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Hold on, she begged her sister. We’re coming.
Nika felt Madoc’s hand slide into hers, heard his thoughts whispering to her that he was here with Tynan.
She grabbed tight onto his hand, opened the knowledge she’d stolen from Gilda, and sucked in a huge column of power.
The world twisted and shimmered and then everything went black.
Chapter 23
Blood rolled down Iain’s forehead as he shoved his sword through the heart of the nearest demon.
He and the other Theronai with him had taken up a strategic position inside one of the tunnels, where they couldn’t be easily flanked. He glanced behind him as often as he could, hoping that the tunnel didn’t offer any more access points for Synestryn to sneak up on their backs.
Even though he’d taken a hit, he didn’t feel the effects of any poison running through his system, so he was counting his blessings. The wound was already starting to close, though the blood stinging his eyes was becoming a dangerous problem.
The crowd of demons thinned, and the few remaining turned tail and ran.
He looked at Liam and the others. “You all stay here and hold the exit. I’m going to take them out. ”
Liam nodded.
“I’m going with you,” said Nicholas.
Iain turned, refusing to waste time arguing with the man. He could do as he pleased. They hurried off after the Synestryn.
They’d just cleared a curve in the corridor when Iain heard the first cry for help. Human. Female. Scared as hell.
There had been a time when that cry would have affected him, but now all he experienced was cold calculation.
Pretend you have honor. That was what he told the men he’d brought into the Band of the Barren. It was a code he was determined to live by, himself.
A man with a soul would have been horrified by that sound, so Iain played along. “What the hell was that?”
“Let’s find out,” said Nicholas.
Both men had done enough tunnel fighting to know better than to run. It was too easy to set traps along these narrow paths, and a man going too fast had no time to avoid them. Instead, they moved along as fast as caution would allow.
The cry came again, only this time there was more than one voice. “Over here!” jumbled up with, “Help us. ” On top of that was the sobbing of what sounded like a child.
Rage surged inside Iain. He had to clench his jaw to keep from bellowing at the walls.
The tunnel widened out into a narrow room, and along one wall was a line of metal cages. Inside those cages were three women and two children.
“Please,” said one of the women at the far end of the room. “Get us out of here. ”
Iain turned to Nicholas and barked, “Watch my back. ”
“Don’t take long,” said Nicholas. “I got a feeling company will be coming soon. ”
Iain went to the first cage, where a dirty woman clung to the bars. Her tangled hair fell to her waist. She wore a long, shapeless dress covered in stains. Dirt smudged her skin, making her pale gray eyes stand out in startling contrast. She wasn’t crying. Her expression was flat. “There are keys on the wall behind you. ”
Nicholas grabbed them and tossed them to Iain. He moved to unlock her cage, but she stopped him. Her voice was quiet, but her command was unmistakable. “Free the children and the others first. ”
Iain didn’t waste time fighting her. She was right to give the order, so he did as she asked, freeing the others before coming back to her cell.
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.
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