Chapter 188

Chapter 188
Siena didn’t hit the ground right away.

For two terror-drenched seconds, she was weightless—then the earth yanked her down, hard, like an unseen hand had hooked her ankle and dragged her into the black.

Her scream ripped through the void.

Then—impact.

Not fatal. But brutal.

Her back slammed into something wet and uneven, knocking air from her lungs in a strangled wheeze. She rolled, instinct kicking in, scrambling to her hands and knees, coughing as dust choked the air.

A skittering whisper followed her.

Not from the walls.

From behind her.

Siena froze.

Her breath stilled in her chest.

That cold hand—those clawed fingers—still gripped her ankle.

Her heart stuttered and hammered, a wild, panicked rhythm.

“Let go,” she rasped.

The fingers tightened, almost playfully, dragging slowly up the back of her calf. A caress. A threat. Both.

A low hum drifted through the darkness. Male. Ancient. Amused.

“You fall beautifully,” he murmured.

Siena whipped around, kicking wildly. Her heel connected with something—solid. She heard a grunt, surprised, but not pained.

Her pulse spiked with a surge of adrenaline.

She scrambled backward until her spine hit stone.

“Stay away from me,” she hissed.

A soft chuckle unfurled around her, close enough that she felt the breath of it against her cheek. “If I meant to harm you, little mother, you would not be speaking.”

Her stomach twisted.

Little mother.

The title slid through her like a knife dipped in ice. He knew. He always knew. The child’s existence was a thread he followed like a predator tracing blood.

A faint glow bloomed in the dark—sickly red, soft as candlelight. It illuminated him slowly, piece by piece.

A jawline too perfect.

Cheekbones Damian shared.

Eyes like pits of molten shadow—wrong. Empty and ravenous.

A face Siena recognized but didn’t.

A face Damien had mourned.

A voice that belonged to no living thing.

He crouched in front of her with unnatural stillness, his torso lowering until his face hovered inches from hers.

Her blood went cold.

“Let me look at you properly,” he murmured, tilting his head. “Damien’s woman.”

The words were a brush of silk and venom.

“That’s not who I am,” Siena snapped, forcing strength into her voice even as her pulse thundered. “And Damien is nothing to you.”

Something flickered over his expression—a twitch, almost animalistic. “On the contrary,” he said softly. “He is my favorite failure.”

Siena’s chest tightened. She wanted to push back, to contradict, to snarl—

But the weight of his gaze pinned her.

He lifted a hand, fingers hovering over her cheek. She flinched. He didn’t touch her. Not yet.

“You look like her,” he whispered. “The one who softened him. The one he would have burned kingdoms for.”

Siena shook her head. “You don’t know anything about me.”

Another whisper of a smile, too sharp at the edges.

“I know everything that bleeds into him,” he murmured. “He leaves pieces of himself everywhere he loves. You… carry the largest piece.”

Heat shot up Siena’s throat, half fury, half fear.

“Don’t speak about him,” she snapped.

“Oh?” His smile deepened, twisting. “It is the only thing that makes you look at me.”

The glow brightened, revealing more of his stolen body—broad shoulders, dark hair falling over his forehead, the faint outline of muscle beneath torn shirt fabric.

Alec had been right.

It was Damien’s brother.

But it wasn’t.

Something moved under his skin—shadows, shifting like smoke trapped beneath flesh.

Siena swallowed hard. “Why bring me down here?”

“Bring you?” He laughed quietly. “I didn’t drag you. The earth answered me. The earth wants you.”

“What the hell does that—”

“Do you feel it?” he whispered. His hand drifted toward her collarbone, tracing just above her skin. “How it hums under your feet? How it knows your name?”

Siena’s breath hitched despite herself.

Because she could feel it.

A faint thrum in the stone beneath her palms, vibrating like a heartbeat. Calling to something buried deep inside her.

He saw the realization in her eyes.

And his smile sharpened like a blade.

“There it is,” he murmured. “The truth you keep trying to outrun.”

Siena forced her spine straight. “You want something from me.”

“Yes,” he said. “But not yet.”

His eyes dipped—slowly, lingering—down her throat, to the rise and fall of her chest. Not with hunger. But with greed. Possession.

Her skin prickled.

“You’re afraid,” he said quietly. “Of me. Of Damien’s truths. Of the child’s power. But fear is just potential waiting for direction.”

He leaned in.

She pressed back against the stone, breath quickening.

His voice dropped to a low, intimate murmur. “You felt me when you were above—didn’t you? Before the ground broke.”

Siena shook her head. “No.”

He laughed again. Soft. Dark. “You lie even to yourself.”

And then—slowly, deliberately—he pressed his palm flat against the wall beside her head, boxing her in. The movement dragged his body inches closer. Heat radiated from him, strange and unnatural.

Her heart hammered against her ribs.

“You want to know why I came in his skin,” he whispered near her ear.

Siena forced air into her lungs. “I don’t—”

“Because it hurts him,” he murmured. “Because he feels every look you give me. Every breath I steal near you. Every heartbeat you lose when I move closer.”

He brushed a strand of her hair behind her ear.

Her stomach twisted violently—revulsion tangled with something unbearably vulnerable.

Damien.

She could feel him even now, somewhere above, ripping through enemies to reach her.

“He’s coming for me,” she whispered. “He’ll kill you.”

A slow exhale against her cheek, warm and taunting. “He can try.”

Siena glared at him. “Why me?”

For the first time, his expression changed—softening into something unsettlingly calm.

“Because,” he murmured, eyes locking onto hers with a darkness that felt endless, “you are the only piece that will break him exactly how I need.”

A chill swept down her spine.

“He broke once,” Rath continued softly. “When my vessel died. He tore half the empire apart in his grief. But he rebuilt. He grew harder. Colder. Stronger.”

Her pulse thudded painfully.

“And you…” His thumb hovered above her lower lip, not touching, but close enough that she felt heat coil low in her belly. “You made him human again.”

Siena jerked her head away. “Stay out of my head.”

He chuckled. “Little mother… I am in everything.”

His voice dipped, almost tender. “And when I break him this time, it will be with your scream.”

Siena’s breath froze.

Her hands balled into fists.

“I’m not afraid of you,” she lied.

“No,” he said. “You’re afraid of what you will become.”

“What is that supposed to—”

The ground shuddered.

A roar tore through the chasm—raw, feral, unmistakable.

Damien.

The sound slammed into Siena like a fist of heat and hope and terror all at once.

Rath’s eyes gleamed. “Ah. He found us.”

The walls vibrated again, dust raining down in shimmering clouds.

Siena surged to her feet, adrenaline spiking. “Damien!”

She tried to run toward the opening ahead—but Rath caught her wrist, spinning her back into his chest. His grip wasn’t bruising. It was worse—gentle. Controlled. Certain.

“You won’t reach him,” he murmured.

“Let me go!”

“I will,” he whispered. “In a moment.”

Another boom shook the cavern.

Siena’s heart leapt toward the sound—but Rath’s mouth brushed her ear, freezing her in place.

“Before he arrives,” he breathed, “I want him to feel one thing.”

His fingers slid slowly down her spine, not intimate, not sexual, but claiming—

—a message meant for Damien.

Siena went still, horror and rage warping through her.

“Don’t touch me,” she growled.

But Rath only smiled, the glow around him brightening like blood-soaked light.

“Oh, little mother,” he whispered. “This is nothing.”

The cavern wall behind him exploded.

Stone shards blasted outward.

Damien’s silhouette appeared through the dust—broad shoulders, eyes burning wild, breath heaving as though he’d carved through hell itself.

“Siena!” he roared.

Relief flooded her.

She opened her mouth—

But Rath’s arm suddenly wrapped around her waist, hauling her flush against him in a brutal mockery of an embrace, his claws digging into her side.

Damien’s face shattered.

Not with fear.

With murder.

Rath’s lips touched Siena’s temple in a whisper-soft graze—the barest brush, but enough to send Damien’s roar ripping through the cavern in a sound so savage the earth seemed to recoil.

Siena’s scream mingled with it as Rath dragged her backward—

And the floor beneath them split open again.

The earth swallowed them whole.