Fuck. Not fast enough. The lights in this tunnel were fewer, the dullish red glow barely enough to cast a shadow. Eryx stepped up the pace. “Anyone with him?”
“Not a soul.”
Well, that was a plus, he hoped. “How much farther?”
Neil ducked around a sharp curve, then V’d to the left. “Fifteen yards, on the right.”
Eryx opened his emotional senses and damned near tripped. “He’s here.”
“Who’s here?” Neil drew up short and his eyes widened.
“Not your fearless leader, that’s for sure.” Ludan shoved Neil forward. “Move.”
Eryx shot forward and Ludan cursed behind him. “Follow my link,” he said to Ramsay. “Target the emotions if it helps. The damned place is a pain powder keg.”
He rounded the last turn and stopped. “Shit.”
Ten scarred wooden doors lined a crude hallway, five on each side. Agony pulsed from each one, the impact enough to churn his stomach.
“Almost there,” Ramsay said.
Ludan pushed Neil toward the center. “I’ll take the right.”
Eryx nodded, eyes to Neil. “You really think this kind of shit’s right?”
Neil shook his head.
“Then make yourself useful. Get ‘em open.”
Neil turned for the far end on the left side, notably as far as he could get from Ludan.
Eryx took the first door on his right.
Metal latches clanged up and down the rock walls as they unlocked the doors, and quiet sobs and gasps sounded in their wake.
No light shone inside the first one. Eryx stepped in and nearly buckled at the stench. He coughed, covering his nose with the back of one hand, and lit the room with a steady flame from the palm of the other.
A woman lay huddled on her side, naked. Long, matted black hair covered her face and shoulders, her skin a sickly color. He crouched beside her and touched her arm. Dead. “That son of a bitch.”
Ramsay barreled in behind him. “You find—” He stared at the lifeless woman, his jaw slack.
“Yeah.” Eryx stood. “Hopin’ they’re not all this way.”
They checked more cells and found seven other women, all with a pulse. Barely. None had clothes, and all were curled into tight, defensive balls. Ludan stroked a shorthaired redhead’s back, her tremors so violent Eryx thought she might be mid-seizure. Neil cradled another weeping woman’s head on his lap.
Two more doors to go.
“I’ll get one, you get the other.” Ramsay headed to the next to the last door, leaving Eryx the corner cell.
Eryx pulled the latch, bile and doubt churning in his gut. At this rate, he wouldn’t eat for a week. If Ian wasn’t here—
Nope. Not going there right now. He fired a thin flame from his palm.
Another woman cowered as far from the door as possible, her knees pulled up tight to her chest. Her voice cracked, thin and desperate. “Please.”
Ramsay shouted from the cell beside his. “Eryx.”
The woman flinched and ducked her head.
“It’s all right.” He scooped her up and hurried out to the others .
Ludan met him at the door and took his burden. “I got her. Go.”
Two steps into Ramsay’s cell, Eryx froze. It was Ian all right, but he’d seen roadkill in Evad look better.
Ramsay crouched beside him, two fingers at his carotid. Third degree burns circled his neck and his belly was bruised and bloated, a marquee for internal bleeding. “He’s got a pulse, but it’s thready.”
Eryx kneeled beside him. “Go help Ludan. Get the girls out and get them home.”
“I’ll help—”
“Get ’em out and get ’em home.” He met Ramsay’s stare. “Take care of Lena and Reese, and get the prisoners in zeolite. I want this place cleaned out and Maxis unable to track anyone. Got me?”
“What about Ian?”
“I’ll handle Ian.” He’d already broken the laws. He’d be damned if he fucked up Ramsay’s future too. “Now go.”
* * * *
Maxis cracked one eye open and the harsh orange and red-rimmed Myren sun blasted across his sensitive retinas. He squeezed them shut and a tear slipped down his temple. Cool air dusted one cheek, dry, gritty soil beneath the other.
He tried to push upright. Pain stabbed his lower neck and shot across his shoulders and arms to tingle in his fingertips. Sweat broke out along his forehead. Where the fuck was he? The last thing he remembered he’d been in the air and headed for home, burning through Reese’s cortex via link.
The presence. Somewhere along the way, another energy source had intervened. Maybe more than one. The next second, he’d been trapped, pulled taut between two anchors before a mix of fire and ice cleaved him down the middle. He’d been a good thousand feet in the air, his muscles unresponsive to any command, pain stabbing through his limbs and brain.
Voices sounded in the distance. Serena, maybe, and someone else.
Uther.
Fire burned up his neck and face, legs desperate to push upright. He couldn’t be caught this way. Serena was one thing, but not Uther.
Nothing. Not so much as a twitch from his thighs or feet.
“Maxis?” Serena’s urgent voice rang out and her slippered feet padded against the hard dirt. “Uther, hurry.”
Maxis tried to speak, but all that came out was a chortled cough.
“Don’t move him,” Uther said.
A shadow fell across him, and the sun’s glow behind his eyelids went dark. Uther’s voice rumbled close to Maxis’ ear. “Brace yourself.”
Pain, fierce and unforgiving, darted up and down Maxis’ spine, and then blessed, forgiving black.
Chapter 14
Reese shifted in his bed and a cool spring breeze brushed his naked torso. Galena’s flowery scent wrapped around him, her softness pressed against him.
Perfect.
Whoa, wait. Galena? He opened his eyes.
Galena lay nestled in the crook of his arm, her hair trailing over his skin and onto crisp, white sheets. Morning sun shone through a large, arched window with panes thrown wide to let in fresh air. The room was huge with stone walls that soared a good ten to twelve feet high and quality accents that spoke of limitless wealth. Definitely not the homestead.
He rolled his head on the pillow and a sharp, stabbing pain pierced the back of his neck. Maybe moving wasn’t such a great idea. What the hell had he done?
The meet point. Galena had been there, so much pain on her face he’d nearly dropped his plans and his pride to hold her. He’d taken flight instead and been lashed with something every bit as powerful as a thunderbolt.
“You’re a blessed man.”
Reese tensed and Clio shimmered into view at the foot of his bed. How in histus he’d kept from jumping out of bed on instinct was beyond him.
“Because you know my voice,” she answered as though he’d spoken aloud. “Your mind recognizes me as one of its own.”
“Is there anything in my head that’s a secret to you?”
No answer, but her smirk said plenty.
Shit. Reese tightened his hold around Galena and tried to shift more protectively around her. Aches radiated from every joint.
“She’ll not come to any harm by my hand, nor can she hear my voice.” Clio touched the blanket just above his waist, and an instant peace settled over him. “Be at ease. I’d say you’ve earned your time with her.”
Reese kept his grip anyway, her soft curves against his length an opportunity he wasn’t passing up no matter who walked in. “What happened?”
For all the glow and glitter that surrounded the spiritu, her aura wavered. “One of the dark spiritu found you. A rogue by the name of Falon. We’d protected you, veiled your spirit to hide you from the rogues, but your relations with Galena made you vulnerable.” She grinned, lightness twinkling in her eyes once more. “We probably should have accommodated for tha
t contingency. Free will has a tendency to throw wrenches in the best laid plans.”
So she saw that too. Kind of brought a disconcerting spectator aspect to any kind of intimacy. “I don’t remember anything. Just a blinding jolt, nothing but piercing white behind my eyes.”
“He attacked you.”
“Falon?”
Clio paused, her mouth pursed. “Your brother.”
The news shouldn’t have fazed him, but somewhere along the way he’d begun to hope he might actually make a difference. “So I failed you.”
“No. You haven’t failed.”
“But I didn’t talk to him. I didn’t even see him.”
She smiled, soft like the first bit of sun over the morning horizon. “There are always new opportunities. The Great One willing, a new intersection will present itself. At least that is what we’re hoping for. Such a chance may be the only way to stop what the dark rogues are working toward.”
“What’s a rogue? I thought there were only dark and light.”
Clio lowered her head and trailed her fingertips along the foot of the bed as she floated toward the open window. “The law of reciprocity allowed me to tell you only so much.” She folded her hands at her waist and studied the green landscape before facing him. “With the steps Falon has taken, I now have more leeway. Not that I wish you or any of your race to be caught up in his schemes.”
“Whose schemes? Maxis’? Falon’s?” The second his question was out, he regretted it. He’d lived through an undertaking he barely hoped to survive and Galena was stretched out beside him. The idea of additional risk didn’t much appeal.
She shook her head. “Both, though Maxis is more of a pawn.”
“Maxis? A pawn?” Reese slowly combed his fingers through Galena’s hair, and the scent of flowers strengthened around him. “Maxis makes pawns, not the other way around.”
“He’s too blind to see the situation clearly. Falon is a powerful spiritu. Of the dark contingent, he’s one of the most advanced.” Clio drifted toward the side of the bed. “Your brother is the tipping point in bringing the light and dark passions out of balance. If left unstopped, his plans for slavery will snowball throughout the human and Myren races. Panic will rule the human realm, and greed the Myren realm. Once tipped, the scales will be near impossible to rebalance.”
“Then why have me talk to Maxis? If he’s the linchpin, why not just kill him like I wanted in the first place?”
Clio settled beside them and smoothed Galena’s hair from her face. “You’re so quick to draw your dagger.” She folded her hands in her lap and fixed her attention on him. “Think about what you’re advocating. Murder, however necessary, feeds the dark. And, while its act is simplistic, its weight is significant. The only way to counterbalance the weight of murder is to sway your brother via his conscience, to appeal to the goodness inside him. To win through persuasion carries more weight than if you kill him, weight that falls to the side of the light.”
“You’re saying the pen is mightier than the sword?”
She lifted one eyebrow, a look reminiscent of his mother the first time Reese had dared lie to her face. “Every courageous act has a different weight, just as every darker act has its own. The balance between the two is cumulative.”
“Sounds like you’d be smarter to work this angle through Eryx.” Anyone but him. Courageous acts weren’t exactly his strong suit.
“Eryx has his own path to walk. My responsibility is to you and your future. You have many decisions ahead of you, none of them easy.” Clio’s gaze shifted to Galena. “All of them worth it.”
The iron latch clunked, and the wide mahogany door opened.
Eryx strode through the opening, Ramsay and Ludan shoulder to shoulder behind him.
Wait. Clio was—
Gone.
The three warriors stared down at him from the foot of the bed, their scowls ranging from pissed off to outright murder.
Eryx crossed his arms and chin-lifted in Galena’s direction. “You wanna explain this?”
Shit. Reese dropped the strand of hair he’d had between his fingers and rolled to his back. He’d be damned if he unwound his arm from around her torso, though. “I woke up this way.” Galena stirred, and Reese lowered his voice. “I couldn’t remember much past Maxis frying my brain cells, but I figured she had a lot to do with why I’m still breathing, so I let her sleep.”
Galena pushed up with a hand at his chest. The deep auburn in her hair shimmered with the sun behind it, and the strands hung haphazard and sexy close to her cheeks. Her sleepy voice matched her languid eyelids, the lack of tension at her temples giving her an innocent quality he’d kill to protect. “You’re awake.”
“And alive,” he said. “I have a feeling I have you to thank for that.”
A sweet flush crept up her neck and across her cheeks. She ducked her head and beamed at the three still frowning men at the end of the bed. “Not just me. They had something to do with it to. Most of it, really.” She sat up, putting her back to Ludan and her brothers. “They broke your link.”
Silence.
Reese rewound through what she said, but it still didn’t make sense. “Come again?”
“They broke your link with Maxis. He can’t attack you anymore.”
He looked to the trio. “How?”
Eryx’s gaze shifted to Galena and a wash of pride eased his harsh expression. “Galena figured it out. I traced Maxis’ presence with my link to you, Ramsay and I anchored the link on either side—”
“And I sliced it,” Ludan finished.
So, he was free. A tiny detail with huge implications Clio hadn’t mentioned. He had a feeling it had an angle in the other news she’d shared.
Galena stroked his forehead and a lock of her hair fell forward. “How do you feel?”
He lifted his hand, ready to smooth the long fiery piece between his fingers, but checked the action and rubbed his chest instead. “Like a night after too much strasse and a nosedive from a mountain. Other than that, tolerable.”
“Well enough for a trip to council?” Eryx glared at the hand Reese had narrowly diverted.
“No.” Galena cut in before he could answer. “He needs time to heal. You saw the damage in his—”
“Wasn’t asking you, Galena.” Eryx stared at Reese, a perfect poker face. “You up for a trip to council?”
His throat tightened and a cautionary buzz hummed at the base of his skull. “If that’s what you need.”
Ramsay looked away, a muscle on the side of his neck twitching.
Ludan stayed stone-faced, no doubt ready to dish out cold merciless judgment.
Eryx’s face was a blank slate, impossible to read. “Maxis got away.”
Not good news.
“We did get my baineann’s friend,” Eryx said. “That makes my mate happy, which makes me feel a whole lot more generous where you’re concerned.”
Better news.
“It doesn’t, however, absolve you of your actions with the Rebellion.”
Shit. And then Eryx had walked in to find his sister cozied up next to a traitor on top of everything else. He still wouldn’t have moved away.
“Here’s what I’m offering.” Eryx uncurled his arms and planted his fists on the footboard. At that angle, his appearance went from warrior to fuckin’ scary. “Your testimony of Maxis’ plans and actions in the time you’ve conspired with him, complete with the names of those involved, in exchange for a pardon.”
Galena sucked in a sharp breath and her hand fisted on the bed.
Ramsay glared at Reese.
Ludan stayed rock still.
Reese should have been sucking in huge gulps of air and offering a hand to shake on, but all he could focus on was the gaping hole spinning bigger and bigger in his soul. What had he expected would happen? That all would be forgiven? That he’d somehow end up serving the malran?
He pictured himself in front of the
council, admitting his involvement with the rebellion. He imagined the disappointment on his mother’s face, and the sadness that had always shadowed her whenever she spoke of Evanora and her schemes now aimed at him. Clio hadn’t been lying. He had loads of decisions to make and not a damned one of them easy.
Ramsay’s feelings weren’t too much of a stretch to untangle, his scowl practically dared Reese to take the offer. Galena, on the other hand, kept her elbows tucked to her sides and her lips mashed up tight.
If Reese did what Eryx asked, he’d be a free man, able to start over. And maybe, just maybe, get to a place where Galena might consider him for more than one, secret night.
He met Eryx’s stare. “I accept.”
* * * *
Galena trudged toward the castle’s vast guest wing, her muscles better from the few hours she’d napped beside Reese, but still sorely in need of a solid night’s sleep. Men. Overbearing Neanderthals deep down, every damned one of them. Maybe it was a good thing they’d asked her to leave while they plotted their strategy with the counsel. Anger alone had fueled her trek to check on Ian in Eryx’s old room in the royal wing, and it was probably the only thing keeping her up and moving to see Brenna now.
Voices rumbled from the vast dining hall below, staff gathered for the noonday meal, beef brisket by the smell of it. The bite of bay leaf and rosemary were unmistakable even from this distance, and Orla almost always paired the two for her brisket buffets.
Galena’s belly grumbled a not-so-subtle request. Probably smart to stop for a bite or two after she checked on Brenna. If she snuck into the kitchen from the back rooms, she’d have a better shot of missing Orla and having to explain why she still had on yesterday’s wrinkled tunic and leggings. She’d get in, get out, and then nothing had better come between her and her bed for at least eight to ten hours.
Gripping the handrail for an extra tug, she forced her way up the gray stone steps, her sandals quiet in the shadows. Eryx needed to find a way to get Lexi to rest. Galena hadn’t asked how long Lexi had held her bedside vigil, but the dark circles under her eyes said plenty. Eryx had done a great job healing Ian, but whether or not he’d wake up was another worry altogether. And even if he did, how was Lexi going to explain where he was, her role in her new realm, and everything she was now capable of? Not an easy task no matter how one sliced it.
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