Somebody had come unto his study’s window, as if they had been waiting for him to drink and be o’ertaken by whate’er had been mixed into the sherry.
And then he had fallen to the floor and seen the boots.
After which, he had woken up in Cordelhia’s bedchamber.
The image of his mate having bled out on the bed ushered in a wave of pain that broke through his numb confusion, and as he breathed in, he smelled her blood again and recalled the scent of her fertile time. How had this happened? Just a fortnight before, he had come home to find her and thedoggencelebrating the anniversary of his birth. And now she was dead and he was…
“Are you awake?”
The stranger’s voice was a bit more urgent now, and Kane found it difficult to ascertain whether it was male or female. At first, it had been male, it seemed, but now there was a female lilt to the syllables. A rather different accent as well.
How had his life come to this—
“You’re moaning. Are you hurt?”
“Yes,” Kane said. “My mate is dead. And I did not kill her—they put me in the prison, and I did not—”
“Kane?”
How did the prisoner know his—
Kane came back to the present with a full-body jerk, the shock of reorientation such that for a moment he had no idea where he was. He knew it wasn’t the chamber of his murderedshellan, and he knew it wasn’t the prison camp, but other than that—
“Kane.”
His head snapped up. On the far side of a sofa, on a bed that was quite wide, a draping of blankets appeared to be speaking to him—
“Nadya?”
As her name came out of him, all was set to rights: The escape of the night before. The hut with the silver-haired female. The viper…
He frowned and tilted his head. Between one heartbeat and the next, an image came to him, bubbling up from the amnesia that had locked the memories of the night before out of his reach.
“Viper,” he whispered.
“What did you say?”
Just as quickly as it came to him, the memory was lost. Like a curtain closing, whatever glimpse he had been offered zippered itself tight, no more to be seen, no more information available.
To the point where he couldn’t even remember what he’d spoken.
“Sorry,” he said as he rubbed his face. “I’m… so sorry.”
As he muttered to himself, he had no idea what he was apologizing for. And then something dawned on him.
He was free.
He could find out who had killed Cordelhia.
The mystery could finally be solved.
With that realization hitting him, a lethargy claimed his body and mind, sucking him down into a darkness that was so complete, he wasn’t just sleeping… he was owned by the void.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
From over on the bed, Nadya couldn’t look away from Kane. He was sitting on the floor, his legs stretched out in front of him, his arms resting around his middle, his head tilted down with his chin on his chest. He had been talking under his breath, and with his half-closed eyes, she hadn’t been sure whether he was awake or not.
When she’d said his name, he’d glanced at her, mumbled a word, and then apologized. But he hadn’t been talking to her, not really, and now he was gone again—although she knew where he was in his head. She had heard the story before, while sitting at his bedside for all those hours at her clinic, his subconscious churning over events that would not, could not, be changed, no matter how many times he went through what had happened.