“Isolde purposely triggered my curse. At first, she forced the blood into me. She tortured me. Broke me down, but then…I craved it so much that I killed. Over and over, I killed. I didn’t care who they were. Whether they deserved to die or not, I killed. I drank them dry. And then I lost my mind. I couldn’t remember anyone’s name. I couldn’t remember my own. All I could think about was blood, pain, killing, and death. I wanted death as much as the others. It was torment. Forgetting everything that made me me. And then Isolde offered me the cure, and then you fell into my lap.”
I look at him. I know he’s leaving out a fair bit of details about the torture he endured, but I’ll let it go for now.
“How are you feeling now?” I ask.
“Like myself.”
“And your back?”
“Is fine,” he growls low.
I frown. “Ambrose?”
“He’s lying. It’s killing him. Every breath, movement feels like ripping his skin apart,” Ambrose says.
“Thank you,” I say.
“Of course, my queen.”
Nyx huffs. “I don’t need you two ganging up on me.”
“Then stop lying. It’s not helping anything. We are all caged. All bound with chains. All about to be tortured until we do what Isolde wants. And then we’ll die. We don’t lie to each other, not anymore,” I say.
Ambrose and Nyx exchange strange glances, but don’t say anything.
“Fine, then how did you end up falling from the sky into my lap, Lumi?” Nyx asks.
I blink, surprised by his question. “What do you mean?”
“I mean exactly what I asked,” Nyx says.
“What a stupid question. Clearly, Isolde used her magic to—” Ambrose says.
“No, let her answer,” Nyx says, interrupting Ambrose.
They glare at each other, but Ambrose shuts up, giving me space to speak.
“I don’t know exactly.”
“What were you doing before it happened?” Nyx asks.
“I was pacing outside of the magical barrier in my wolf form when I lost contact with Ambrose. I thought he might be dead. I didn’t know what happened. I shifted, hoping I could find a way through the barrier. I tried everything. I tried running through it. Talking to Isolde. Any magic still inside from Ambrose. Nothing worked.”
“And then what happened?” Nyx asks more gently this time.
I frown, still not understanding, but I humor him. “I think I said something like, Take me to him. And then I was sucked into a dark hole, and in seconds, I was falling into this cage.”
Nyx scrapes his teeth over his bottom lip, moving closer until the chains tug at his limbs and he stops. “I think I know how you ended up falling on top of me, but I’m still trying to figure out how it’s possible.”
Chapter 30
Lumi
Istare at Nyx, waiting for him to tell me his theory, but he’s lost in his head, like he’s trying to mentally put together the pieces of a puzzle.
“Care to share?” Ambrose asks.
Nyx snaps his head in Ambrose’s direction. “Surely, you’ve figured it out, too.”