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She fought as the thing’s blood soaked into the ground, struggling to get free The er, somehow Faster and smarter

It didn’t want to die alone

Frantic, Nika forced all her fear into the sgath, using that emotion to propel her out of its weakened mind before it died She was sucked back into her own body, but by then it was too late Her blood--the blood that sgath had used to take over her h a dozenthe at herto rip it froive up for Tori’s sake

But she was too weak She didn’t kno to fight off one,shards of what ath clai her sanity froht Nika went crazy

Madoc had no idea how she’d survived it--how she’d lived long enough for his that haunted her, so she could reclaim all the fractured pieces of herself He wasn’t even sure if what he’d done had been enough

Tori had been the one who’d really saved Nika’s life

The tenuous connection between the two sisters shimmered like a braid of spider silk Over the years, it had thinned until only a single strand remained Nika refused to let that strand break He felt her deter on to that connection even as Tori worked to sever it

Why she would do such a thing, Madoc had no idea, but part of hi could ever harm Nika Not even her own sister He refused to even consider letting it happen

Nika was his lady now and he was honor-bound to protect her with his life, if need be He could no longer allow her to run around at night, risking yet another attack by a Synestryn ould rip away bits of her ath, but what if one of the stronger Synestryn got soht it? What if his sweet Nika was left dahtmare, forced to remain forever locked inside the monsters while they killed?

It was her worst fear He could see the h her o back to that world of blood and death and insanity

Madoc was going tohim for what he no he had to do

Chapter 14

Nika knew that the luceria would give her some kind of vision once she put it on--some peek into Madoc’s life She wasn’t sure what it could show her that she didn’t already know She’d been inside hiht of his soul How could a viehat his life had been like, or what made him the person he was, top that?

But what she saas no flash from the past, as she’d heard described What she saas so she’d never even considered

The future

It swirled around her, more a concept than a series of events Co, the flow of possibilities was endless, pattering against her like hot rain With each drop that fell, she saw another possible future

Some were horrible, tainted with blood and death Others were so sweet, she could al over her cheeks She smelled a baby’s skin in one moment; then in the next, she felt the chill of Madoc’s lifeblood leaking through her fingers The thrill of a battle won surged inside her, only to be cut short by the debilitating grief of both her sisters’ deaths

Nika was laughing and crying, raging at the world and celebratingover her until a single one remained

She felt trapped Useless Desperate Defeated

Those emotions coalesced into a vision so real, she kneithout a doubt that the luceria was showing herher her future

She was locked inside Dabyr, a virtual prisoner She recognized the space as Madoc’s suite, but it wasn’t the walls that kept her here It was a vow she’d et hurt and that vow had allowed hiht no harm could come to her It had allowed him to keep her there while the last connection she had to Tori winked out of existence

At that moment, Nika knew that her sister was dead, and it had been her vow that killed Tori Nika also knew that her failure would be the thing that killed her The guilt would eat her whole, leaving her an angry, wasted shell of a wo unable to do anything to stop it The two of them would drift apart The darkness that lurked inside hirow

Andra would blanaw at hiry and afraid Their relationship would suffer, too

As their connections weakened, so did their ic Battles became harder to win More human children were stolen from their parents Countless people died

Nika couldn’t let any of that happen She was ht by Madoc’s side--to take the same risks he did She wasn’t ht

Whatever she did--whatever pro and refuse to give him that vow that would destroy the lives of so many

"Promise me," she heard him say outside the confines of the vision