by Linsey Hall
I held my breath, praying I’d guessed right by the smell of his magic.
He didn’t say anything, so I squeezed again.
He gasped. “Yes!”
“Then melt these chains off me,” I demanded. My stomach lurched as I said it because this was going to hurt a hell of a lot.
“Crazy bitch,” he muttered.
“Yeah, you’re probably right.” I could’ve had him melt the chain links, but if I still wore the cuffs, my magic would be dampened. And if I wanted to get Roarke out of here, too, I’d need my magic. “Do it anyway.”
“No!”
“Fine.” I squeezed hard and started to pull, fully intending to live up to my promise but knowing I’d probably puke if I had to do it.
Yeah, one hundred percent, I’d vomit if this demon made me deliver on my gruesome promise.
The demon stiffened, then whined, “Fine, fine!”
I kept my grip on my prize and held up one wrist in front of his face. “Do it fast, or you’ll regret it.”
He grimaced, his rough features twisting, and touched his fingertip to my cuff. In a flash, it turned molten red and dripped off my wrist. For a moment, it hurt like hell, making my stomach turn, then nothing. But I could smell my burned flesh. Probably singed all the nerves right off.
I switched hands, trying not to brush my charred skin against his clothes, and demanded, “The other one.”
He nodded sharply and repeated the drill.
This time, I was ready for the pain, but it didn’t make it any easier. I bit my tongue, which, no surprise, didn’t help. But as soon as the metal melted off my wrist, I called my sword from the ether. I gripped the blade tight, holding it to the demon’s throat.
“But, but… I-I freed you,” he stuttered.
“I haven’t torn off your balls, have I? So I’ve kept my end of the deal.” I pressed the metal into his neck until a thin line of blood appeared. “Where are they keeping the other prisoner? The man they abducted with me.”
His eyes widened. “I don’t know. Really!”
I pressed the blade harder, but he stuttered the same thing.
“Fine.” I sliced his throat with the blade, deep and sure.
The surprise and betrayal in his eyes just before their light faded sent the tiniest twinge of guilt through me, but I needed his power if I wanted to free Roarke.
And he was a demon who’d been so gleeful at the idea of the Masters having fun with me.
So, yeah. I slit his throat.
And as he was bleeding out, I called upon my Phantom magic, turning blue and transparent, then I pulled the soul out of his body. Without a qualm, I stole his power over metal. The wispy white soul came straight to me, and I absorbed his gift, smelling the hot iron and feeling the warmth against my skin.
When I was done, I hopped up, leaving his body without a second glance.
The time for hesitation was over. There may have been risk in stealing powers, and I may have had a difficult time controlling them, but I had to fight if we were going to win. And to fight, I needed magic.
Chapter Eleven
I hesitated at the cell door, peering around the edge and into the hall. As I’d thought, it was dimly lit by a single forty-watt bulb hanging from a chain.
Honestly, I was surprised it had electricity, considering how old everything else was. The floor and walls were made of the same rough stone that my cell had been, and all of it was ancient looking.
I sucked in a deep breath and called on my dragon sense, asking it to help me find Roarke. It picked up the trail right away, leading me left down the hall. I passed several more cell doors, but they were cracked open slightly.
We were the only prisoners, thank magic. I didn’t want to have to waste time and energy saving someone else, though I wouldn’t have been capable of abandoning them here.
Roarke wasn’t on this floor, I realized. He was lower down. I followed my dragon sense down a narrow set of stairs, gagging slightly at the smell of blood and misery. When I reached the bottom, there was a wooden door.
I pushed on it, but it stuck. Locked.
A smile tugged at my lips as I touched the metal lock. I reached for the magic I’d stolen, letting its warmth flow through me and into the metal. The lock glowed bright orange, then melted down the wood and puddled on the ground.
Before it could cool and form a doorstopper, I pushed open the door.
Shock stole my breath.
It was a torture chamber. A full-on, creepy, horror movie nightmare of chains and whips and weird stuff I didn’t even recognize. A large man was strung up by his hands, bruises covering his bare torso. The two demons who stood in front of him turned to face me, their lips curled up in annoyance.
Dread curled in my stomach as I got a better look at the victim.
Roarke.
Rage unlike any I’d ever known blossomed in my chest like a flower made of acid.
“Bastards!”
Before they could speak, I charged up a massive icicle and sent it through the stomach of the gray demon on the left. Blood sprayed as he fell backwards. The other demon drew a sword, but before he could strike, I hit him with an icicle. Right through the stomach again.
I wanted them to die slowly.
I considered cutting out their tongues so they couldn’t tell anyone I’d saved Roarke, but I didn’t have the stomach for that kind of torture. And anyway, it’d be pretty obvious who’d busted him out of here.
While the demons writhed on the ground, I raced for Roarke.
“Roarke!” He hung limply by his wrists, his chest a mess of bruises.
I dipped low to look up into his face, then patted his cheek gently. “Come on, guy. You gotta wake up. We’re making a run for it.”
My heart split in two as his eyes opened slowly. It just lay there in my chest like a broken coffee cup.
“Del?” Confusion laced his voice.
“Yeah. Can you stand?”
He shook his head as if to clear it, then put his weight on his legs. He winced, then nodded. “Yeah. I’m good. Let’s get out of here.”
His voice was rough, and I didn’t want to think of why. I glanced at the shackles on his wrist. There were keyholes in them. Unlocking them would be better than burning him if I had to melt them off. My wrists still hurt like hell, and he’d been beaten enough.
“Hang on,” I said. “I’m gonna see if one of these jerks has a key.”
He nodded and I hurried to the body of the demon nearest me.
I was only a few feet from Roarke when I heard the chains rattle. I glanced back to see that his legs had given out again. I almost puked, right there in the torture chamber. Just the idea of what had been done to him made me want to be ill. This whole place made me want to be ill.
If I could get out of here without losing my lunch, it’d be a miracle.
But Roarke’s injuries… Fear chilled me. I had no idea how I’d drag a guy as big as him out of here if he couldn’t walk on his own.
I’d freaking figure it out, though.
I knelt at the body of the demon at my feet. He was panting raggedly as he bled out. I didn’t spare him a glance as I patted him down. My need for vengeance had been smothered by my concern for Roarke. It was still there, burning low, but I didn’t have time to waste on something so petty. I had one goal, and that was to get us the hell out of here.
The demon had nothing on him except a wicked looking knife, so I moved on to the next one. This one was nearly dead, his red face ashen and nearly gray. He also had no keys.
“Damn it,” I muttered. I glanced up, searching for a key ring. Like this was some well-organized home on Pinterest, or something.
I didn’t spot any keyring hooks, but I did see a shelf cluttered with vials of potion. Acids and poisons?
A memory flashed in my mind, of Nix telling me about some twisted torturers from the Underworld who would beat up their victims, then give them a healing potion so they could just beat them up again.<
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“Oh, please, fate,” I whispered as I called on my dragon sense. I begged it to find me a healing potion, feeding it my desperate desire to heal Roarke.
My dragon sense tugged right away, pulling me toward the potions. Unerringly, I reached for a silver vial on the right. My burned wrists twinged with pain as I picked it up. I pulled the cork and sniffed the potion.
Didn’t smell evil. Kinda sweet.
I uncorked it and knocked on my head, then licked a drop off the stopper. Waited a second. I didn’t die, so I considered it a win. And my wrists felt a bit better, though they were still charred to a crisp. I forced myself to look at them. The edges of the burn looked a bit better.
Confident that I’d found a healing potion, I hurried back to Roarke. I lifted his head and said, “Wake up. We’ve got to get out of here.”
He opened his eyes, and his gaze met mine. The misery cleared from his face as he looked at me.
“I’m going to get you out of these chains, okay? Then you’re going to drink a potion to heal you.”
He nodded, his gaze slightly cloudy. I wrapped my arms around his waist and pulled his body away from his left arm. I’d do that one first, and I didn’t want the molten metal dripping on him.
“You’ve got to try to stand, okay?” Sweat dotted my skin as I tried to hold his two-hundred pound body away from his cuffed wrist and reached up to touch the shackle. I forced my new magic into it as quickly as I could. In a flash, it turned orange and melted off.
Roarke barely flinched, though I smelled his burning flesh.
I kept an eye on the molten metal at my feet and shifted Roarke the other way, hoping he would stay upright. I melted the other shackle. This time, he jerked.
Once the chain no longer held him up, he stumbled backward. I tried to keep him upright, but he was too big.
We both fell in a pile, but he righted himself on his own, sitting up. I knelt by his side.
“Magic’s sake, I’m weak as a kitten,” he muttered.
“You’re one big bruise and you have multiple broken bones. Who knows what else.” Honestly, I didn’t want to know. I held the vial up to his lips. “Drink this.”
He drank it, grimacing as he swallowed.
I held my breath as I watched him, praying that the potion would work. Color returned to his cheeks, and his gaze brightened. The worst of the gruesome bruises on his chest faded, and the skin on his wrists healed. He still looked like hell—not everything had been cured, but he looked much more…alive.
“It worked!” I grinned. “Now let’s get the hell out of here. Can you stand?”
“Yes.” He squeezed my shoulder. “Thanks for saving me. You’re a badass.”
“I know.” I reached down to help him stand.
He took my hand. Though he was improved, he wasn’t close to full strength. But he was steady on his own two feet, for which I couldn’t thank fate enough.
“You good?” I asked.
“Yes. Hang on.” Roarke headed to the back of the room and picked up a shirt and jacket that had been tossed on the ground.
As he tugged them on, I called on my dragon sense. Where was Draka’s egg? Could it be here? Was this the fortress she’d talked about? If the demons were going to catch me, perhaps they would take me to their headquarters.
For a while, my dragon sense picked up nothing. I fed it my desire to save Draka, envisioning the other dragon source eggs that I’d seen at the quarry cave last week.
Please, please, please.
This had to work.
Finally, it tugged. Just slightly, so faint that I might not have noticed it. Lately, my dragon sense had seemed to be getting stronger, and I was grateful.
“Draka’s source egg is somewhere in this castle,” I said.
“Close?”
“Um, no. It’s either fairly far or well-guarded from me. By magic, possibly.”
“Then we need backup.”
“Yeah.” We did. Trying to save Draka alone hadn’t gone well. I wouldn’t get too many second chances, so I wasn’t going to risk it. “Let’s get out of here. Recoup. Make a plan.”
Roarke nodded. The gray mist of his magic formed a small tornado around him as he shifted into his demon form. “Pays to be prepared.”
“Couldn’t agree more.”
We hurried from the room, our steps silent. I let my dragon sense lead me out of the dungeons, following it up the narrow stone steps and onto the main hallway. We passed all the doors and reached the heavy wooden one at the end. A push revealed that it was locked.
This had to be the main entrance to the dungeons. Would there be a guard on the other side?
“When we go in, I’ll take left and you take right, okay?” I said.
“Perfect.”
I kept my sword ready as I touched the metal lock. It melted in a flash, and I pushed the door open. Shuffling sounded from inside.
I rushed in, veering left. Roarke went right.
On my side, a guard had just stood up from his chair. He was a hulking red demon with short horns and a leather vest. Fire demon, probably. When he raised a hand that glowed red, it confirmed it.
Instead of firing an icicle at him, which was becoming old hat at this point, I shot some nearly frozen water from my hand. Slush, basically. When it splatted on his raised hand, I used my magic to freeze it.
An icy mitt formed on his hand that suppressed his fire throwing ability.
Sweet!
He growled and raised his other hand, throwing a fireball before I could freeze him. I turned corporeal and deflected it with my blade, then lunged, sinking the blade into his chest.
I pulled the sword free. He tottered, shock spread across his face.
“Weren’t expecting me?” I grinned and planted a boot in his midsection, toppling him over.
I turned to Roarke just as he tore the head off the other guard and tossed it on the ground. Blood splattered his chest.
“Got some pent-up aggression?” I asked.
“You don’t even know.”
I grinned, then turned and headed for the door. We crept through the winding halls of the fortress, following my dragon sense. I asked it to find me the quietest, least guarded exit and prayed that it would work. It didn’t always—just like when I’d asked it to find me Draka at my old home. It had taken me to Draka, but I’d forgotten to cover all my bases and hadn’t asked it not to take me across a threshold to the Underworld.
We climbed a wide set of stairs to the next level, reaching a heavy wooden door at the top. It wasn’t locked, so Roarke pushed it open slowly while I peeked around the edge. The hall was wide and empty.
We hurried through the door and toward the exit. Rooms dotted the hall here and there, but they were all empty as we passed.
At the end of the hall, the wide wooden door cracked open.
Someone was coming!
I lunged into the nearest open door. Roarke followed. We pressed ourselves against the wall, breath held.
Footsteps neared. At least five pairs.
My heart leapt into my throat. When I noticed the mirror on the wall across from me, my head swam. If the people in the hall glanced in, they might see our reflection!
I gripped my sword and stared hard at the mirror, praying to fate as they passed. Roarke was ready, his stance that of a warrior prepared to fight.
The figures passed by a moment later. Five demons. One started to turn, but his companion said something and he didn’t.
When a door clicked shut farther down the hallway, my muscles relaxed a fraction. We gave them a few minutes, then peeked out.
Coast was clear.
We crept out and hurried to the door. Fortunately, it was near an exterior wall. And it was nighttime. A sliver of moon hung in the sky, visible just over the high walls of the fortress. The air was chilly, but nothing like my family’s place in Wales.
We were at a back entrance to the castle, if I had to guess. The doors were all small and the architecture not
very ornate. Perfect for servants and the working class. A wild courtyard stretched in front of us. Not manicured like many courtyards, but rather a little patch of the forest right inside the castle walls. A river ran through it, fresh water for the fortress in times of siege.
My dragon sense pulled me toward the river. I followed it, hurrying across the open courtyard and darting for the shadow of the main wall.
“That’s your exit, isn’t it?” Roarke pointed to the metal grate where the river flowed out through the castle wall.
My dragon sense screamed, Yes!
“Yep,” I said. “I asked for the most hidden exit. We got it.”
But the massive iron grate blocked our exit. The gaps were wide enough for water and even small fish, but they were built to keep people out.
“Just watch my back.” I jumped into the river, grateful that it was only as deep as my waist and fairly sluggish. The water was chilly, making goosebumps pop up on my skin. I waded toward the grate, reaching out with one finger and pressing it to the iron.
I called upon my new magic, feeding it into the gate. At first, nothing happened. It was a lot of metal. I dug deep, calling upon more magic. My head grew light as I focused on melting the metal. There was just so much of it!
Finally, the metal began to glow red. Just a small section, but it spread. I pushed myself, feeding it more and more of my power. Slowly, the metal poured downward, warming the water around me.
A scuffle sounded from behind. I turned, catching sight of Roarke breaking the neck of a demon guard.
“Hurry,” he said. “More may come.”
I turned back to the grate, feeding it more magic. Finally, I had a hole big enough for the two of us to escape. I didn’t dare try for more. I was already close to running out of power. I didn’t have an infinite well, like Cass. I was nearly tapped out and would need to recuperate.
“Come on.” I climbed through the gap in the metal grate.
Roarke followed, dragging the body with him. Once he’d climbed through the hole, he pulled out the body and let it float downstream. I pressed my hand to the metal of the ruined grate and envisioned the metal melting and rebuilding itself.
I was panting by the time the metal began to glow and flow upward, forcing as much of my magic into it as I could manage. But we really needed to cover our tracks. The orange metal rebuilt itself, reforming the grate. If you looked closely, it was a poorly done job. I needed more practice. But hopefully the demons wouldn’t notice and have an easier time tracking us.
