyes met mine. “If she were ours, it wouldn’t be this easy to lose her. That’s why I can’t believe it.” He looked at Ezra. “Did you really believe it?”

“It doesn’t matter what I believed.”

“That’s such a cop-out. She—”

“I can’t do this,” Zeke said, his voice breaking. He pushed between us and rushed down the path ahead of us.

“Son of a bitch.” Cyn slipped around me and raced after Zeke.

I dragged a hand over my face. “I don’t want to be there either, but what else can we do?”

Ezra watched Cyn and Zeke a few feet ahead until Zeke collapsed into Cyn’s arms, sobbing. “Forget.”

“Forget?”

“Forget our time with her. Forget her. Do our duty.”

My fingers flexed at my sides. “Can you do that? Pretend none of it happened? I know we weren’t there long, but it felt like an eternity. And you know what? It wasn’t enough.”

Ezra finally looked at me, eyes as dead as his tone. “We don’t have a choice.”

He turned away and continued toward our home, but I couldn’t move.

Did we really have no choice?

47

ACCEPTANCE

RAE

Dragging myself upright, I scrubbed my tired eyes. For two days, I tried to ignore the ghastly sounds coming from the fog bank surrounding the small courtyard of my prison.

I couldn’t sleep. Whenever my body gave up the fight and succumbed to exhaustion, horrific wails woke me—or one of the robed triplets arrived with food or to provide me with a bucket to relieve myself.

I tried to eat to keep my strength, but nausea made every bite a fight.

I didn’t understand why I felt like microwaved death if I wasn’t their mate. Ash said prolonged separation caused sickness for mates, but no one believed that was our reality anymore.

Even then, we hadn’t bonded. I shouldn’t be sick.

Did the fog contain toxins?

I leaned against the cool iron bars of my cage and studied my surroundings.

A flagstone path strewn with dead leaves and twisted vines ran through the center of the courtyard, straight to my jail’s door. On each side, three cages nestled among gnarled trees with bark coated in black moss, sprouting strange green foliage that reminded me of rotting artichokes.

Twisting and swirling, the ever-moving fog pulsed like a breath around the courtyard’s edges. Its cyan glow erased any sense of when day ended, and night began. Tortured screams and cries from unknown sources frayed my nerves, and the cold, unending light stole what little rest I had.

A shuffle in the gnarled trees caught my attention, reminding me of the only reason I managed any sleep these past two days.

Emerging from the shadows, three humanoid figures wrapped in billowing black smoke shambled toward my enclosure. My shadow friends, whom I hadn’t seen in years, circled me before settling outside the bars.