Page 188 of Infernal Bonds

Cornaith said the cameras in the parking lot were disabled.

Something didn’t add up.

Who else knew Raelynn went into Alonia with Kavina? Kavina had said no one saw them, and she hadn’t told anyone. I’d never believed we couldn’t trust her, but someone else had to know.

Zeke turned onto his side, snorting in his sleep. He’d been unable to stay awake for even a conversation about Raelynn. It spoke volumes about how Bondrot was affecting him this time.

Even if our Bondrot was worse now that we’d grown closer to her, seeing how severely it affected Ash with a sealed tether didn’t change what I wanted.

If she allowed it—wanted it—I’d still choose the bond.

I’d still choose her.

49

DESPERATION

RAE

Apparently, there was a difference between keeping someone alive and making them well enough to give away. According to Rinlora’s mother, Cornaith’s private vallants had spent the last several days figuring out how to do both and were close to a breakthrough.

They wanted to create potions and spells powerful enough to keep Bondrot from killing me or causing permanent damage once they separated me from the guys for good. Once they’d done that, Cornaith planned to hand me over to the Sephra clan, much to Rinlora’s mother’s disappointment.

Cornaith refused the trade until the vallants made me better.

Rinlora’s mother said Cornaith claimed the Sephra clan was under the impression that the bond wasn’t real, but she and I both suspected something far darker: that he and Dugorigi were working together to give the latter what he wanted while getting rid of me.

I wondered if Kairian even knew what they were up to.

They needed to wait until Cyn, Ezra, and Zeke felt better too.

If their symptoms disappeared after the transfer, Cornaith could tell everyone—including the guys—the story he’d already prepared and begun planting the seeds for with the Sephra clan. A convincing lie upheld by the spells the vallants would bind to our auras without our knowledge. They didn’t need us present for the magic to work.

The same lie he tried to convince the guys of in the beginning, but this time he’d have support from the vallants and proof through our miraculous recovery.

What other explanation could someone who wanted their bond have for why Bondrot wasn’t destroying them, other than that the bond wasn’t real? That everything they felt for me had been an illusion spell.

He even had an explanation for Ash.

The magic had rooted itself so deeply into his mind that breaking the illusion broke him with it. A convenient explanation for why one prince would never get better.

A knock on the door stirred me from the weird limbo I’d fallen into between barely conscious and fever-induced sleep. Another knock, but I was too weak to speak anymore.

The door opened, revealing Rinlora backlit by the kitchen light. She flipped the switch, causing me to groan as the brightness stung my eyes.

“Sorry,” she said, turning off the light. “How are you?”

I rolled my head to the side and tried to give her my best unimpressed “get the fuck out” stare, but I wasn’t sure I succeeded. She sat down on the edge of the bed where I leaned against the wall.

I hadn’t seen her since she brought me here.

I certainly didn’t want to see her now.

“Mom says she won’t perform any tests on you. Your aura is dimming, weak from separation. If she introduces reagents from the cursed forest, she might destroy your aura entirely. She won’t kill you for her curiosity.”

Rinlora’s mother wanted to test me, but at least she wasn’t cruel enough to kill me outright. Throughout my imprisonment, she kept me comfortable. Until I stopped talking, she kept me company.

But Cornaith wasn’t a patient man, so she couldn’t risk making me sicker with potions infused with herbs from Feranzis and exposing her unauthorized experiments to him.