Chapter 123
Sebastian
I tore through the cell systematically, looking for anything she might have left behind. The cot held nothing but rumpled sheets that still carried her scent—fainter now, but there. The floor was marked with dried blood in several places, dark stains that told a story I didn't want to examine too closely but couldn't look away from.
In the corner, half-hidden beneath the cot frame, I found it.
A scrap of fabric, torn from the grey robe Selene had given her. The material was stiff with dried blood and still held a trace of warmth, as if Lirael had only just discarded it. I brought it to my face and inhaled deeply, and her scent hit me like a drug, cutting through the lingering fog in my head. Beneath the blood, I caught something else—pain, fear, determination. The emotional residue that clung to objects touched during moments of intense feeling.
She'd been hurt. Badly. And she'd walked away anyway.
The blood bond thrummed to life, that new connection I'd forged in the depths of transformation singing through my veins. I could feel her out there somewhere, a distant star burning at the edge of my awareness. Moving away. Weak. Fading.
I crushed the fabric in my fist and strode for the door.
---
Marcus was in the corridor, looking like he'd aged a decade overnight. His eyes went wide when he saw me, and he actually took a step back before catching himself.
Smart man.
"Where is she?" I didn't bother with pleasantries.
"My lord, I—"
I had him by the collar and slammed against the wall before he could finish the sentence. "Where. Is. She."
"Gone," he gasped out, and I watched his throat work as he swallowed hard. "She left with the others—Selene, the boy Elwin. They took Damian's boat hours ago."
The world went red at the edges. My grip tightened until Marcus made a strangled sound, and some distant part of my brain that was still capable of rational thought noted that I was dangerously close to crushing his windpipe.
"You let her leave?" The words came out barely above a whisper, which was somehow worse than if I'd shouted.
"She said—" Marcus choked as my grip tightened further. "She said it was her choice. That if she didn't save you, she'd regret it for the rest of her life. But that saving you didn't mean—" He broke off, gasping for air.
I released him so suddenly he nearly fell. My hands were shaking, and I shoved them into my pockets to hide it, to keep from wrapping them around Marcus's throat again or putting my fist through the stone wall.
"Didn't mean what?" I demanded.
Marcus rubbed his throat, watching me with the wary caution of a man who'd just realized exactly how close he'd come to dying. "Didn't mean she owed you anything. She said you were even now."
"Even." I laughed, and the sound was ugly even to my own ears. "She saved my life and then just... walked away. And you let her."
"She and them are together," I said, more to myself than to Marcus, working through the implications. "But with me, she's not together. She rescued me, and then she just left like that?!"
"Selene left a message," Marcus said carefully, still keeping his distance. "She said to tell the Blackwood heir not to pursue Her Highness any further. That between moon elves and wolves, there is only blood debt. Nothing more."
"Her Highness." The title tasted like ashes on my tongue. Of course. Lirael wasn't just some escaped lab rat or convenient source of moon dew. She was royalty. The last of her kind, probably, and here I'd been treating her like property, like something I could own and control and—
The blood bond pulsed, a constant reminder that she was out there, moving further away with every passing second.
I turned and walked back into the cell, Marcus trailing behind like a nervous shadow. The morning light was stronger now, illuminating the full extent of what had happened here. Blood on the cot. Blood on the floor. Blood on the walls. Blood on the ceiling beam, for fuck's sake, as if she'd climbed up there at some point during the night.
The metal bed frame showed deep gouges where she'd gripped it, claws out, bending steel with the force of her pain. The blanket I'd thrown bore similar marks, along with what looked like bite marks where she'd probably tried to muffle her own screams.
She'd been in agony. And she'd done it anyway. For me.
"You should have stopped her," I said softly, staring at the gouges in the metal.
"I tried, my lord." Marcus's voice was carefully neutral. "She told me that some debts had to be paid, no matter the cost. That she couldn't live with herself if she let you die when she had the power to save you."
Something in my chest cracked open, raw and bleeding. "She said that?"
"Word for word, my lord."
I stood there, staring at the evidence of her pain scattered across the cell, and for the first time in longer than I could remember, I felt something that might have been shame. She'd destroyed herself to save me, and I'd—
What? Taken advantage of her when I wasn't in my right mind? Forced a blood bond on someone who'd never wanted any connection to me? Marked her in ways that would probably haunt her for the rest of her life?
Yes. All of that and more.
"Marcus." My voice came out rough.
"My lord?"
"From now on, her safety is your primary objective." I turned to look at him, and whatever he saw in my face made him go very still. "I don't care what orders I give you in the future. I don't care if I'm in my right mind or halfway to beast. If it comes down to a choice between following my commands and keeping her alive, you keep her alive. Understood?"
He blinked, clearly shocked. "I... yes, my lord. But she's with Damian Gray now. The Gray family—"
"I know exactly what the Gray family is capable of." I moved to the window, looking out over the grey morning sea. "I also know Damian's been circling her since Black Reef. "
The jealousy that surged through me at the thought was irrational and overwhelming. Damian was one of the few people I'd considered something close to a friend, but the idea of him anywhere near Lirael made me want to rip his throat out with my teeth.
"Find out where they're going," I said. "I want eyes on Selene, the boy, all of them. And I want a full workup on this blood bond. I need to know its limits, its range, everything."
"Yes, my lord." Marcus hesitated.