I took a deep breath. “I don’t want to kill anyone.”
“I know. But sometimes you don’t have a choice if you want to survive. Try your best, but if the worst happens in this place, make no apologies. He should’ve known better than to let you loose on these people.”
I nodded but made no comment. My anger toward Elliot Graves burned a little hotter because of the position he was forcing me into. I didn’t want to hurt people. I didn’t want to battle. I didn’t want to be stuck in a cave dealing with the belittling buttheads. All of this was on him, solely, and I would not forget it.
“The other thing that has become clear is that he’s treating you like an honored guest,” Austin whispered as he glanced behind us. “Our rooms are much more spacious and high-ceilinged than one would expect in a tunnel, and judging by these other paths, the other suites aren’t as nice.”
“I know. That had occurred to me. Someone is bound—”
A flash preceded what felt like a heavy hand slapping me sideways. I hit the wall headfirst, and blackness dragged me under.
Twenty-One
My vision swam for a moment and my head pounded. Something wrapped around my body from my elbows to my knees, cutting into my skin and squeezing. Lifting me into the air at an angle. Hair cut off my vision, hanging in my face.
“She’s awake, sir!”
I craned my neck, finding myself in a circular area covered in couches and chairs. A common room, half the size of ours but laid out in the same way, with the kitchen at the back and an archway that probably led to other rooms.
“Well, well.”
The man from dinner, Chambers, walked up and stopped in front of me, his dress shoes shined up and his suit expensive, one hand in his pocket. He wore a smirk as calculated as that impeccable bow tie from the other night.
“We’re not supposed to battle until tomorrow,” I said, wheezing. I set to work healing myself immediately, checking on my team through the links. Austin was unconscious, but Niamh was awake and mad as hell. Mr. Tom mirrored her sentiment. Cyra seemed patient and Hollace equally so; they were probably waiting for the others to join them. None of them seemed worried about me. But then, why would they be? They could feel me, a little dazed, a bit confused, but otherwise fine, at the end of the tunnel they were in.
Edgar seemed groggy, so he would be good in a bit. That vampire was incredibly hard to keep down for long. Nathanial was coming along too, but Ulric and Jasper and the basajaun were lights out like Austin. All of them had been on the same side of the line and had clearly gotten the brunt of the spell.
I breathed slowly, keeping calm. They were just unconscious. On my radar but without emotions. I didn’t know when I’d learned the difference between sleeping and dead, but I felt it with an assurance that I didn’t question.
That I wouldn’t question.
I sent some healing energy through the links to speed things along. I didn’t want to drain too much of my energy, since I’d likely have to fight my way out of this, but I needed to make sure everyone else was okay first.
“I don’t think we’re going to battle at all, are we?” He motioned at me.
Feet came into my vision. Something tugged at me from behind. A rope, like what was wrapped around my body.
“Clever,” I said through a grunt as the ropes jerked me to an upright position. “Can’t magic my way out of a rope.” I thought about that for a moment. “Or can I?”
Chambers crossed his arms over his chest, looking me over. Three other people were in the room, one who’d just stood me on my feet, and two others loitering by the far wall, probably security in case something happened.
“Where’s everyone else?” I asked.
“Handling your shifters. I told you to bring a few people, not your whole posse, but no matter—they are handled.”
It hadn’t been Elliot who’d sent me that note at all. It had been Chambers. Thank God, because a situation like this with Elliot would’ve been much harder to navigate, I was certain.
I huffed out a laugh. “You think a few mages can handle Austin Steele, a phoenix, a basajaun, an alpha gargoyle, a thunderbird— Stop me when you realize what a terrible idea that is.”
“That polar bear will get an offer he can’t refuse. They all will.”
“Austin can’t be bought.”
“Oh no? What if I guarantee his brother’s safety? Word on the street is, Momar is through with that meddling shifter trying to organize. It’s a big, strong pack, but with my help, he has a way to take them down. And he will.” A vicious grin spread across Chambers’s face. “If I help. I have some experience in those matters. I could just as easily choose not to, of course.”
“What do you get out of it?” I gave him a shallow smile. “Me, right?”
“Obviously. The others are blind to how Elliot Graves works. They think he is bringing a lamb to the slaughter. That he wants a bit of fun with you before he teaches you a lesson for making such a ridiculous show of yourself. But he wouldn’t give a plaything the largest suite of rooms. I have it on good authority that he spoiled you rotten with gifts, too. He gave you instructions on how to properly ward your rooms, since apparently you’re too…naive? Stupid? I’ll let you choose your own adjective. Regardless, he’s pampering you.”
“And you want to know why.”
“I know why, and it’s not the power, though I will admit you clearly have a lot of it. You don’t know how to use it, however, and we all know Elliot doesn’t take apprentices or partners, despite what he’s said. No, he wants those shifters, doesn’t he? He plans to organize them against Momar.” He shook his head. “I’ve never totally understood why Momar hates them so much. Hire some people and they aren’t hard to take down. But that bear you have is something else… That’s what Graves wants, isn’t it? The gorilla wasn’t a subtle hint. He’s calling me shortsighted for how I handled him. I will admit, it isn’t a bad idea to use the shifters against Momar. Too bad it won’t work.”
I’d never stared so hard in my life.
The gorilla wasn’t a subtle hint.
How I handled him…
“You killed Brochan’s mate and children. You killed children!”
His eyes narrowed. “I killed poachers and animals.”
Power boiled through and around me. “That doesn’t even make sense. Number one, you were on their land. You’re the poacher. Number two, poachers are people, animals are prey. You can’t call them both. Just call it what it was—slaughter. Despicable slaughter that will be your death sentence.”
He chuckled without humor. “And who will carry it out? You? Wrapped in rope with no use of your hands? Can’t even put up a simple ward spell or wash away those crow’s feet on your eyes? Sure. Or are you talking about the shifters? Because I’m all that stands between them and their annihilation.”
Finally Austin clicked back onto my radar, and a wave of dizziness rode the link. The other unconscious members of the crew woke up soon thereafter.
I breathed a sigh of relief and refocused on the issue at hand.
I could kill this disgusting mage right now. I didn’t need my hands—I’d learned some spells without them. I could kill every person in this room. I didn’t care that I would be stranded, tied up in ropes without even Cheryl to saw myself out.
But I wouldn’t.
Because Chambers wasn’t my fight. He was Broken Sue’s, and I wouldn’t take that from him.
I shook my head as Austin snapped to focus, and a deep, aching pain pumped through the link. Not a pain of the flesh, but a pain of the soul. He was reacting to the fear of what might happen to me—to the anguish of possibly losing me—and I could feel it overcome his whole person.
My heart throbbed and then overflowed, the pure, unchecked, incredibly raw emotion bringing tears to my eyes. If I’d needed proof of how much he cared for me, I had it.
“No need to cry. You won’t be hurt,” Chambers said, but I wasn’t paying him any attention.
Shock and alarm radiated from the links. Frustration. Anger. I wondered what was happening. Whatever it was, it was happening to everyone.
“So your plan is to trade me to Elliot for…favor?” I asked, passing the time. “For some sort of back-scratching thing?”
“Yes. There you go. Not so stupid, then?”
“And you will give Austin a hollow offer to keep him at bay until you can kill him, and then try to…what, play Elliot and Momar off each other or something?”
Chambers’s eyebrows pinched together. “A simplistic and juvenile grasp of the situation, but…you have the gist of it.”
Rage sparked in a few of the links, but none felt so tumultuous as Austin’s. From that alone, I knew he was being given the offer he supposedly couldn’t refuse.
Once upon a time, I might have worried he’d take it. It sounded good on paper. He would want to protect his family. I was just his girlfriend, after all.
Once upon a time, I’d been young, without any self-confidence. Without any power or strength of my own. Without the drive to insist I be given the things I deserved.
I wasn’t so young anymore. I might be naive when it came to magic, but I was no longer naïve about love.
And I did love Austin. I loved him with all my heart. I trusted him with everything that I was. He would come for me, just as I would fight for him. He wouldn’t take a ridiculous offer in the hopes it might be legit—he’d do battle, and once we were together again, we’d join forces to combat whatever came at his family.
No more holding back out of self-preservation. It was time to swing my leg over the saddle. It was time to accept what he already had—that we were meant to be bound together, body and soul.
First I needed to get out of this rope.
“You’re an idiot,” I said as Austin’s rage built, dark and twisted, a nightmare bubbling up from down deep. He would lose himself to his beast. This time, he wanted to. “Holy hell, you are an idiot. He’s pissed.”