“Where is Alden?”

The man glared defiantly at her.

She looked down at the wounds in his hands. They were slowly closing around the knives. They wouldn’t heal completely, not with the blades in, but he must have been doped up on a ton of magic narcotics, courtesy of his bond with Alden. Sera slammed her hands against his chest, breaking that bond. When she met his gaze again, she finally saw fear creeping into his eyes.

“Not so tough without the Big Daddy of Death to back you up, are you?”

But she could feel the bond already starting to regrow. It was a mental thing. As long as the man worshipped Alden, the bond would continue to regrow unless Alden abandoned him. Alden only abandoned his lackeys when their death was certain. Dead men made poor worshippers.

“Tell me where to find Alden.”

“Alden will kill you, you stupid bitch,” he snarled.

Sera sighed. “Why do you guys all have to do this the hard way?”

She cast a spell of ice into his heart. His pulse slowed. Frost formed on his skin, crackling as it spread across his body. The whole room had gone cold. Sera breathed out, her breath freezing in the air. There was no going back. The man was shivering, convulsing, dying.

Sera felt it the second Alden’s magic left him, just as he’d abandoned Finn before death. He must have felt the crumbling worship bonds as his followers died, a poison to his magic. So he abandoned them. He didn’t give a crap about any of his people, even those in his inner circle. It was too bad that they were all too doped up on his magic to see that.

Sera slammed her breaking magic against the man once more, breaking not only his magic but also his mind this time. A flash flood of images hit her. She saw the desert. The cracked ground, burning with heat. Rocks. Ridges. Salt. The sun shining hot and bright overhead in a sky streaked with color. Dried underbrush. Alden. A throne. Kai chained up, roaring with pain. Alden’s sick smile.

The barrage of images died with Loren. Sera pulled her knives from his cold, dead body, and he fell to the floor, stiff as a plank. Even his spilled blood had frozen to the table.

Sera walked past the commandos, her knives in her hands. “They’re in Death Valley.”

She kept right on walking past them, moving toward the casino’s exit. The commandos glanced at Loren’s body, then at her. Maybe they were surprised by her brutality, by how hard and cruel she had become in her desperation to find Kai. But this was what she needed. This was the only way she would get him back—and stop Alden.

It was also the reason she didn’t let Riley come along on these missions. She didn’t want her brother to see her like this. As a monster.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Inner Delusions

“YOU’RE SURE ALDEN is in Death Valley,” Tony asked as they drove back to base.

“I saw it, Tony,” she replied. “He’s there. And he has Kai. He’s torturing him, trying to break him.”

“Kai won’t break,” Callum said.

“I wouldn’t be too sure. Everyone has their breaking point.” Dal glanced at Sera.

“I haven’t lost my mind,” she told him.

She wasn’t delusional enough to deny that she was broken. She’d been broken ever since Alden had taken Kai. She was holding things together with superglue, duct tape, and sheer willpower. But her mind would hold.

Never underestimate the stubbornness of dragons, Amara declared.

Damn right.

Sera was too stubborn to lose it before she saved Kai. Afterwards…well, she made no promises about that. Once he was safe, she reserved the right to have a full meltdown.

The commandos looked at her. They’d seen their fair share of death and torture, so it wasn’t a squeamish look they shot her. They did look concerned, though. Sera had changed. When they got Kai back—which they would—would he still recognize her? Would he still be able to love her? She buried those thoughts beneath layers of mental armor. There was no place for them here. All that mattered was getting Kai back. She’d deal with the consequences then.

Tony parked the car in the garage, then they took the elevator down into the underground base, setting down on the lowest level. Sera hurried out of the elevator. They had a siege to plan—and they needed to do it now.

Things had changed since Kai’s disappearance. His allies were still sticking around, but there was a sense of helplessness throughout the base, leaking off of people’s magic like sour milk.

Sera wasn’t a leader, not really. Not like Kai. She could fight, but she couldn’t rally troops. Tony was doing a good job, but he wasn’t Kai either. These people were here to follow Kai. Only the mission to get him back was keeping them all pointing in a single direction. The idea of getting Kai back—that was at least tangible. On the other hand, no one had any idea how to take out Alden. He was getting stronger and stronger, a seemingly invincible foe.

Sera waved to Riley as she grabbed a juice bottle from the refrigerator beside his lab. She gulped down half of it in one go.

“Did you find anything?” he asked her.

“Death Valley,” she said, keeping her voice low. “They’re in Death Valley.”

“So why aren’t we headed out there now?”

Sera glanced at the commandos, who were quietly talking to some of the knights. “Tony wants to scout it out first.”

“To check the defenses?”

“To see if I’m right,” she replied, then finished off the rest of the juice. “He thinks my magic compass might have gone wacky and is pointing in the wrong direction.”