She hadn’t moved. The others were huddled together around Nicholas, crying and clinging to one another. There wasn’t a sign of a single tear or fear or relief in this woman’s eyes.
He unlocked her cell and offered his hand to help her step through the small door. The second her slender hand hit his, Iain’s head began to buzz. The rage constantly boiling inside him fell away, quieting the incessant screaming of his dead soul. Until now, he hadn’t realized how much chaos had tormented his mind—how much of his pain had come from carrying around the dead, hollow thing inside him.
Both parts of his luceria lurched away from his skin for a moment, as if reaching for her. The sudden urge to sweep her up in his arms and run away where no one could find them pounded inside his skull. He wanted to keep her, to hide her away from the world, tucked away where only he could touch her.
She jerked her hand away, her gray eyes flaring wide. She backed up into the cage until she pressed herself against the wall. For the first time, emotion showed on her face, and that fear shimmering inside her made Iain want to rip away the bars with his bare hands.
“Stay away,” she ordered him. He had no idea where she got such an air of command, but he found himself obeying before he even bothered to question why he should.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he told her.
“That’s what they all say.”
“Company’s coming,” said Nicholas over the heads of the women and children hovering near him. “Time to go.”
Fighting with so many innocents nearby could get really messy, really fast. Iain wasn’t going to watch these people be slaughtered just because one woman got spooked.
“Are you coming on your own, or am I making you?” he asked her.
She glanced at the group by Nicholas, straightened her thin shoulders, and moved forward. Iain offered her his hand again. She ignored it and moved past him without touching him in any way.
Iain had to fight down anger at her treatment of him. He’d saved her life and she shunned him? What kind of way was that to act? Even he knew better.
Whatever. She was out and he had a job to do. The dry sound of claws on stone combined with the wet sounds of salivating demons was getting closer by the second.
“I’ll bring up the rear,” said Iain.
Nicholas turned and led the group back the way they’d come. Iain held back, sword ready, waiting to kill whatever came their way.
Jackie had been cold for so long she’d almost forgotten what it was like to be warm.
She could feel heat from the man behind her hitting her back in waves. She wanted to turn around and curl into that warmth, but there was something about him that scared her. Something dark and dangerous.
The way he’d looked at her when she’d taken his hand—that look of raw hunger—was enough to make her keep her distance despite the chill in her bones. Better to deal with the other man and avoid the dangerous one altogether.
“There are more children here,” she whispered loudly enough so he could hear her over their passage. “We have to find them and get them out, too.”
“Where?” asked the man behind her. He was close. Too close.
Jackie refused to look at him. “I don’t know. I’ve seen them pass, though.”
“Which way?”
“Back the way we came.”
The man behind her said, “Nicholas, keep moving. I’ll catch up.”
A sudden spike of fear for him shot through Jackie and she turned to tell him not to go. There were too many monsters. But by the time she’d glanced over her shoulder, the dark-eyed man was gone.
“He’s going to get himself killed,” she told the man in front.
He shook his head, and she caught a glimpse of the side of his face. A network of scars marred his skin, pulling tight as his jaw moved. “He can’t leave those kids behind. Iain can handle it. Someone’s got to go.”
For some reason, Jackie didn’t want it to be Iain.
Canaranth slipped away from combat once he saw Zillah port away with Tori. Their numbers were far superior to the Sentinels’, so he didn’t think he’d be missed in the midst of so much chaos.
He hurried through the corridors, avoiding the groups of reinforcements coming to aid in the fight.
With a key he kept hidden inside his clothing, he unlocked the door to the chamber. Ella stood there, a chair gripped in her hands, ready to bash him over the head with it.
“It’s me,” he told her as he slipped inside and shut the door behind him. “I’ve got to get you out of here.”
“What’s happening?” she asked. Her skin had paled over the past few months, making the freckles sprinkled across her nose stand out.
When she’d first come here, her skin had had a healthy glow about it. Now it was a sickly white. Her hair had dulled, as had her eyes.
She needed the sun on her face; she couldn’t live in the darkness the way he had to. Neither could the child she was carrying. His child.
He’d done as he’d been ordered. He’d taken Ella as he had other women, seducing her until she submitted. It had always been a carefully calculated plan on his part. He couldn’t stomach rape, and yet if these women didn’t conceive, Zillah would have fed them to his troops. Seduction seemed the only course of action.
Canaranth hadn’t planned on falling in love with her. He hadn’t imagined he would care so much for their child that he would risk his life to free them.
But he did. Ella held his heart, such as it was, and he knew that if he didn’t let her go, the rest of her life would be spent in torment, watching Zillah twist their child into a weapon.
“There’s not much time,” he told her. “We have to hurry.”
Ella dropped the chair and went into his arms without hesitation. “Where are we going?”
He took her hand and led her through a series of tunnels that were rarely used. Only a few even knew they existed. “There’s an exit not far from here.”
They reached the crevice that hid a narrow entrance to a tunnel leading almost straight up. Canaranth took her face in his hands, memorizing it. He was going to miss her—more than he’d ever imagined.
“Go through here. Follow it to the surface. You’ll have to push through some brush. It’s thick, but you can make it through. From there, you need to head toward the sunset. That’s where the Sentinels would have come in.”
“What about you?”
“I can’t go.”
“I can’t leave you behind.”
“You must. Our child can’t be born into Zillah’s hands.”
Ella swallowed and her dark brown eyes welled with tears. “I don’t want to go without you.”
Canaranth had never really thought he had a heart until now. He could feel it breaking, tearing apart with the knowledge that he’d never see her again. “It’s the only way. You have to do this. Please.”
“Where will I go? What will I do?”
“Go to the Sentinels. They’ll be nearby. They’ll take you in and care for you.”
“And the baby?” she asked. He’d told her stories about them and she knew they were sworn to kill his kind.
“Lie. Tell them you were already pregnant by a human man when we took you.”
“Will you come for me?” she asked.
“Yes,” he lied, just to ensure her compliance. “Stay with them so I’ll know where to find you.”
Ella pulled him down and kissed him. The taste of her was so pure and light, he felt like he was flying whenever she touched him.
He had no idea how he was going to go on without her, but he had to find a way. As long as he was Zillah’s second-in-command, he could control their armies and ensure her safety and that of his child.
“Go,” he said against her mouth. The urge to tell her he loved her burned inside him, but he couldn’t do that to her. When he failed to come, she’d think he was dead or he had betrayed her. Eventually, she’d find another man who would love her the way he did—one who would help her raise their child to be better than the creature who had fathered him.
Before he could say the words that would spoil her chances for any semblance of a normal future, he pushed her away, cracked one of the small chemical glow lights he’d brought for her, and helped her step through the narrow opening.
She moved down the tunnel. Canaranth watched until the pale green light disappeared, feeling like his heart had just been ripped from his body.
Chapter 24
T
orr was sweating by the time he made it to the suite. The door was open and he could hear a low, frantic voice coming from inside.
Torr leaned on his sword, hobbling across the living room toward the bedrooms. One of the Gerai came out, nearly running into him. He was a human who had grown up here, and now his aged face was white with panic.
He saw Torr and said, “Stay with her while I get help. Tynan is gone, so I’m going to go find one of the Sanguinar.”
Sanguinar? Grace must need healing, which made Torr’s chest squeeze tight in fear. “What happened? Is she hurt?”
“I . . . I don’t know.” And then he was gone.
Torr was shaking so badly he could barely stand, but he forced himself to cross the distance and go into the room the human had just left.
Grace was there, lying on a mattress on the floor. She was unmoving. Her eyes were open, staring at the ceiling.
Panic slammed into Torr, knocking him to his knees. He crawled over to her, reaching out with a trembling hand to feel for a pulse.
A faint fluttering beneath his fingertips told him she was still alive, but something was definitely wrong. She wasn’t even blinking.
Torr shut her eyelids so her eyes wouldn’t dry out and hurt. Her skin was so soft and delicate, so warm.
He gave her a small shake and patted her cheek. Maybe she was just asleep.
“Grace,” he said, hearing his voice break. “Wake up, honey.”
She didn’t respond.
Frantic to find the reason for her state, Torr looked around the room. What the hell had she been doing in here alone?
A case of bottled water and an unopened box of meal-replacement bars sat by her on the floor, as if she’d planned to stay here for a while. There were no books, no magazines, no TV to help her pass the time.
And she was shirtless, with only a sheet to cover her full breasts.
Torr looked over her body, searching for signs of injury. She still had on shoes and jeans, but there was no sign of blood.
He speared his fingers through her hair, feeling for any bumps or cuts. Maybe she’d fallen and hit her head. That could explain her bizarre behavior—why she’d slink off like an animal knowing it was going to die.
That image did not sit well with Torr, making him shiver at the thought of losing her. She’d been his lifeline. His whole world. She was the reason he still drew breath.
And he loved her so much.
“Don’t you dare leave me,” he told her. “You can’t leave me now—not when we can have a life together. Did you see I can move again? I’m healed. I need you to help me get strong—torture me with those massages of yours.”
She didn’t flutter an eyelash.
Torr’s heart broke, splitting into jagged little pieces that made him bleed inside.
“You can’t leave me. I love you, Grace.”
A fat tear slid out from the corner of her eye. She’d heard him. Somewhere inside her she was still in there.
Torr gently raised her eyelids, moving so he was right in front of her line of sight. “You can hear me, can’t you?”
He held his breath, waiting for some kind of sign, but none came.
“I know you can hear me. I need you to hold on. Help is on the way.”
He closed her eyes again and pulled her into his arms. Her limp weight was difficult for him to handle in his weakened state, but he didn’t care. He needed to hold her, feel her heat and the rise and fall of her chest as she breathed.
Torr slid his hands over her back, trying to comfort her. That was when he felt the hard bump on her back.
He rolled her over just as Logan came into the room. An intricately carved metal disk lay against her spine. A faint hum of vibration was coming off of it.
Torr didn’t know what it was, but he knew it didn’t belong there. He grabbed it, intending to pull it away, when Logan stopped him.
“Don’t,” he said. “Don’t move it.”
“Why not?” asked Torr, scowling at Logan for hesitating.
“Do you know what that is?”
“No. Do you?”
Logan nodded. His pale eyes gleamed with interest. “It’s a transference device.”
“Transferring what to where?” he demanded.
“Take off your shirt.”
“What?”
“Do it,” demanded Logan.
Fine. Whatever got the bloodsucker moving to fix her.
Torr stripped it off, feeling it drag against something on his back—a scar, maybe.
Logan pulled in a long breath. “I’ve heard of these devices, but never seen one. It worked so well. I had no idea.”
Torr grabbed Logan’s arm, pulling him down toward Grace. “Do you know how to fix her or not?”
“I’m sorry,” said Logan. “She made her choice.”
“What choice? Make some fucking sense, will you?” Grace’s life was at stake and he was talking in riddles. If he hadn’t been the only help around, Torr would have pounded him in that pretty face of his.
“This disk matches the one on your back.”
One on his . . . ?
Torr reached around awkwardly. Sure enough, there was something hard and warm sticking out of his spine in the same spot as Grace’s.
“I don’t know where she got them, but someone must have shown her what to do.”
A slow, insidious understanding began to rise up in Torr. “What has she done?” he asked, barely able to get the question out. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer.
“She’s given you her health. She’s transferred your affliction onto herself, healing you.”
No. This could not be happening. His sweet Grace could not be paralyzed. “You’re wrong. If she’d done that, she’d be able to talk. I was.”