“Tell me you have a sister, Elin,” Bjorn said. “I’ll be whipped. I don’t ca—” Abruptly, he went quiet.

She turned to look at him, saw that he’d paled. “What’s wrong?”

His haunted gaze met Thane’s before moving to Xerxes. “It’s happening again. I’m being summoned, and must—”

He was gone. There one moment, vanished the next, with no time to even finish his sentence.

Thane said only one word. “Lucien.”

A few seconds later, as if Lucien had been waiting for a summons, the scarred warrior appeared in the hallway. “If you expect me to pay Anya’s bar tab—”

“Bjorn. Now,” Thane gritted, and the warrior nodded grimly.

Like Bjorn, Lucien vanished.

“What’s going on?” Elin asked.

Xerxes stomped into the sitting room to pour himself a drink.

Thane gave Elin a gentle push toward the front door. “Go back to the party, kulta.”

“No.” He was upset. He needed her. “I’m staying with you.”

“Elin—”

“Thane.” She pushed him onto the couch and climbed onto his lap, snuggling close while being careful not to give Xerxes a peep show. She wasn’t wearing panties. “Tell me.”

Her beautiful Sent One enfolded her in his arms and buried his nose in her hair, inhaling. “Shadow demons are forcing Bjorn to go somewhere. We don’t know where, and until we do, we can’t help him. Lucien is tracking him.”

“And you wanted me to leave because...”

“Because my concern will make me...edgy. I may not be nice to you.”

Silly rabbit. “You don’t always have to be nice to me.” He would have to guard every word, every action, and that kind of sounded like torture. “You only ever have to be yourself. I can deal.”

He exhaled, his breath tickling her hair over her brow. “Now who’s the one who says romantic things?”

An hour passed. Then two. And Thane did become grouchy. She distracted him to the best of her ability with stories of her childhood. The embarrassment of having her mother come to her elementary school to speak at career day—and teaching the kids how to gut a fish. The time her best friend from junior high stayed the night and her parents walked out of the bathroom in towels. Obviously, they’d just showered together. Gross!

Both Thane and Xerxes listened and even cracked a smile. But the tension never left them.

A little before the third hour came to a close, the scarred Lord returned. He was pallid, his eyes—one brown, one blue—glazed with horrors no man should ever have to see.

Thane set Elin aside and jumped to his feet. “Did you find him? Can you take us to him?”

Without a word, the warrior stumbled to the wet bar. He didn’t bother with a glass, just drank straight from the whiskey bottle. When he’d drained half the contents, he turned to the men, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Tell us,” Thane commanded.

“Your friend is... No, I can’t take you to him. I don’t know where he is. I was able to track him, but once there, I had a hard time finding my way out. I couldn’t go back the way I’d come, because his trail had already gone cold and twisted, like before. But I saw him. I saw what she does to him.”

She?

“You were right, Thane,” the warrior said. “The queen is responsible. She’s protecting him—because she’s wed to him.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

THANE REELED.

After Lucien dropped the marriage bombshell, he went into detail about everything he’d seen.

Bjorn, bound to a rocky wall, helpless as a dark shadow approached. Obviously the queen. And when she reached him, the center of her darkness opened like a mouth, revealing an even blacker gloom. She enveloped him, until there was no sign of him.

What was she doing to him? Tormenting him? Violating him?

Knowing Bjorn would return soon and that he would not want Elin to witness his plight, Thane escorted her to her room. There was a bed now. A big, beautiful one, with four posters and designs carved into each.

“Thank you for what you did today. Everything you did. But it will be best if Bjorn doesn’t see you.” He explained the gist of the situation. “He won’t be...right when he returns.”

She clutched the collar of his robe. “What can I do to help?”

So determined. Another quality to admire about her. “Just stay in here and rest. I’ll see you in the morning.”

She sighed. “Okay.”

Even though Thane needed her with him, her mere presence soothing him, he forced himself to kiss her brow and shut her inside.

He spent the next few hours pacing in the sitting room alongside Xerxes. Finally, though, Bjorn returned, and he was as out of sorts as every time before. Pale, withdrawn. Trembling. Nauseous.

Acting as crutches, they led him into the bathroom. After he vomited the contents of his stomach, they cleaned him up and got him settled into bed.

There had to be a way to save him from such a terrible sentence.

Bjorn rolled to his side and curled into a ball, his arms drawn tight around his middle.

“We know where you go, and we can guess the horrors being done to you,” Thane said. “We’ll figure out how to save you.”

Bjorn closed his eyes, the length of his lashes casting menacing shadows over his cheeks. “She knew Lucien found me,” he said, his voice devoid of emotion. “She released me from my vow of silence so that I could tell you nothing can be done. She will never cut my ties to her.”

“We can make her,” Thane gritted. “Every demon has its weakness.”

“No. The shadows are not demons, though are often mistaken as such. They are Sine Lumine. Evil, yes. Depraved. That, too. They hunger for life.”

“They...feed off you?” Xerxes exclaimed.

Shame colored the warrior’s ashen face. “Only the queen does, and only a little at a time. The longer I live, the stronger she’ll become.”

“What does she take?” Thane demanded, horrified on his behalf.

Bjorn closed his eyes. “My...soul.”

All right. That was bad, but not insurmountable. His soul could be renewed with the Water of Life. Have to get more. For Elin and for Bjorn.

“Where’s your vial?” he asked.