“I was spying on you the entire time, asshole. I heard your entire conversation with Stellan. Would you like me to recite it from memory to prove it wasn’t me?”
Nyx growls.
“Enough. It wasn’t either of you.”
They both look at me, and Riven, who has been silent the entire time, speaks. “It had to be Isolde. She is the only onewith magic strong enough to transport you through a portal and attack you without being close to you. There is no scent of anyone on you. It had to be Isolde.”
“But why would the witches try to kill me? They want me to break the curse for them.”
“Maybe a seer saw that if they kill you, another mating pair will quickly form that will end the curse for the witches,” Ambrose answers.
“Or maybe Ambrose’s curse is using the witches to try to kill you,” Riven answers.
Nyx doesn’t give his opinion, but I know he has one. I can see the wheels churning in his head as he puts the pieces together.
“It has to be someone that Amora couldn’t speak about. Something that the vampire king wouldn’t want us to know. Something that could change who I’d break the curse for,” I say slowly, trying to piece it together myself, but I have no clue who that would be. If someone was trying to kill me, I’d think the vampire king would want me to know so that I could stop them. He needs me alive. Unless, like the witches, he thinks another mating pair will form. One that he can better control.
I can’t come up with a good answer. I look to Nyx. “What are you thinking?”
He runs his hand through his hair, and his cool eyes pierce through me as if he’s fighting with himself to speak or keep silent.
“It’s a crazy theory—one that I have no idea if it could be true or not. I don’t know why the vampire king wouldn’t want you to know this information. I don’t know how it could be true. But…”
“Whatever it is, we need to know. Nothing is off the table.”
Nyx opens his mouth about to speak when a booming voice echoes overhead.
“We have Amora, and we’ll kill her in the next sixty seconds if you don’t show up in the clearing beyond your pathetic little pack town,” Isolde says.
Chapter 25
Nyx
Idon’t think, I run.
I don’t wait for Ambrose or Lumi. I don’t strategize with them. Don’t ask for their help.
I’m the fastest.
I can get there in ten seconds.
I know it’s a trap. That it might be the last thing I do. But I know if I don’t go, Isolde will kill Amora without a second thought. She’s nothing to Isolde. Just a pawn she can use to get to me.
And Amora is incredible—strong, resilient, kind, caring. She’d do anything to save me, and I her. I love her. She could be my true mate that the world gave to me. The one I’m destined to spend the rest of my life with, even if she isn’t the love of my life nor the one I’d choose for myself.
I see the clearing. See Isolde standing alone next to Amora. Rope strengthened by magic ties Amora’s wrists together. A gag around her mouth and head. Magic surrounds her like a cage. But she’s alive.
“What do you want, Isolde?” I ask, already knowing the answer and the answer I will give. I will do what it takes to save Amora, consequences be damned.
“To trade. Your life for hers,” she says simply.
“Just mine,” I growl.
“Yes, just yours,” Isolde says with a fierce look in her eyes.
I slice my fangs across the palm of my hand.
She rolls her eyes at me, but her magic slices her palm open as well.