Surrender: Saving Setora Book 6

by Dark, Raven

  Blade, Grim, and Bear chuckled into their soup, and Doc gave me a look that was a mix of amusement and empathy.

  I’d never have admitted it, but I couldn’t decide if I wanted to chase after the two of them and knock them on their asses or ride out with them. It was my job to let those two have it when they went off the rails, but I also knew, when they disappeared like this for reasons they wouldn’t share with anyone else, it was to do what they did best—getting what we needed to save Setora by whatever means they had to.

  A little over an hour later, after the rest of us had eaten, motorbike engines roared back into the camp. By the time I and the rest of my men gathered around Pretty Boy and Steel, they were off their bikes, unmasked, and pulling packs off the backs of their rides. Both packs looked stuffed full.

  Before any of us could ask, Steel tossed his pack on the ground and started opening it.

  “What the fuck did you guys do?” I demanded.

  Pretty Boy pulled what looked like a uniform out of his pack and held it up. “We got two of these. One for you.” He tossed me the matching pants and top, plus a pair of leather boots and a vest. “And one for you.” He gave another set to Doc, then tossed us each a helmet.

  The all-black uniform, which included the helmet with a telltale visor, left no doubt as to what kind of person was meant to wear it within Damien’s compound.

  “Fuck.” I didn’t know whether to smack them both or laugh. “You stole guard uniforms?”

  “It’s what we do.” Pretty Boy shrugged. “Steel grabbed something for me and him as well. Hawk,” he added, nodding to the Captain who looked over the uniform helmet in my hand. “There were only two guard uniforms. You can swipe one for yourself once you’re inside, right?”

  “I can. I hate having to dress like one of those son of a bitch J’nai, but I’ll get it done.”

  “And what will you two go in as?” I crossed my arms.

  “Whatever Steel was able to grab for me,” Pretty Boy said and glanced up at Steel. “Which was what, by the way?”

  Steel snickered into his fist. “Come on. I’ll show you. It’s just perfect for you, PB.”

  “Can’t wait,” Pretty Boy drawled.

  Now this I had to see.

  As soon as were back inside the cave and Pretty Boy saw the uniform Steel held up for him, he groaned. “Fuck. Well, I guess it’s better than the ones the women wear. Gimme that.” He snatched the outfit from Steel and started stripping, ignoring Doc’s laugh and my snort.

  “Well, I did say you make a great servant,” Doc said, sitting by the fire in the middle of the cave, watching him.

  “Kiss my perfect ass, Doc.” Pretty Boy yanked on the uniform pants. “Shut your hole, Sheriff. At least you get to look like a badass.”

  I cackled.

  As soon as he was dressed, Pretty Boy dropped his arms and rolled his eyes. “Shit, Steel, these pants are so tight I won’t be able to fuck Princess for a week after this.”

  “If you’re worried about erectile issues after this, I have pills for that,” Doc teased.

  Pretty Boy glared at him, then at the rest of us. “I look ridiculous.”

  Sitting by the fire, Blade and Grim tried to hide their grins.

  “I think you look kind of hot,” Blade teased. “You have the ass for it.”

  Pretty Boy cuffed him on the head but laughed.

  “Well, you won’t be wearing those clothes forever,” Hawk said. “I’ll sneak everyone’s Legion clothes into the compound closer to the time, so they’ll be there when you need them.”

  Becoming serious, Pretty Boy nodded as Hawk took a seat with Blade and Grim. He looked at Hawk, then at me. “I hope this works,” he said softly. “If you die, Hawk, I’ll kick your Yantu ass.”

  “I won’t. I wouldn’t leave you with no one to throw insults at.”

  Hawk finished his stew and rolled up his meditation mat. He would be leaving at full dark, an hour from now. Shutting down my concern for him before I could talk him out of this insane scheme, I left the cave. The others followed, leaving Hawk to finish preparing.

  Minutes stretched on and the sunlight faded, the scorching temperatures dropping enough to freeze our balls off. Nightfall came before Hawk stepped out of the cave.

  I’d expected him to come out in his Yantu getup, with both of his swords on his back. When I saw him, I stared. So did everyone else.

  “Hawk, you’re not going in there like that, are you?” Pretty Boy’s lips tugged on a smile.

  I didn’t blame him for his reaction. Hawk was not only naked, wearing not a stitch, and unarmed, but he’d painted his entire body with what looked like black tar. He’d covered his face with it and had slicked back his hair with so much of it that it looked like black steel.

  I stood slowly. “Hawk, that stuff’ll come off as soon as you’re in the water, won’t it?”

  He shook his head. “It’s waterproof paint Yantu use for missions like this. It won’t come off without rubbing this on it.” He held up a little metal tube of something that dangled from a bracelet of thin elastic. He slipped the band around his wrist.

  “What about the fire?” Steel asked.

  “I won’t get burned. Trust me, I’ve done this before. The gladiator housing where Visic was holding you when we found you was just like this place, Steel. I broke in there just fine. Pretty Boy and Steel, you two just make sure you’re where I need you to be tomorrow at dawn. That’ll give you almost nine hours before you’ll have to slip into your own roles.”

  Standing in front of him with a scowl, Doc crossed his arms. “I don’t like this, Hawk.” His grey eyes were cool.

  “You mentioned that, Doc.” Hawk didn’t look at him, checking himself over. Checking to make sure every inch of his body was covered in camouflaging black paint.

  Doc made a disapproving noise and looked him over. “There’s no changing your mind then.”

  “No.”

  Doc blew out a breath and broke the space between them, standing toe-to-toe with him. He held up a vial of the same eye drops he’d given Setora to turn her eyes black. “Put your head back, Captain.”

  Hawk tilted his head back. Doc took the eyedropper and put two drops into each of Hawk’s eyes. Hawk blinked, and Doc wiped the excess fluid away with a cloth from his pants pocket.

  Gratitude flickered across Hawk’s face when he looked at him before his features hardened. His bright yellow eyes were already filling in with night-black.

  “Remember what I said.” Doc’s voice was quiet with concern. “If your body temp drops below ninety-five degrees for more than a few minutes, you could freeze to death. The risk of brain damage goes up the longer your temp is down that low. If you pass out for longer than two minutes, you could come back a vegetable. Am I clear?”

  “You are.” Hawk’s voice was alarmingly without emotion. If I knew him, he was mentally sitting in that damn Fortress of his, all human feeling shut out. Invulnerable to distractions or anything that could undermine his fucking Yantu calm.

  He was switched onto my equivalent of autopilot, the machine that got things done without the danger of a man’s fears getting in the way.

  Fuck, I hated this.

  Hawk turned to Pretty Boy and Steel. Neither of them would look at him. “Well?” Hawk prompted. “You’re not going to let me leave without my insults, are you, Pretty Boy?”

  Pretty Boy shook his head, his eyes filled with a brother’s warmth. “Just come back so I can kick your ass.”

  Hawk squeezed the back of his neck.

  When he turned to me, waiting—waiting for his General’s support—I sighed. Giving me the chance to offer my approval was merely a formality. He was our only way into Hell, and we all knew it.

  “General,” Hawk prompted.

  “There’s no chance I can talk you out of this, is there?”

  “No,” he rasped.

  “Of course not.” I looked at the blackened sky. “It’s time.”

  Hawk
gave a nod, his expression hard as stone.

  The resolve in his eyes made it clear, there was no talking him down. I kind of loved him right then. I also kind of hated him. We’d lost too much over the last few months. I resented him for forcing me to risk losing even more, but I also felt an irritating closeness to him for the risk he was taking because I knew he was doing it for our woman. Because I knew damn well I’d have done the same.

  I’d have given him a hell of a manly hug if it didn’t mean getting that black shit all over myself. And if he wasn’t naked as a jaybird.

  Instead, I clapped him on the shoulder. “Don’t get dead, Captain.”

  He squeezed my arm, nodded, and started off across the sand.

  I had a chance to see him moving like a shadow at a trot before the darkness swallowed him. If anyone could get into that prison where our woman was being held, it was him.

  “Stay alive, Brother,” I whispered.

  There was no turning back now.

  Chapter 14

  Garganthor’s Maze

  There was something deeply ironic about the way I’d chosen to infiltrate Damian Vale’s compound.

  In the temple where I’d trained, there was a library’s worth of Yantu stories that told of Garganthor, the two-headed dragon that represented the two sides of man’s spirit, the emotional side and the side that had none. In a lot of those stories, the two halves were further depicted as elements. Emotion was fire, the lack of it, water. Specifically, freezing cold water. Old methods of training had demanded that warriors who wished to become sixth level tai dan endure a trial by water, and then fire. First, the warrior had to remain in water that was kept at near freezing temperature for an hour. Then they had to walk through the Hall of Flames. Funny that getting into the house belonging to the man who held my Kitten captive would demand I endure both elements in much the same fashion.

  I hadn’t gone on this mission in the nude out of ritual but rather to aid with camouflage. How ironic then, that both parts of the Yantu trial also demanded the warrior be naked. Only instead of gaining the hard-won rank of a sixth level tai dan, my reward at the end of this mission would be the safe return of the woman who held my heart in her hands. The princess waiting to be claimed at the end of a proverbial Garganthor’s Maze.

  We’d get her out of there, and when we did, I would waste no time in claiming her. I’d claim her again and again and again, until she wouldn’t walk properly for a week.

  I reached the back end of the compound less than half an hour after leaving the camp. The southern wall rose almost as high as the one on the other side, the one that walled off Hell’s Burning from the world outside of it. Almost immediately, I wondered if I’d made a mistake.

  Instead of what I’d seen on the blueprint, there was only an endless flat of hard-baked sand that ran right up to the solid fifteen-foot high wall. Every inch of the wall was a solid slab without so much as a crack.

  Damn.

  Footsteps sounded around a corner. I flattened myself to the cement wall, hoping whoever that was wouldn’t come close enough to see me. If he did, I could kill him before he raised the alarm, but a dead body would be impossible to hide out here with only flat, hardened sand for miles. Even I couldn’t leap up onto a wall as high as this one without rope and nothing to use as a foothold.

  The footsteps faded. I let out a breath and slunk along the wall. There were lookout towers at either end of it, but as long as I stayed against the wall, no one would see me out here in the dark, slicked with black paint.

  I was about to give up and go back to the camp, to come up with another plan, when I saw what I’d come for. Almost a hundred feet from where I’d started, there was a long trench dug into the ground and filled with water that spilled into a large pond. The trench disappeared under the southern wall, water flowing slowly inside.

  I felt my lips pull into a menacing smile. Perfect.

  With a quick look around to make sure none of the guards in the towers looked in my direction, I willed my mind to wall itself behind my Fortress of steel, one that shut out anything that could distract me. Worry, fear, and cold alike. Then I quietly slipped into the stream.

  As soon as I was submerged up to my neck, I felt my entire body scream at the contact. Ice-cold water sliced at my skin, making my veins feel as if they were freezing shut.

  Most people who didn’t spend a lot of time in deserts expected it to be nothing but heat and blazing sun, forgetting that the temperature could drop steeply at night. Or, that there were as many natural springs with cold water—some of them as low as forty-five degrees—as there were hot.

  The moment the water hit me, my Fortress threatened to collapse, sending the full force of the chill in on me. Dunking under the water, I pictured the steel walls reinforcing themselves, imagining myself as untouchable to the elements until the sensation of the cold vanished from my mind.

  I was numb, without feeling, as beyond physical sensation as stone. I was the water, the unemotional flow of the tide.

  Near-darkness enveloped me under the water, only a haze of weak moonlight piercing the surface. I could just make out the shape of what I’d been hoping to see.

  A few feet from me, a steel grate blocked off part of the entrance to the tunnel. It covered the top half, leaving the lower half of the entrance open, just wide enough for me to swim through. According to the blueprints, that passage led into the Compound’s principal underground waterway.

  Somewhere above me, Setora was enduring who knew what, bowing and scraping to that monster. The thought flickered just beyond the walls of my Fortress, but I shut it out, refusing to let my anger touch me. Anger caused a man to make mistakes.

  I swam down, under the grate and through the darkened opening.

  If Pretty Boy’s blueprints were right, the tunnel went on for a quarter of a mile before it let out into a series of large caverns, each positioned under the main properties in the Compound. Deep inside, the closest cavern opened right behind the furnace room that supplied most of the heat to Damien’s mansion.

  As long as the plans were accurate, I’d have to swim underwater for sixteen minutes before I reached the cavern, where I would be able to come up for air. I’d managed to train myself to hold my breath for fifteen minutes. I’d have to be fast, enough that, even with my training as a warrior, it would push my body to its limits. There was no room for error.

  I’d also have to hope I could push myself a whole extra sixty seconds.

  I swam onward.

  If it had been dark outside the tunnel, it was as black as the pit of hell in here. I could see better than most, but not here.

  Feeling around in the dark and hoping I didn’t run into a wall, I pushed myself as hard and as far as I could, stroke after stroke. Minutes crawled by until an unsettling sense of timelessness wrapped itself around me, threatening to rip down the Fortress walls that insulated me in calm. It felt like I was in a tomb, buried alive in a cold, watery grave.

  The temptation to think of Setora, of her warm body pressed against mine, of her hot lips breathing life into me, rose up, and I tamped it down. I had to shut out all emotion, and the most dangerous of any distractions were the emotions she sparked in me. If I let her in, I risked letting other distractions in. Like my fury with Damien. With Olan and that assistant of his for taking her to him.

  I swam onward. More minutes passed. My lungs were staring to burn. My limbs were starting to feel heavy. I pushed on, forcing myself to work past the fatigue that tried to swallow me whole.

  My head was starting to feel light. I willed my heart rate to slow, shutting out the dangerous tingling in my half-frozen limbs. My lungs felt like they were going to burst.

  Another minute.

  Then another. I was at fourteen now.

  Another minute.

  My lungs screamed.

  Light. Torchlight glinted above the water’s surface, illuminating the blackness.

  I swam toward it.

  A door
way cut a blurry halo near the edge of the water. Ignoring the urge to leap out of the water and heave in lungfuls of air, I forced myself to break the surface slowly, quietly, until I knew there were no guards near where I’d emerged.

  It took all my effort to keep my breathing slow and even, silent, as I pushed heavily up out of the water and onto the concrete stone walkway that ran alongside it.

  My limbs felt like they weighed a ton each, and my skin prickled at the contact with the warm air. I lay on the concrete, forcing my body to relax, my breathing to normalize, to stop myself from shivering so hard my teeth rattled. Willing myself not to pass out. Any second, a guard could come in here and find me. If I passed out now, I might not live long enough to worry about the next, much more dangerous obstacle ahead of me.

  In the semi-darkness, I lifted my head and looked at the doorway ten feet away.

  Exactly as the building plans had indicated, the door led to an underground furnace. There was a long, narrow passage that should have been burning with flame.

  Except, the furnace was off. There were no flames.

  I was in luck. If I could just make my limbs move, all I had to do was run down that passage to the doorway on the other side. A doorway that led to a hallway, which in turn led up to the main house.

  Before I could drag myself to my feet and bolt for the door, the sound of footsteps on concrete close by reached my ears. I threw myself against the wall by the door just as the guard stopped in the entrance to the heating room.

  “Who’s there? Show yourself.”

  I closed my eyes, willing strength to flow through my muscles.

  The J’nai stepped out into the cavern. He didn’t make it four steps before I seized his head with both hands and twisted it, fast and hard. There was a satisfying crunch of bone and he went limp. I pulled his body over to the wall and set him down.

  “I need something from you,” I muttered, stripping off his uniform.

  Praying another guard didn’t appear, I hastily scrubbed off the paint with some water and the solvent I’d brought, making sure I removed any paint the uniform wouldn’t hide. Then I threw on the dead guard’s clothes. That done, I tossed his body into the stream, the only place it wouldn’t likely be easily discovered.