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“There’s only one way to know for sure. One way to know if the gifts are truly unique to you. If you’re dead, maybe they will go to the next worthy. I’m the only one in all the world who could be worthy.” He’s talking to himself as I watch him grab a sharp knife from the table.

I tug at the cuffs he latched around my wrists. They are attached to the stone floor. The chair he has me sitting in is also attached to the stone floor. There is no way for me to get out of here. Not without him catching me.

All I can do is wait for Primal and pray he gets to me in time.

Kakos sighs as he looks over the sharp blade before turning his eyes on me.

“I really hadn’t wanted it to come to this. You are far too beautiful a woman to be snuffed out, but if it’ll bring me the peace I’ve been searching for, the peace I love, I suppose your life is more than worth the sacrifice.”

“You won’t know peace. Only death,” I snap, hurling the words at him like venom-laced arrows. He smiles in return. He doesn’t know that I already know the truth.

Primal will find me. He’ll take on Kakos and win.

I just hoped I would live to see him as the victor.

Chapter

Twenty-Two

Primal

My lion roars with such ferocity that I actually cringe inside .

I was still asleep, dreaming of rolling around with Sibley, her sweet voice in my ear. It’s not the first time I’ve had a dream about her, but it is the first time my lion would choose this moment to try to wake me up.

He roars again and butts up against me inside. Hard. Over and over.

My lion roars again, slamming against the inside of me hard enough that I finally manage to crack an eye open.

The room spins violently around me, and for a few long seconds I can’t make heads or tails of what I’m seeing. Everything is blurry, as if someone had smeared grease over my vision. My body refuses to cooperate. Even breathing feels like a chore.

"What the . . ." I slur.

Something is wrong.

Every inch of me feels impossibly heavy. My eyelids want nothing more than to slam shut again, while whatever is making me feel this way drags me back into the darkness. My lion isn’t having any of it, though. He’s pacing frantically inside me, roaring and clawing at my ribs as if he knows something I don’t.

No.

Something has happened.

Grinding my teeth together, I fight through the overwhelming grogginess. Every muscle in my neck screams in protest as I force my head off the pillow, only to have it fall right back down.

"Fuck."

My arms won’t move. Neither will my legs.

The panic that has been simmering in the back of my mind suddenly boils over. I try again, forcing every ounce of strength I have into moving my fingers. They twitch, barely.

I suck in another breath, only to erupt into a coughing fit. There has to be something in the air. Sweet. Sickly. It burns the back of my throat every time I inhale.

Gas.

The realization hit me like a freight train.

Someone has filled the clubhouse with fucking gas.

My lion snarls violently in my chest.