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She looked up at Vhyper,Paenther was right and that the Feral’s soul still lived behind those eyes

Vhyper snorted "Hell of a way to hide hih the front door"

Skye looked away before either of them saw the lie in her eyes "I knew I couldn’t hide him I told him that, but he insisted I try anyway"

Birik scowled "Fool Why would he ever think he could beat me?"

Vhyper chuckled "Ferals are a stubborn lot I told you he’d be back, didn’t I? Out of some misplaced sense of honor and justice, he thinks he owes o"

Without warning, Birik backhanded her across the mouth "Why did you escape?"

Skye pressed the back of her hand to her throbbing, bleeding lip "I didn’t He took ainst my will" The truth

"You released him?"

"He came out of the enthrallment before I had him locked down" A lie He’d come out of the enthrallment buried deep inside her

"You showed him a way out"

"He forced me He would have killed me otherwise" Truthfully, it had been Birik, not Paenther, who’d forced her By unleashing those Daemons on innocent people, he’d forced her to ret

Birik stroked her cheek "Meek little mouse And he forced you to come back here"

"No I offered to help him I had to come back" She allowed her fear to break in her voice "I just want the punishments to stop Please, Birik Please I never meant to thwart you He forced ht him to you"

"Who removed his shackles?"

"The Shah And Vhyper was likely to believe it

"I don’t really care why he’s here Now that I have you both again, that blade will al will be as it was before"

Birik grabbed Paenther from her and motioned to two sentinels nearby "Get rope and escort the enchantress into the forest," he told therown, tied and delivered to the Hall of Feasts at ht Do not let her out of your reach Where there’s one Feral, there are likely to be more Once she has the deer, lock theuard at the door"

He grabbed her jaw onestars "You’ll not escape ain, Skye If you try to thwart ive you to the Daemons just to end your tor back His orders rang in her ears She was to be locked in her cell untilPaenther No chance of freeing the Ferals from their shackles until the very last ht well be too late

"Welcoht his way out of the fog of enchant’s caustic voice Slowly the mist parted, and he found hi upright, at least, but chained with his hands above his head Beside hi, Foxx

Foxx frowned at him "Did you really coaze "What do you think?"

"Superet the rest of the war party to join you, Cochise?"

Paenther growled low in his throat "There’s only one way in, and that’s enthralled And the only way Skye can enthrall is by opening a ht of anyone else fucking her, could you?"

"No way in hell" He tested the chains, struggling against them as he’d done a hundred times the last ti chained like this, with two others, brought back eon Vhyper, or Vincent, as he’d known him then, and Frederick, had kept up a steady stream of patter - most of it black humor Paenther had never joined in - his personality had always been more serious - but they’d sometimes made him smile with their antics, which in turn had lee

Frederick shouldn’t have died

He looked at the two men with hi, whom he’d known almost the entire ti at all

Yet they were his brothers

His only goal was to save their lives and Vhyper’s, and to get Skye to safety To get them all out of this cavern alive If he were able to reclaim the Daemon blade while he was at it, all the better But thehere Especially Vhyper

"How’d the Mage get you?" he asked his co scowled "The cub turned on me!"

"I did not!" Foxx shot back

Paenther’s broered as he looked fro frowned "We were running to the grocery for Pink when Mr Intuition here got a feeling there were Mage in the neighborhood Of course, he didn’t telldown Jefferson until ere on thee I called it in, we shifted and took the care of theot who he was supposed to be fighting, upped his size until he was bigger than e slapped shackles on both of us while Foxx hadI kneas here"

"I didn’t attack you," Foxx said sullenly

Jag’s jaw dropped "Are you trying to say your fangs accidentally went throughaze went fro it at all "What do you reer and confusion in his eyes "I wouldn’t have attacked him!"

"But you don’t re and saw the same disquiet in his eyes as he felt himself "They enthralled you, Foxx That’s the only explanation for it"

The cub’s head swung around "Inme?" He scoffed "That’s impossible"

"Do you have a better explanation for what happened?"

Foxx struggled against his bonds, the chains rattling on the stone "No! But how? The Mage can’t enthrall us through our anile" style="display:block" data-ad-client="ca-pub-7451196230453695" data-ad-slot="9930101810" data-ad-format="auto" data-full-width-responsive="true"></ins>