Worried they’d heard Willard, I followed after them. At an intersection, I peered down a hallway that looked like it led deeper into the castle—toward the being with the dangerous aura—but the wolves had gone straight toward what appeared to be a large foyer or grand entrance hall. I had to make sure they didn’t attack Willard en masse.
As I crept after them, I scanned my surroundings with all of my senses alert. There had to be traps in here. I didn’t want to step in one.
When I reached the entrance hall, the area lit by more kerosene lanterns as well as chandeliers hanging from wide beams near the ceiling, I almost forgot about the wolves. Michael lay on his side on the floor, gagged and bruised with his ankles and his wrists tied.
The urge to sprint to him and cut his bonds almost propelled me into the hall, but I’d just been thinking of traps, and my instincts screamed that this was one. The wolves had parted and sat at the four corners of the large room. A wide back hallway headed toward the rear of the castle.
Michael lay in the middle of a rectangular carpet. Walking on it might trigger a trap. I sensed magic emanating from the area. Or was it emanating from him? Next to the carpet, a rusty metal starburst was embedded in the wood floor like a decorative medallion. It also emanated magic.
I frowned at Michael, trying to piece together the puzzle, but his eyes were closed, so he couldn’t give me any clues. I could make out his chest expanding and contracting with breaths. He was alive—for now.
But something was off. Was that truly my Michael? Or might it be an illusion? If it was, it was a good one.
I stepped out of the hallway, watching for tripwires, though the strange mist would have made it difficult to see anything small or thin. The air now even had a smell to it, like the damp forest outside, with a hint of something pungent and foreign.
As I drew closer to Michael’s form, my senses and instincts grew more certain that something was off. If the wolves hadn’t been in the room, I would have tossed a coin at him to see if it passed through.
I stopped at the edge of the carpet, though I could barely see it now. The fog had grown denser, that musty forest scent stronger, something about it making me think of sleep and how tired I was after being up all night.
Between one second and the next, I realized that the fog wasn’t some innocent byproduct of the weather but was itself a threat. I backed away, not wanting to leave in case that actually was Michael but also certain that I would be in trouble if I stayed in the room.
I stumbled as I backed toward the hallway and gaped down at my feet in betrayal and surprise. I had elven blood; I never stumbled.
But abruptly my knee buckled, the weight of my body too much to hold up. Some paralyzing magic was stealing the power from my muscles and tilting me toward the black chasm of unconsciousness.
The wolves heard me stumble. All of their heads swiveled toward me, and they ran in my direction.
I could barely keep my fingers wrapped around Chopper’s hilt. There was no way I could fight them, not now. I dug into my ammo pouch and pulled out a grenade as I willed my legs to carry me back into the hallway. If there was any chance that was Michael, I couldn’t risk bringing the roof down on him. I had to get farther away first.
Though I wanted to retreat all the way to the stairs, I only made it two steps into the hall before my legs gave way completely. I dropped to my knees, my hip banging against the wall, and slid down to the floor.
As the wolves charged into view, I pulled the tab on the grenade and rolled it toward them. It bumped one of their legs and didn’t go as far as I wanted.
I tried to pull myself backward, away from the grenade, but my numb hands and legs couldn’t even feel the floor beneath me.
My last thought was that this wasn’t how I wanted to go out. Not only had I failed to redeem my promise to the cub and return to her, but I’d failed to help Michael. I hadn’t accomplished anything here.
The grenade blew, its explosive charge amplified by magic, and I had the satisfaction of seeing fur and wolf limbs fly before the shockwave hit me and hurled me down the hall.
With my body numb and unresponsive, I couldn’t curl into a ball or do anything to protect myself. My head hit the wall, and the unconsciousness I’d been fighting won.
16
As soon as they let me in, I joined Michael in his hospital room. He smiled at me and seemed in good spirits and fully alert and awake—maybe they’d only had to do a local anesthetic for the bullet removal. I knew from personal experience that bullet extractions were uncomfortable as hell even with numbing agents. I also had the added complication of healing quickly. Normally, that was a good thing, but not if it meant the wound healed around the bullet still lodged inside.
“Sorry about that,” Michael said from the bed he was propped up in. “That wasn’t how I intended the evening to end.”
“That’s my line.” The bed had rails around it, so I couldn’t sit at the foot with him. I pulled up a chair instead. “I’m sorry you were hurt. I should have rushed around the corner and cut them off instead of just telling you to run.”
Then he wouldn’t have been in the trajectory of any bullets. During his surgery, I’d been sitting in the waiting room and second-guessing my actions that night.
“Right. Because charging big guys with machine guns always goes super well.” He waved dismissively. “I had time to get behind your car. If I hadn’t been dumb enough to lean out and look, I wouldn’t have been hit.”
But he’d looked because he’d been worried about me. That made it worse. This was my fault.
“Michael…” I looked down at my hands and plucked at my sleeve.
“Please don’t say this proves it would be a bad idea for us to live together. If you’re not ready for that, that’s fine, but don’t let this come between us.”
I swallowed, the lump rising in my throat making it hard for me to reply. Not that I knew what to say anyway. I was horrible at this kind of thing. I had feelings, but I never knew how to express them. Even to people I cared about. Especially to people I cared about.
“I don’t want anything to come between us.” I managed to look up and meet his eyes. “But I also don’t want you to be hurt again—or worse—because of me. Because we’re in a relationship and some enemy of mine figures that out and goes after you. This wasn’t even intentional. Think what could happen if…” I lifted my hand but then dropped it. The power to be blunt left me, and I couldn’t finish the sentence.
“Like I already said, my life got more dangerous when I chose to involve myself in this underground world of the magical.”
“It got a lot more dangerous when you chose to involve yourself with me.”
“Yeah, but you’re worth it.” He smiled, but his dark eyes were wary. He feared he’d already lost the argument—lost me.
Seeing that pain in his eyes made me feel like I’d been shot myself. I didn’t want to hurt him. And I wished it didn’t have to be this way, but me being lonely and liking his company wasn’t a good enough reason for me to have a relationship with him, to risk falling in love with him.
Tears pricked at my eyes. Maybe I already had fallen in love. Damn it, when had that happened?
“Thank you, Michael. You’re worth a lot too. Everything. But I couldn’t live with knowing I’d been responsible for your death.”
He slumped back against the pillows. “I guess this means we’re not moving in together.”
“We couldn’t have afforded a house in Seattle anyway.”
“Just wait.” He forced a smile and pointed at me. “One of these days, I’m going to find a treasure that’s going to make me rich.”
“I hope so. If you keep getting shot, your health insurance premium is going to go up a lot.”
He snorted. “Speaking from experience?”
“Let’s just say that being an assassin isn’t conducive to a good rate.”
Slowly, groggily, I grew aware of rough material scraping along my cheek. It took me a moment to realize that something was wrapped around my ankle like a vise with teeth, and I was being dragged across the carpet. That switched to the cool wood of floorboards and then to something that felt like metal. Somehow, I still gripped my sword hilt, and the blade was being dragged along with me.
My limbs were still numb, but I tried to squeeze my hand tighter, tried to will blood to flow to it and for whatever magic had me paralyzed to wear off.
The pressure around my ankle disappeared, and my senses kicked in, informing me that one of the wolves had been dragging me. I managed to twitch a finger. And then my foot. The creature backed away, leaving me on the metal sunburst floor decoration I’d noticed in the grand hall floor earlier.
I managed to lift my head, turning it enough to see Michael’s form on the carpet. He was so close to me now. If I could get the rest of my body working, I could crawl over and check on him.
The floor lurched and shifted underneath me. I tried to roll to the side, but my body was still responding too slowly.
The rays of the sunburst snapped upward, the tips joining to create a pyramid around me—a cage around me—leaving only a few gaps that I could see out. Clanks sounded, and a chain descended from the ceiling and hooked to a loop at the top of the pyramid. Somewhere above, a winch creaked, pulling the chain upward. The floor of my cage tilted, and I rolled to one side, cheek pressed to a gap and giving me a view of Michael’s form on the carpet.
As the chain pulled me upward, his body faded until it disappeared. I’d been right. It had been an illusion.
Damn it.
The wolves trotted into the hallway in the back—heading off to inform their masters that I’d been captured.
Growling, I forced my jelly-like muscles to work and shoved my way to my knees. That was as far as I could rise, for my head clunked against the slanted sides of my new cage.
Through all of this, I’d managed to keep my hold on Chopper. The magical blade ought to have the power to cut through the thick sunburst bars, even if they were also magical, but only if I could find the room to swing it. My elbow clunked against the side of my cage, making that doubtful.