“He keeps them down there,” I said, pointing to the door on the left. Knox disappeared down the hall.
My focus was on Finn. I went to the right, searching every stall I passed. When I reached the last room, my knees went weak and I gripped the bars to keep from falling.
Finn was lying face down in the center of the room. I didn’t notice the bed, books, or personal items that made it his. I only noticed the shackle around his neck… and the blood. Raw wounds covered his back, his fists were bruised and swollen, but what really made my stomach turn was the mark on his arm. Someone drove a hot branding iron into his flesh that would permanently mark him with the letter N.
“Finn!”
I unlocked the door and knelt at his side, trying to find a place I could touch him that wasn’t injured. I brushed his hair back to look at his innocent face. Blood crusted around his lip and his left eye was swollen shut. Guilt racked me.
“I’m so sorry, Finn. I should have made you come. Wake up kid.” I searched for a pulse and blew out a breath when a flutter touched my fingertips.
The guards were the only ones who carried the key that would free him. I ran into the hallway, frantically searching for an extra. A thick door swung open at the end of the hall, where tools were stored. I lifted a heavy mallet from the nails and went back to the room.
I was the key.
Raising the mallet over my head, I slammed it down on the chain, rattling my bones. “Come on, break!”
Something wasn’t right. I looked at the door and took a slow, deliberate breath. For a minute, I thought Knox was stupid enough to be smoking in a building full of wood and straw, but something else occurred to me and I raced down the hall.
My fingers touched a scorching handle that didn’t turn—locked from the outside. A fire raged in the entrance room, and my nose burned with smoke and gasoline.
“Knox!” I yelled.
No reply.
I ran back to Finn and looked at the locking mechanism attached to the bars, instead of the chain. I struck twice, and on the third swing, I threw my power into the mallet. It was leaking and I couldn’t help it. The metal broke apart, and the chain dropped to the floor.
“I’ve come to get you out of here, kid.”
Somehow, Finn got on the roof every night.
I scrambled back down to get Finn.
Being a Mage doesn’t give you super human strength. I’d never done anything like this before, but I lifted him over my back, dragging his feet across the floor. I was going to bake Justus a ham for all the strength training he had me do. Flames engulfed the door in the hall, crackling and popping as smoke billowed in.
It was time to communicate. I lifted the radio from my hip, pressed the button, and said in a clear voice, “The sky is falling.”
I pulled Finn over my shoulder. My legs trembled, blood rushed to my head, and I stared up the ladder.
“I’m not cut out for this macho shit!” I yelled at the empty room. Thank God Finn was no bodybuilder.
Small favors
.
“Chicken Little, where are you?” It was Logan.
“Where there’s smoke there’s fi—” The radio tumbled from my hand to the floor.
No time
. I tightened my grip and began the slow ascent.
My muscles shook like crazy, and the coughing was so bad that I almost dropped him. We reached the top and I set him down, pulling up the slack of the chain. His body flopped lifelessly as I took him by the wrists and dragged him to the opening. All I could think about was how much I wanted to chain Nero to a railroad track.
The building was ablaze, and the heat intensified. Outside of the open hatch was a world of clean air and…
My blood froze. I peered over the edge of my shoes; dropping Finn from this height was out of the question. I stuck my head out the opening and screamed for help.
The cavalry never looked so sexy.
Logan and Adam rounded the corner in fatigues and skintight green shirts with every muscle locked, cocked, and ready for action. Logan’s hair was tied back, and he wore black lace-up boots. I wasn’t sure if I liked him better in those or the leathers, but he was definitely going to have to expand on his wardrobe.
I waved my arm. “I’m going to lower him!”
My eyes and throat burned from the noxious fumes. Finn’s legs sailed over the edge while I held his wrists, preparing for his weight. The chain was thrown over the edge so it didn’t catch on anything, and it scraped against the siding. I anchored a foot against the wall, leaned back, and eased him down.
“Let him go!” Adam shouted.
Trusting him, I did.
Finn dropped right into Logan’s arms. I backed up as a plume of smoke whirled around me.
“Get the hell out of there! Jump!” Adam shouted.
Our eyes met briefly and I shook my head. “Knox. I can’t leave him.”
“Silver, goddammit don’t you dare!” Adam raged.
“Knox!” I shouted. “Knox! Answer me!”
“Down here!”
I paced to the area his voice came from and dropped to my knees. My fingers gripped the edges of the panel. Knox was punching through the ceiling from his end. I stomped my foot, but was overcome with a gust of smoke and covered my face as the heat licked at my side. I frantically pulled at the wood when another set of hands appeared, and ripped it off effortlessly.
To my astonishment, Remi pried away the nailed flooring like sheets of paper. He was a Gemini—dangerous, detached, intuitive, and yet I had no idea they were so strong. Silky brown hair fell over his face as the last board ripped away.
“How the hell did you get up here?”
Ignoring me, Remi lifted a small human girl out by one arm, but even more amazing was when he did the same with Knox. Remi lifted him from the hole like one of those claw machines that plucks stuffed animals from a heaping pile of cheap toys.
Knox was no small human
.
“Thank you, brother,” Knox said, with a look of surprise when he set eyes on the lean man with the dragon tattoo.
It suddenly occurred to me that this was the reason he intimidated me—the tattoo. It was prominent on his neck, and an ugly bastard of a thing with jagged teeth and fiery eyes. I associated dragons with my ex, and that one stupid fact led me to judge him unfairly.
The human ran towards the opening and a set of massive arms pulled me off my feet. Knox had me in tow as he stormed across the attic—floorboards trembling.
“I told you to stick by my side.”
“Quit your bitching,” I coughed. “I saved your ass.”
With little finesse, Knox flung me out the window like a rag doll. As I sailed through the air, I looked down and saw it wasn’t Logan ready to catch me, but Adam. There was nothing graceful about my landing as I crashed down on top of him. It was almost comical to see his outstretched arms and the look of panic in his eyes a half second before impact. Adam crumpled to the ground like a crushed soda can, with me on top.
Splat. Just like the cartoons.
“Nice catch, Adam,” I said. “Real suave.” I dusted the dirt from my cheek and tested my shoulder.
He groaned, shoving me off. “Maybe you need to lay off the ice cream.”
“Guess you can’t say that I never fell for you.” I patted his unshaven cheek.
Remi leapt from the open hatch, landing on his feet with grace. Adam stood up, and hooked his arm beneath mine, lifting me to my feet.
“Why did you come for me?” I asked Remi, coughing into Adam’s shirt.
“Remember what I said to you at the Red Door not long ago? Never let go of your humanity; most who were human eventually do.” Remi’s eyes—shades of green and orange—caught brilliant shards of sunlight. “Justus told me of the lives you saved from Nero. Even now, you were once again willing to risk your life for a Shifter and a human. How many of us would sacrifice their immortal life for a human? This was foreshadowed, and I made a decision to steer fate.”
“I don’t believe in fate,” I said dismissively. I knew Justus respected his words of wisdom, but I found it hard to believe that our lives were predestined, because if that were true, it meant that destiny hated my ass.
Remi dusted his hands over his pants, ignoring my remark. “I do not turn a blind eye to a warrior in need.”
“Hear that, Adam?” I said, coughing hard. “I’m a warrior.”
I may have been coughing up black poison in the form of sarcasm or soot, but his compliment warmed me like the sun. I glanced up to see the real sun was sinking below the horizon.
On the way to the car, Adam revealed that an Enforcer lost his life. After that, all hell broke loose. They captured five guards, and Logan brought in three more with Leo’s help. In a last-ditch effort to destroy evidence, everything was set ablaze. We would never know the full extent of what was lost, and I realized capturing Nero was not as attainable as I thought.
“Where’s Finn?” I asked.
Adam popped the door open and my eyes feasted on a vision I could have gone my entire life without seeing.
Finn was face down in the back of the Jeep with Logan straddling him. They pushed the seats down to make room, and the chain was removed and lying in a pile by the door. Logan pressed his palms flat on the floor as he licked Finn’s wounds. Breed did not catch or carry disease, and I shouldn’t have been so uptight about something that was natural among his kind, but I was. My nose wrinkled until I saw the wounds healing. If Finn was too weak to shift and heal himself, Logan was nursing him to a point where he could. He was a stranger to Logan, and my heart squeezed with unexpected admiration.
“Is she okay?” Logan looked over his shoulder at Adam.
I climbed between the seats before fainting like a sissy girl.
Finn’s eyes drifted open, and I lay beside him, pressing my cheek to the floor.
“Help Finn,” I said to Adam. I could tell he wanted to help me first, but that would have been energy wasted.
The hard edges of Adam’s face tightened, and he placed his hands over Finn’s back. Finn’s cheeks splashed with color. Still, he did not move from whatever hell he endured at the hands of Nero. Adam gave him as much healing magic as his body would allow before collapsing on his elbows. His dark eyes were sunken in, and his skin paled beneath his unshaven jaw. Whatever magic he gave, he gave a lot.
“What about his arm?” I asked.
Adam rubbed his temples. “It doesn’t work on wounds that have scarred.”
The jeep hit a bump and we all groaned at Knox.
I touched the glass, searching for the last slice of sunlight. It was painful to cough, so I struggled to hold it in.
“I’m going to have to touch her, Cross. If you so much as hiss at me I’m tossing your ass out on the pavement, feel me?”
“I trust you.”
We both offered Logan the same skeptical look. My injuries were not severe, but it didn’t matter. Logan didn’t like seeing me hurt.
Neither did Adam, who slid his hand up my shirt. I instinctively reached up to slap him when Logan caught my wrist and chuckled. “You can do that later, my sweet… or allow me?” His incisors punched out, and I knew despite everything, he was offended.
Logan smoothed his hand across my forehead. I loved the way he was unabashedly affectionate with me.
Adam closed his weary eyes—concentrating. I took a moment to look upon the wave of dark, thick hair he loved to run his fingers through, the strong jaw, and masculine lines. He was the serious sort, but whenever he laughed his eyes just radiated. I always loved the little lines at the edges in particular. His light moved within me—stimulating my own—and delicious oxygen moved throughout my lungs.
Logan’s voice was a hush in my ear. “I’m not entirely happy that another man’s hand is up your shirt. I promise I’ll do my best to refrain from knocking his lights out later on.”
He smiled at me with his eyes, but something told me it was a promise he would only
try
to keep.
“Where’s Leo? I didn’t get to meet him.”
“You will… someday.”
“They’ll be placing an arrest warrant on Nero,” Remi interrupted from the front seat. “He’s an outlaw.”
Logan’s fangs extended. “Then let the hunt begin.”