by Eva Brandt
The answer should have been simple. Even when a part of me had felt that he truly meant well and was on our side, I had not been willing to take the chance and fully put my faith in him. Imminent death shouldn’t have changed things.
It didn’t. His following words did.
“Darius... Please. Don’t do this to me. We’ve already lost enough. Come on. Don’t be stupid.”
His voice held a silent secret and a pain I could not deny. He genuinely did not want me to die. Still unable to speak, I nodded, accepting his offer.
Something clicked at the back of my mind when I finally abandoned my fears and doubts. Mathias let out a slow breath. “Thank the gods. Don’t worry. I’ll take good care of her, of them all. I promise you.”
He brushed his lips over mine in a brief, barely-there kiss. It was actually kind of nice, but I was too out of it to reciprocate or even ask him what in the name of the High King he thought he was doing. He pulled away from me, braced his hands on my shoulders and pushed.
Distantly, I acknowledged the fact that he shouldn’t have been able to push me at all because I’d already been lying on my back. But logic didn’t apply to mental spaces. The moment his palms made contact with my body, the world started swirling. I screamed as the shield that had been protecting my mind finally shattered. The insidious power of the Alarian Vow made a grab for me, trying to squash my consciousness, to punish me for daring to experience emotion. But the push Mathias had given me was stronger, and I fell through darkness and light, into an abyss that threatened to swallow me whole.
This time, the jagged edges of his mind and protections didn’t cut me. Instead, I was easily granted passage. My fall slowed down to a smooth, almost gentle glide, and the pain faded into a dull, bearable throb.
I cracked my eyes open to the sight of an entirely unfamiliar ceiling. I took a quick look around the room, but there was nothing familiar about it. A convenient mirror was positioned within my line of sight, and my breath caught when I saw my reflection.
I wasn’t the one in the mirror. Better said, it wasn’t my body I was looking at. It was Mathias’s.
For a few seconds, I just lay there on the bed, struggling to process what had just happened to me. I’d known this was what Mathias had intended, but still, it wasn’t every day that a person was transported in the body of a man he’d once deemed his worst enemy.
I needed a plan. If I was in Mathias’s body, I would presumably be in his headquarters, probably surrounded by his evil minions. Mathias himself had admitted that they didn’t know about his secret meetings with me. It wasn’t out of the question that they’d react violently if they realized Prince Darius Alarisson now inhabited their leader’s physical form.
The natural conclusion was that I had to keep my true identity a secret. But to do that, I needed information. Where was I supposed to start? Did Mathias have a computer? I couldn’t see one anywhere nearby, and even if I did find such a device, it would probably be protected by a password.
I still threw the blanket off me and decided to start searching. Mathias was older than half the people at the Palasion put together. He likely kept physical files, notes, a journal.
My plan was derailed by the arrival of the most unlikely person ever. I was reaching for Mathias’s nightstand when Declan walked into the room. “Welcome back,” he said, completely calm and relaxed. “How is our esteemed Prince Darius today?”
I stared at Declan in shock. I should have probably been a little more surprised by his casual mentioning of my name, but I was a little distracted by the way he looked. He was completely naked and holding a lit cigarette between his swollen lips. His hair was ruffled, and a myriad of bruises and scratches littered his body.
Those were not torture marks, but rather, marks left behind by sexual intercourse. Recent intercourse, judging by the fact that Declan had yet to fully heal.
Logic stated that Mathias would have the sense to not reach into the mind of an enchanted coma patient when he was entertaining a lover, but apparently, Mathias didn’t care much about the logic normal people followed.
Then again, who was I to point fingers? For the better part of my life, I hadn’t experienced any kind of emotion. Maybe this was the right way to act when you were trying to convince a former mortal enemy to switch bodies.
In any case, I was too taken aback to hide my true identity, and within seconds, Declan noticed something wasn’t right. “You’re not Mathias.”
I had no idea what his reaction to my presence would be, but even so, I made no attempt to lie. “Obviously not. Have you been consorting with the enemy, Guardian Whelan?”
“I think that’s my line, Prince Darius.” He shot me a smile that was full of teeth. “Don’t worry. You’ll find that consorting with the enemy isn’t so bad as long as the enemy in question has the right priorities.”
I reached for my temples and tried to chase away the migraine that had followed me from my mindscape. “And what exactly are those priorities, Guardian Whelan?”
“Declan,” he corrected me. “Call me Declan. I think it’s safe to say that I’m not a guardian anymore. And those priorities are obvious, right? To protect the soulmate we all share.”
I remembered a different time, the fateful meeting when I’d told Malachai Braun something almost identical in an attempt to recruit him to my cause and convince him that I truly wanted to protect Lucienne.
Unable to stop myself, I burst into laughter. This whole thing was getting a little repetitive, but somehow, I found that I didn’t really mind it.
Ten
Switched
Lucienne
In the movies, whenever someone died, there was always a shot of their vital signs monitor flat-lining. Optionally, there would be a dramatic soundtrack playing in the background while desperate, weeping loved ones clung to the hand of the doomed person and begged him to stay with them.
Alarians didn’t have cardiac monitoring devices and if they had music, I’d yet to see any sign of it. But in every other way, the situation was similar. This time, I was the desperate loved one standing by someone’s bedside, and my tears were far more painful than those shed by the actors I admired.
Everything happened so quickly. One moment, I was outside the healing room, having a perfectly normal conversation with the paladins tasked with guarding Darius’s quarters, and the next, my already messed up day turned even more catastrophic.
A vicious claw seemed to reach into me, tearing at my chest, threatening to rip me apart. A distant scream echoed in my head. My magic flailed and lashed out, trying to find the source of the pain.
I couldn’t figure out what was going on with perfect accuracy, but within seconds, I knew the cause was Darius. Unfortunately, this knowledge didn’t help me with anything, because by the time I was inside the room, Darius was already dead.
I ran to him on automatic pilot but froze before I could actually reach him. Eileen Vaughn was still trying to resuscitate him and I didn’t want to get in the way. I might not like her, but she was probably Darius’s only chance.
Then again, maybe I was giving her too much credit. Mere seconds after my arrival, Eileen pulled away, and the spell-casting light around her died down to nothing. “I’m sorry. There is nothing I can do.”
Sorry? She wasn’t sorry. It wasn’t in her ability to feel regret, and I hated her for pretending, for spitting in the face of my feelings with her pathetic, fake excuse.
If I found out she’d had something to do with this, if she had deliberately hurt him, I would make her beg for death.
I shoved her out of my way and sat next to Darius. I removed both his gloves and my own and took his hand, just like I had during our first visit. Ignoring Eileen’s presence, I squeezed his palm, willing him to open his eyes, to come back to me. “Come on, Darius. You’re stronger than this. You’re stronger than that bitch. Stay with me.”
Eileen showed no sign of being offended by the fact that I’d just insulted her queen.
Maybe she didn’t realize I was referring to Sarai or maybe she was just really good at ignoring the things she didn’t want to address. Either way, she chose to focus on something even worse, dismissing my efforts. “He can’t hear you, Ms. Hastings. He’s gone. His soul and consciousness are beyond your reach.”
“And how can you possibly know that?” Malachai asked, walking up to me with Bjorn by his side. “Do Alarian healers have a direct connection to the Source now?”
“Healer Vaughn, withholding your aid from a member of the Alarian royal family is considered treason,” Bjorn added. “I am authorized to arrest you.”
Bjorn’s sharp, icy tone did what my pleas could not. Eileen bent over Darius again. The threads of her magic reached into his body once more but dissipated without having any effect.
Eileen didn’t stop, although she obviously believed that her work was futile. She also didn’t send me away, and I took advantage of this to curl against Darius and press a kiss to his temple. “Come on, Darius,” I repeated. “You need to live. There’s still so much we haven’t done and spoken about. Please. Don’t do this to us. Fight.”
I was well aware that I was taking a huge chance by touching him at such a delicate time. For all I knew, my proximity could be making things worse. But something deep inside me told me I could help, that Darius needed me there to remember what he was fighting for.
Mere seconds later, I was proven right. The last time I’d reached out to Darius like this, I’d been pulled into his mindscape, possibly by Mathias Vandale. Now, the exact opposite happened. All of a sudden, Darius screamed, his body contorting in a painful position. Fire blazed around him, making Eileen, Malachai, and Bjorn stumble away from the bed.
Maybe they were just surprised. Maybe they were trying to avoid the heat. Having seen the damage Darius’s fire-wielding could do, I might have followed their example, but I was much too close to try to take cover. In the end, it didn’t matter, because the flame washed over me harmlessly, leaving me unscathed. Taking advantage of my immunity, I made a grab for Darius’s arm. He jerked against my hold, his body still convulsing under the strain of a force I could not see. As it turned out, I was not impervious to physical damage. Pain erupted through me as my wrist snapped, the bone much too fragile to withstand Darius’s strength.
I cried out and clutched my wounded hand, instinctively recoiling from him and nearly falling off the bed in the process. “Fuck!”
My other soulmates did not take my injury well. “Lucienne!” Malachai shouted. “Get away from him. Get away from Darius.”
“Run,” Bjorn told me. “He’s dangerous.”
It was a little surprising that Bjorn would say that since he’d made it more than clear that he loved Darius. But Bjorn was nothing if not realistic, and in this, he was not wrong. Yes, Darius was dangerous. Then again, so was I. So was Malachai, as we had already established a few days before, in his cell. So was Bjorn, who could steal emotions and use them to feed his own abilities.
I was afraid of many things, of failure, of being rejected, of losing the people I cared about. I was afraid of getting hurt too because unlike most of my soulmates, I did have some common sense. But some fears took precedence over others, so I did not listen to Bjorn and Malachai. Instead, I climbed on top of Darius. If I could not hold him down with my hands, I would use my body.
“Darius! Darius! Listen to me! Snap out of it!”
I wasn’t very successful and would’ve probably lost my grip on him altogether had Bjorn and Malachai not joined me. Bjorn pressed his hand to Darius’s chest and threads of purple magic slid from his fingertips into Darius’s body. I knew Bjorn was trying to anchor Darius’s power, but it was still a little unnerving.
It was also far more effective than I had dared to hope. Darius stopped thrashing and went limp on the bed. The wild magic that could have easily killed us all retreated into his body, leaving behind some scorched furniture, but no injuries. His breathing evened, and his heartbeat steadied underneath my palm.
Behind us, Eileen let out a small noise. “You’re a scavenger.”
For a few moments, I couldn’t understand the meaning of her words. I turned toward her, only to realize she wasn’t talking to me, but to Bjorn.
Right. She had just seen him use his magic on Darius. I wasn’t sure what Bjorn had done, but it was probably similar to the feeding session on me, which meant that he’d once again broken the rules of his superiors.
It irritated me that this would be an issue when Bjorn had only acted to help Darius. “Don’t be an idiot,” I snapped at her. “Is this really the time to worry about that?”
What a stupid question. Of course it was. The Alarians had made their priorities clear more than once, and their healers were no different.
Eileen opened her mouth to answer, but Malachai stopped her before she could utter a single sentence. He didn’t say a word. He just grabbed her arm, the crimson of his gaze glowing with a dire, unmistakable threat. She went still in his grip, the haze of vampiric thrall gliding over her eyes.
“That’ll hold for as long as we need it to,” he said. “How is Darius?”
“A little better,” Bjorn answered. “I think his magic is stable, at least for now, but we really need to find out what went wrong and what could have caused this.”
A pained groan interrupted our conversation, and the air in the room seemed to freeze. “D-Darius?” I stammered. “Darius, can you hear me?”
Could it be? Had this fit been a blessing in disguise? Maybe his magical outburst had broken the Alarian Vow, or maybe it had dissipated on its own when Darius’s heart had stopped. That made sense. After all, a curse that was tied to someone’s emotions couldn’t linger on a person who was dead.
Darius cracked his eyes open and he blinked several times as if trying to clear his vision. “Lucienne? Is that you?”
Tears filled my eyes, and I couldn’t help but collapse on top of him and desperately hug his neck. “Obviously. Who else could it be?”
He hugged me back so tightly it almost hurt, and I allowed myself a few moments to revel in the comfort of his steady heat. I knew we should be calling the healers in to check Darius over properly, but I simply couldn’t tear myself away from him. Darius was awake. The Alarian Vow might have been broken. It was almost too good to be true.
“Wow,” he whispered in my ear. “This is a really enjoyable way of waking up from a coma. Maybe I should try nearly dying a little more often.”
I would have chastised him for being dismissive of his near-death, but his tone alerted me to something I should have noticed much sooner. His embrace held nothing of the tentative gentleness he had displayed toward me in the past. The suffocating hold threatened to suffocate me and a magic very different from Darius’s poked restlessly at me, sweeping over my skin in a caress that felt invasive rather than pleasant.
I tore myself away from our hug so suddenly I might have broken my spine had he not willingly let me go. Somehow, I managed to roll out of the bed, escaping his reach. He shot me a quick smirk, one that looked much too familiar for my comfort. “Careful there, Lucienne. Now would be a horrible time to hurt yourself out of recklessness.”
He spoke my name like he was tasting it in his mouth, the same way he tasted everything else—life, death. “Vandale?” I whispered. “Is that you? But how?”
Vandale got up on his haunches and stretched, groaning as several of his vertebrae popped. “Isn’t it obvious?” he asked. “Darius was dying, and I had to intervene to keep the Alarian Vow from killing him. In case you’re wondering, I didn’t force him or anything. He agreed, and now, here I am.” He scanned his own arm in visible fascination. “I admit I didn’t really know what to expect out of this transfer, but the princeling’s body isn’t half bad.”
By my side, Bjorn glowered at Vandale, and the temperature started to rise. “What did you do him? Where is he now?”
“Relax, Inquisitor Lindberg,” Vandale drawled. “He’s safe. He’
s in my body. We traded places when I came here.”
I’d already known about this plan, but his response still made my anxiety skyrocket. I forced myself to not lash out and focused on extracting more information from Vandale. “That doesn’t reassure us in the slightest. He’ll be surrounded by plagues who don’t like him very much.”
Vandale threw the quilt off and left the bed. “Yes, I know,” he replied almost absently. “I thought of that. He has someone of my utmost confidence with him. That person will tell Darius everything he needs to know and make sure he doesn’t blow our cover.”
“Someone of your utmost confidence?” I repeated in disbelief. “Forgive me, Mr. Vandale, but I’m hesitant to trust your assessment on anyone’s character.”
Vandale let out a dark chuckle. It was almost identical to every single time I’d heard him laugh, and it was far more unnerving because it came from Darius’s lips, in his distinctive voice. “You don’t need to trust my assessment on anything, Lucienne. All you need to do is trust yourself. The person I’m talking about happens to be Declan Whelan.”
It was not the first time Vandale claimed that he had an agreement with Declan. I hadn’t really believed him then, and I didn’t believe him now. On the other hand, it was entirely possible that had Vandale not intervened, Darius would be dead. Eileen’s magic had not worked and she had probably not been wrong when she’d said that Darius had gone way beyond my reach.
I watched Vandale take a few tentative steps through the room, occasionally stopping to take a deep breath. Despite his words, he was obviously not comfortable in Darius’s body. He was my enemy. That much was a fact. He had tried to kill me and my soulmates. But I still believed, like I had told Bjorn, that he might have been telling the truth that day when we’d spoken, and that maybe we didn’t have a choice except to rely on him.
Who else could we trust if not him? The Alarians? Eileen Vaughn had been more concerned about having Bjorn arrested for becoming a Scavenger than about saving Darius’s life. Obviously, Alarians didn’t follow the Hippocratic Oath.