by Tessa Cole
I pushed open the metal door and strode outside into humid evening air. Ahead stretched the wide, empty roof.
My pulse picked up.
Maybe she was on the other side of the stairwell.
“Amiah?” I called, heading around the other side.
She wasn’t there, either.
I wrenched around, scanning the rooftop as if I’d somehow missed her. She had to be here. She couldn’t be gone. Gone meant she was suffocating to death somewhere.
Titus groaned, clutched his chest, and sagged to his knees.
Panic seized my heart. If she was far enough away for Titus to feel the effects of the leash spell, she was in dire need. I had to save her. I couldn’t fail her too.
I grabbed Bane’s arm, not caring that fire raced over my hand and up my forearm. “Find her.”
“Shit.” He wrenched free of my grip, his fae glow undulating around him. “It’d be easier to concentrate if you weren’t burning—” His attention locked on the rooftop a few feet away and his eyes widened. “Oh, fuck.”
“What is that?” Hawk asked as he crouched in front of a shiny pebble. “It just lit up like the sun.”
Titus’s attention jumped to the pebble. All the blood drained from his face and a wild fury filled his eyes. “He has her.”
“Who has her?” I demanded.
“Balwyrdan,” Titus snarled. “We have to find her.”
“We have to be smart about this,” Bane said, crouching in front of the pebble.
“If Titus is feeling the effects of the leash spell, she’s suffocating,” I snapped. Suffering. Dying. How long had she been gone? How long would she last without air?
We had to find her. Now.
Fire dripped from my hands, snapping and hissing around my feet. “There’s no time to think this through.”
“Balwyrdan is enough of a sorcerer to hijack the leash spell to force Titus to come to him. If she dies, he loses his connection to Titus.” The muscles in Bane’s jaw flexed. “No, he’ll keep her alive until he gets what he wants.”
“That’s not better,” Titus said, his tone dark.
I didn’t like the sound of that. “He can compel Titus to come to him?”
“It’s not like a compulsion spell,” Bane said.
Titus groaned again, his expression tight with pain.
Bane jerked his chin at the pebble. “Touch the charm, Hawk.”
Hawk tapped it with his finger. A burst of white light flared from the pebble and a life-sized flickering image of Amiah appeared on the roof.
She lay on her side, curled in a ball. Her hair veiled her face and she gasped deep ragged breaths. Dirt stained her dress, and from the angle of her arms, it looked like they were tied behind her back.
Relief whispered in my chest. She was alive. She had to be terrified — this was too similar to the nightmare I’d rescued her from all those years ago — but she was still alive. I could still save her.
I strained to see anything in the background that might tell me where she was, but everything except for her was out of focus and dark.
Someone chuckled, the sound dark and masculine, and a hand reached into the line of sight of the spell. He seized a fistful of her hair and yanked her head up and back, lifting her to her knees and straining her neck. She bit back a cry of pain and her hair fell away, revealing blood oozing from a broken nose and a right eye that was starting to swell shut.
My stomach bottomed out, and I jerked forward a step even though I knew I couldn’t reach her through the spell. This was so much worse than before. That human had hit her, but that had been nothing compared to this, and whoever had kidnapped her now had only had her at most for a couple of hours.
The man from Left of Lincoln who looked to have been in charge of the spring fae stepped fully into sight.
“Balwyrdan,” Titus snarled.
“Do you think the beast has found my little note?” Balwyrdan asked, his eyes bright with sadistic pleasure. “We should probably give him more incentive to find it, just in case he hasn’t.”
He flicked his finger and Amiah’s body went rigid. Her mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water, gasping for air that no longer existed, her good eye widened with pain and fear, and her face turned red.
Titus collapsed forward onto his hands. His claws extended and dug into the roof, and his eyes squeezed tight with pain.
Balwyrdan flicked his finger again and Amiah gasped in a desperate breath, but he didn’t give her time to recover and smashed her across the face with the back of his hand.
“Jesus,” Hawk hissed, as she toppled over with a strangled cry.
“You can do better than that,” the man said. He grabbed the front of her dress and wrenched her up, his other hand cocked back to strike her again, but the catch on her neck strap broke. She collapsed back to the floor, leaving the man holding the front of her dress and exposing her breasts. Her head hit the ground and lolled to the side, her face fully in the sight of the spell. Blood now oozed from a cut in her lip as well as from her nose and her eyes were unfocused.
With a huff, the man flicked his finger again and she went rigid.
Titus groaned, and I turned my back on the nightmare projected on the rooftop. My fire seared my insides and raced up my arms past my elbows, snapping and hissing and threatening to pull free of what little control I had and ignite my clothing. “Turn it off.”
The sound of Amiah’s gasps and sobs vanished, but continued to echo in my head, and I couldn’t get the image of her beaten face or her ripped dress out of my mind’s eye.
I had to go to her right now. Protect her. Except if I was going to save her, I needed to get my emotions and my fire under control. I knew next to nothing about this man or where he was or how many men he had. Rushing in without a plan would get her killed.
“Where is she?” Titus growled as he lunged forward to grab the pebble, but Bane snatched it up before he could get it.
“Don’t tell him, Hawk.” Bane jerked away from Titus, but the dragon seized his throat and yanked him forward.
“Give me the charm,” he snarled. “I’m getting her away from that monster.”
“Not until you’ve calmed down,” Bane gasped, clutching Titus’s wrist but not fighting back.
“He won’t stop.” Titus’s pupils slitted and his body shook. “Seireadan, you know him. Suffocating her is for me, but the beating is for him. He’s going to beat her to an inch of her life until he gets bored and then he’s going to give her to his men.”
Bane’s expression turned icy. “But he won’t kill her.”
“Fuck man, that’s cold,” Hawk said.
“But right.” I heaved my fire back under my skin, clenching it so tightly it felt like my blood was boiling. “What do we know about this guy?”
“He’s a nasty piece of work,” Titus snarled.
“No shit,” Hawk replied. “We’ve already figured that one out.”
“Bane?” I asked, giving Titus a hard look until he let the fae go. “Tell me everything you know.” I was going to get Amiah back. Whatever it took. Even if that meant breaking every rule or burning down the world to do it. I would not fail her like I’d failed my brother.
Chapter 21
Titus
It took everything I had not to gut Seireadan with my claws and take the charm. Every instinct I had screamed at me to protect Amiah, comfort her, avenge her. I needed to hold her small fragile body and steady her soul, and once I had her, I wasn’t ever letting go. She should never have had to experience the terror of captivity again let alone be beaten like that, and just knowing that even when Balwyrdan got bored with her, she was going to face the same torture and worse at the hands of his men, made me furious. I was going to tear that bastard to pieces and let her eat his heart—
Except she wasn’t a dragon. She probably wouldn’t want to eat his heart.
And she wasn’t mine to hold on to.
She was Seireadan’s. I don’t know
why he’d denied it this morning. Her scent was all over him along with the taunting smell of sex — recent sex — which made my beast furious and my cock hard. Of course, Hawk smelled of her arousal, too, although not nearly as much as Seireadan, and that made my beast even more angry. She was Seireadan’s and the incubus needed to keep his hands to himself.
I bit back a roar. They both needed to keep their hands to themselves. She was going to be mine and I would fight Seireadan and Hawk and Cassius and anyone else to keep and protect her.
Mine.
The roar escaped, a low, dangerous rumble in my chest that drew everyone’s attention.
Fuck.
Not mine.
Not fucking mine. Why the hell couldn’t I convince my beast of that? I didn’t want her. I. Did. Not. Want. Her. I just wanted a female. Any female.
“Balwyrdan had at least two dozen men at Lincoln. He’ll already have replaced the ones we injured or killed and added more,” Seireadan said. “It looks like he still prefers hired thugs in an attempt to hide his court affiliation, so I suspect his new men are the same.”
The weight of the leash spell slammed into my chest, stealing my breath and making the world tilt. I released a half groan half roar and dug my claws into the roof again to stay put. As much as I wanted to give in to my beast and stop Amiah’s suffering, Seireadan was right. We had to be smart about this. I might not care if I died trying to save her, but rushing in could get her killed and that was unacceptable.
“Okay,” Cassius said, smoke whirling around him, his eyes filled with the same burning rage I felt. “Tell me her location and a safe place to break the leash spell. Your apartment is compromised and we’re not returning here once I get her back.”
“Once we get her back,” Seireadan corrected with an icy fury I’d never seen from him before, proving she really was his… and not mine.
“And is there a safe place to hole up?” Hawk asked, his expression grim. “We’ve all got concealment charms and there’s another concealment spell on your apartment. The spells are good too. I can barely sense them or the glamour on Titus and only because I know to look for it. How did they find us?”
“Are any of us tagged?” Seireadan asked Hawk, who closed his eyes and drew in a slow breath.
“Not that I can tell,” the incubus said after a moment.
“You’re the most sensitive Sensitive I’d ever come across. Which means we aren’t tagged. Someone has betrayed me, and that’s a very short list.” Seireadan ran a hand through his hair, the muscles in his arm bunching with the movement drawing my attention to the black glyphs swirling over his body. I wondered if they were a part of the glamour hiding his identity or real. Had he had all those spells inked onto his body? And why?
“If that’s the case, then we find an abandoned building and regroup there.” A flame flickered around Cassius’s hands then vanished with a gust of smoke. “Hawk. I know you’re still stuck in this mess, but I don’t expect you to risk your life for Amiah. How about you meet us at the corner of Tyndal and Maingate. That whole neighborhood is abandoned but not completely rubble. Titus, you should go with him.”
“Not happening,” I growled, as the weight crushed my chest again, stealing my breath and making me groan in pain.
“You’re compromised. The moment Balwyrdan sees you, he’ll suffocate Amiah and you’ll go down. At best, you’ll be useless in this fight. At worst a liability.” Cassius turned to Seireadan. “Bane—”
“I’m going,” I said cutting him off, “and I’m tearing that bastard to pieces.”
I stood, fighting the pressure of the leash spell, and let my canines and claws extend in full to show Cassius how serious I was. I didn’t want to, but I’d go through him to protect what was mine. And while a part of me knew he was right, that I endangered Amiah’s rescue, my beast didn’t care. Just like it didn’t care that she was Seireadan’s.
Cassius squared his shoulders and met my gaze without flinching. From the look in his eyes, he was well aware he was challenging me for dominance and that only made my beast’s fury stronger. “You’ll get her killed.”
“Seireadan already said Balwyrdan won’t kill her until he has me,” I said. “I’m glamoured. He can’t recognize me.”
“He’ll know it’s you the moment he activates the leash spell and you drop to your knees,” Cassius shot back. “You’re going with Hawk.”
“Except Hawk is going with you, sparky,” Hawk said. “You’re going to need all the help you can get.”
“I can manage just fine.” Cassius’s flames reignited around his hands. “Someone needs to show Titus where we’re meeting since we can’t come back here and he doesn’t know the city.”
“I’m going,” I insisted, releasing just enough of my beast to gain more height on him and widen my chest and shoulders. If I hadn’t been glamoured, my red-gold scales would have covered my neck and hands as well.
Cassius stood his ground and molten flames dripped from his hands, setting the roof on fire around his feet. “You’re not.”
“I am.” I grew another foot up and across, grateful for the elastic waistband on the jogging pants. A partial shift wouldn’t disintegrate my clothes like a full shift would, but I could still rip them.
“For fuck’s sake.” Seireadan touched a tattoo on his chest. It flared to life and ice swept through the flames around Cassius extinguishing them. “I’ll free Titus from his half of the spell so he’s not a liability and I’ll break Amiah’s half when we get her back.”
“It’ll be harder to free them one at a time.” Hawk frowned. “And won’t Balwyrdan and the original spellcaster feel it and be able to find our location when you free Titus?”
“Not if I move the spell from Titus to the resonance charm instead of breaking it.” Seireadan stood and headed to the stairs.
Hawk grabbed his arm, stopping him. “Except you’re the foundation of the charm. That’ll just move Titus’s half of the spell to you.”
“But at least it won’t blow his glamour. We can’t risk any survivors knowing what Titus looks like,” Seireadan said. “The Spring Court isn’t the only court after him.”
“There won’t be survivors,” I growled.
“We still shouldn’t risk your glamour being blown,” Cassius replied, pulling the rest of his fire back under his skin, “and we’ll give them a chance to run first. If they’re just hired thugs they’re not responsible for Balwyrdan’s actions.”
“Speak for yourself,” I shot back. They were involved, they clearly hadn’t done anything to stop Balwyrdan. They were just as guilty.
The muscles in Cassius’s jaw flexed, but he turned to Hawk and didn’t argue with me. “Hawk, you know where she is?”
Hawk gave a tight nod.
“Okay. Bane, move the spell, everyone finish getting dressed, and pack a small bag.” Cassius headed to the stairs and the other guys followed as the leash spell slammed into my chest again. “We don’t have time to waste and I want to scout the area first before we make our move.”
Which was the smartest choice. But neither I nor my beast wanted to wait and it was getting difficult to rein him in. It wanted blood and I was going to let him have it.
Chapter 22
Amiah
The dimly lit abandoned reception hall spun around me, and tears I’d desperately tried to hold back rolled down my cheeks. Terror squeezed around my heart, and even when there was air to breathe, I still couldn’t catch my breath.
I’d been taken.
Again.
And this man — his men had called him Balwyrdan — was a hundred times worse than the human who’d taken me all those years ago. He didn’t care what I looked like. He wasn’t trying to sell my services to an unsuspecting public.
Balwyrdan’s fist smashed into my cheek with a sickening crunch, fracturing the bone. Agony exploded in my face and stars shot through my vision. My other cheek hit the dusty floor, and I prayed for unconsciousness. But I already knew Balwyrd
an had experience beating someone like this. It had been clear after his first few blows that he knew just how much force to use to take me to the edge of oblivion but never over.
I tried to shut my mind away from my body, curl my consciousness into a tiny trembling ball deep in the core of my soul and ride it out until Cassius came for me — please, God, come for me. But my concentration broke every time Balwyrdan activated the leash spell and my desperate need for air wrenched me back to the agony again and again.
Oh, God. Stop. Please stop.
I’d wanted to be strong, had glared at him defiantly at the beginning, but that had only excited him more.
Except I couldn’t bring myself to be meek and obedient in the hopes it would stop the torture. Not again. Never again. That hadn’t worked for the human, and even if it would work for Balwyrdan, I couldn’t make myself do it. Not even to survive. I didn’t want to be weak any more. I swore I never would be… except I was. I always would be—
No. I would survive this. I might not be able to fight, but I could still run… so long as he didn’t break my legs. I wasn’t going to sit around being helpless, waiting for Cassius to show up. One wrong hit and my broken ribs could puncture my heart or lungs. And given that I still had low reserves from healing the guys this afternoon, I didn’t know if I had enough power to save myself from an injury like that because it took so much more to turn my power inward.
I couldn’t wait. I needed to search for an opportunity, any opportunity, to make my escape. I just needed to hold out until then.
He seized my hair and wrenched me up. The fear of another blow made my ragged breaths stall and all thoughts of biding my time, waiting for a chance to escape, evaporated.
“Sir,” one of the shifters on the other side of the room called out.
“What!” Balwyrdan’s attention jerked to the man who’d spoken.
The man nodded at the open doorway, and Balwyrdan tossed me to the floor, my head hitting the legs of the large stacked tables behind me.