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“The loss is immeasurable, but so is the love left behind.”
~ Unknown
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Bear woke up with his bruised face smushed against cold concrete. How long had he been like this? How long had Lloth held him in the dungeons? Beating him? Drawing on him like some psychotic street performer? Whispering words of magic and getting angry when he didn’t respond the way she wanted. She seemed to gain new motivation since Tasha...Since Tasha.
Each night, or day, or hour, Lloth had her guards throw him back in this prison cell, disgusted and angry.
Bear may have lost track of time and space, but he’d never forget the soothing words from Chloe. Too incoherent to reply, he relished the words of encouragement. He clung to words speaking of respect, pride and love, though the last emotion didn’t quite make sense. How could she love him? A thief. A coward. A talentless hack. And now, a prisoner. A man so weak, he lost all sense of himself when the big bad guard killed a bird.
His stomach sunk. Tasha wasn’t just a bird. She was his friend and constant companion, and had been for years. Even when everything else around him turned to shit, she was always there.
The energy of the Underworld rolled over him and strummed the runes covering his skin. Lloth had drawn different runes on him this time and though he felt nothing change during her babbling—pain was pain—she’d cackled with glee when the torture session ended. Frankly, he was beginning to think this Corvid Queen wasn’t mentally stable.
Chloe moaned beside him and rolled over. She hadn’t been beaten like him but sleeping on the cold stone floor with minimal food, listening to him suffer and being given no guarantee of a future took its own toll on her as well. They must’ve dragged her out at some point as well because she now had runes drawn on her, too. They looked different than his, but Bear wasn’t an expert on runes.
He turned toward her. They’d allowed them to stay in the same cell the entire time despite the neighbouring ones appearing empty, but they’d chained them so they couldn’t touch. Why had they done that? Some sick form of torture?
Bear’s shackles clinked against the stone floor and prevented him from reaching out. Bear wasn’t a wordsmith. He didn’t spout pretty poetry and express his feelings well. Or at all. But he wanted to hold her, to soothe away the pain etched on her face like her words had comforted him. For the first time since Lloth’s caomhnóir killed Tasha, he could think, and hopefully speak, clearly.
He looked around and discovered someone had removed Tasha’s body—probably chucking her out like unwanted waste. He swallowed the lump in his throat. He needed to keep a clear head.
Chloe struggled to sit up. She shuffled around on her butt to face him. “I’m glad to see you’re doing better. This is the first time you’ve sat up in a while.”
“You must think I’m weak.”
“Why would you say that?”
“Tasha.” His mouth stumbled over the name.
She narrowed her eyes and balled her hands into fists. “That man is vile and cruel. He lacks any empathy or compassion. I don’t think you’re weak for having a heart. I cried for that sweet thing, too.”
Bear bowed his head. He had been so lost in his own pain and grief he hadn’t noticed hers. He really was a selfish jerk. He kept finding reasons for pushing Chloe away and she’d done nothing to deserve it. If she’d killed him in his apartment and ran, she wouldn’t even be here.
“Why?” Bear croaked, his voice raw from screaming. “Why didn’t you escape?”
Silence answered him. Bound by thick metal and imprisoned somewhere in the Underworld in Lloth’s dungeon, he had nowhere to go. He waited.
“I was drawn to you,” she muttered after a long uncomfortable silence.
“I could have sold you out. I could’ve finished the job and handed you over. You had no way of knowing what I’d do or what I was capable of. You didn’t know me. Why risk it?”
She shrugged and looked away. “It’s been a long time, Pretty Boy, since I’ve been drawn to anything. The risk was worth the prize.”
He swallowed a lump in his throat. “So, it was real?”
She smiled, sadness and pain still pulling at her features. “It is real, yes. And mutual as I’ve tried to tell you often enough.”
He sighed, some tension releasing from his body despite their circumstances. At least he made the right decision to open the box and not to hand Chloe over to the dark fae lord. If he’d refused to meet with the client...If the job had gone to someone else...
Ice flowed through his veins. He didn’t like those thoughts or the feelings, they invoked. It hadn’t happened that way so no point in dwelling on the possible past.
“What does she want with you?” he asked. “What do those runes do?”
“She wants what all fae want. More power.” Chloe glanced down at the runes on her arms. “And I suspect revenge.”
“Did you steal her man?”
She shook her head. “Her black shriveled heart got hurt and she believes I can give her the power to get back at the person she feels wronged her.”
Bear grunted. Not all fae wanted power. At least he didn’t. Not anymore. Since taking this job, he’d realized power wouldn’t fill the hole he’d dug in his own soul from insecurities. When he looked at his own death in the cold, emotionless eyes of the dark fae queen and her sidekick, all he thought about was his family. And Chloe.
“I’m more worried about why she wants you,” Chloe said, nodding at his chest.
“Do you know what they are?” The runes itched his skin and if his hands hadn’t been bound, he would’ve rubbed his skin raw trying to get them off the second the guards left him.
“Yes.”
He waited.
She glanced away and bit her lip.
“I’d rather know, Chloe.”
She nodded and turned back to him. “They link your magic with hers. It’s like an anam cara, but a forced defiled version of the bond.”
“What the fuck is an anam cara?”
She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. Not right now. We don’t have time to get into that. What you need to know is she’s forged a connection with you, so she can force you to access your power.”
That didn’t sound good. “She’s going to make me do bad things?”
“Yes, but...she couldn’t make a true bond. You had to be willing for that, or at least compliant, and you fought her off.” Something close to pride flashed across her expression. “That’s why she went with this spell. It’s not as good though. She can push you to use your powers and try to direct you.” Chloe swallowed. “But she can’t—”
The metal door to the dungeon wrenched open and guards walked down the hall toward them, their heavy armoured boots hitting the cold stones. The guards stopped in front of Bear. Cold dark eyes of the Underworld appraised him.
Lloth’s caomhnóir stepped forward. “It’s time.”