Already, with the lust I’d thrown his way, his wrists were beginning to heal and the wounds in his chest were closing over. As soon as he pulled the iron from his wrists, he stood taller.
Every time I looked at him, I was struck by his beauty, the uniform sculpted to his body. Despite my fatigue and the filth covering my skin, I couldn’t stop staring at him, envisioning how his lips had felt against mine. And there it was—the twin souls, horror and lust. So close to death, my body craved life. And Roan was life.
As we walked down the torchlit hallway, I glanced at his muscled form, and I knew he was feeding from my body’s reaction to him. I could feel the magical bond between us, dampened for so long, starting to thrum with power. It gave me just enough strength to move, leaning into him as I walked.
As he propped me up, we walked past dozens of locked cell doors, finally reaching a stairway. I stared up at the door at the top of the stairs.
“The dungeons’ only entrance is through the guardroom,” Roan said. “There will be king’s guards waiting up there.”
“How many?” I asked.
He shook his head, body glowing with amber. “It doesn’t matter. They’ll all die.”
Quietly, we began climbing the stairs, and the sound of voices filtered through the door. A cold lick of fear snaked up my spine, my mind burning with the memory of my cell, the isolation so sharp it pierced my bones. My stomach tightened. I couldn’t go back there, to the damp and the rats, the dulling pen.
My body shook, and I froze, squeezing his arm. “I can’t,” I whispered.
Roan pulled me closer. “You don’t have to do anything. Just wait behind me.”
My heart slammed against my ribs. What would Abellio do to me this time once he learned I tried to escape?
Gently, Roan stroked my arm. “They’ll start wondering about the two men I killed in a few minutes. It has to be now. It will be okay. Trust me.”
I nodded mutely, and we climbed a few more stairs. Laughter carried into the stairwell from the other side of the door. The sound sank into my heart, and my mind raced, memories flooding my mind.
The four fae laughing around me as I struggled to breathe, a sack on my head.
I let out a gasp, frozen, paralyzed.
We could take her. Now. We could take turns.
I clenched my teeth, tears in my eyes, a bitter taste in my mouth.
Tell me you’re sorry for scratching me. Beg for my forgiveness.
My body tensed up, and I realized my nails were digging into Roan’s arm. But something changed, my fear now driven out by pure, icy rage.
My fight or flight response resolved in a sudden, enraged, Fight.
I burst through the door, finding eight of them around a card table, and they all froze as the door opened. A ginger guard reached for the sword when time slowed to a trickle.
Their fae fear unfolded before me, the tendrils of dark dread that flowed around the room like strands of silk in the wind.
White hot fury erupted in my mind. They’d tried to break me. They’d tried to break Roan. No one touches my man. I’d make them wish they’d never been born. I latched onto the threads, feeding on them, letting the power thrum through my body. Fae fear, human fear—it didn’t really matter. Not to me. I was the Mistress of Dread, and I’d come right out their worst nightmares.
Energy pulsing in me, I summoned all the fear in the room, drawing it into me, growing stronger. As a dark smile curled my lips, I transformed their fear into terror. Then, with a sharp arch of my back, I flung out my arms, slamming it back at them in streams of dark magic.
Eyes widened, fear exploding all over the room. I had paralyzed them with dread, and now I would rip their fucking hearts from their bodies.
Roan gripped my arm, fixing me with a hard gaze. His sword was already drawn, his hand shaking. In a golden blur, he rushed past me, his sword cutting into one fae after another. He grabbed a winged guard by the throat, slamming his head over and over into the wall until the man’s skull shattered.
As time accelerated, chaos erupted around me, a cacophony of roars and smashes, panicked screams. And one of them was a voice I recognized, a voice that would forever remain seared into the darkest parts of my brain.
The one with the gravelly voice. The one who’d said, “We could take turns.”
He crawled over the floor, scrambling for his sword and screaming, his voice tinged with hysteria. As he reached for the sword, I stepped down hard on his wrist, questing for his fear.
It was there, pulsing and strong. I drew it from him, the strands of terror that sang in my blood. Then I flung it back at him, his screams of horror a music to my ears. I flooded away his sanity with his worst nightmares. His eyes rolled back, and he slumped on the floor, pants stained with urine. Over and over, I lashed him with his fears, until his mouth simply opened in a silent scream. A mind dismantled, completely destroyed by dread.
My body shaking, I stepped back, heart hammering like a war drum. He gibbered incoherently on the floor, shivering. He would never recover.
I swiveled and looked at Roan, rage quaking my body. “I want Abellio!”
“Not now.” Roan’s eyes glinted with cold fire.
“Now!”
Real fear sparked in Roan’s eyes, but he was trying to master it. I’d struck him in the crossfire with my dread powers. “No. Get yourself under control, Cassandra.”
Slowing my breath, I surveyed the stone room. It looked like it had been hit by a hurricane of death.
“Now what?” I asked.
“Now we get the hell out of here.”
Before heading for the door, I scrambled over to one of the prone guards and pulled a ring of keys from his unconscious body.
Chapter 31
Outside the room, I jammed a key into the keyhole, locking the door behind us. I had no idea how much time we had until someone raised the alarm, but Roan had been right. We needed to move fast, and I’d just have to slaughter my darling brother later. I couldn’t handle the thought of being caught again, of being locked back in the dark cell, with the rats and the filth. Of my own mind betraying me.
As my pulse raced, I scanned the dark stone hall, searching for signs of movement, but I saw only the wavering of torchlight, dancing shadows over the flagstones.
I took a step forward, and Roan caught my arm. “Wait. I need to glamour you.”
I looked down at myself, newly repulsed by my appearance—the bony elbows protruding from my threadbare clothes, the layers of filth coating my clothes, my skin. I’d rather die than go back there. I tried to master my fear, nodding. “Right. Go ahead.”
Roan touched my cheek, and I flinched. Didn’t he know how wrong I’d become?
“Cassandra,” he said quietly.
“Just go ahead. Glamour me.”
His magic whispered over my skin, gentle strokes of tingling power, like a soft embrace. When I looked down at myself again, I saw the body of a guard, dressed in leather. He’d even given me a trim, ginger beard. Better than I looked before.
We took off, moving quietly through one hall after another—some darkened tunnels, some sunlit corridors with brightly embroidered tapestries lining the walls. As we moved through the fortress, my heart constricted, certain that at any moment the alarms would sound, and an army of guards would descend on us. If Abellio found out that I’d escaped, if he captured me again…
I tried to let my mind ice over, to cover the thoughts in ice. At least Roan seemed to know the way, and I simply kept up my pace with him.
And yet, even as my heart slammed against my ribs, no alarms sounded. The king’s fortress was designed to keep people out—not to keep anyone in. Its primary function had never been to serve as a prison. Once Roan glamoured the both of us as guards, no one looked twice at us. To anyone passing us, they’d simply see an enormous blond guard and his ginger-haired pal.
Somehow, that knowledge didn’t stop the rampant memories searing my brain—the feel of rat bones
against my fingers, the muffled voices outside the putrid bag on my head.
As we strode through the castle, the real issue turned out to be my pixie emotions.
“I am not powerful enough to mask your feelings,” Roan said through gritted teeth. We crossed into a white stone hall, the sunlight blazing from high, arched windows. “Get your feelings under control!”
I couldn’t control anything. The sunlight seemed blinding, completely overwhelming. One minute I felt exalted at the light and color; the next, it seemed to pierce my skull, my brain dulled by months of sensory deprivation.
Worse, I couldn’t seem to dull my fear. If we were caught, I’d be sent back to my cell, and Abellio would bring down his psychopathic torture gang. As soon as I thought of my half-brother, another emotion threatened to drown me: rage.
My ability to ice over my mind had been completely destroyed in that dank, black hole. My filters no longer worked, and the neurons in my amygdala blazed at full capacity.
I tried to move faster. I can’t let Abellio get his hands on me again. I can’t let them get Roan again.
“Where are we going?” I whispered to Roan.
“The main gate, through the courtyard,” he said under his breath.
Of course. Apart from the river under the castle, it was the only way out of the fortress. As we pushed through an oak door into the cobbled, sun-drenched courtyard, fear stole my breath. Blinding light gleamed off the stone walls surrounding us, piercing my eyes into my brain. This close to escape, I felt like something awful would happen at any moment, that I’d be back in the black hole, losing my mind…
I slowed my breathing, trying to master my fear as my eyes adjusted to the light outside. Focus, Cassandra.
At the far side of the courtyard, six guards flanked the arched gateway, each of them gripping spears. Two archers stood on the stony walls, arrows ready to shoot anyone acting suspiciously. Through the open gate, a steady stream of fae moved in and out. With the glamour shielding us, we could blend in—as long as my emotions didn’t betray me. Don’t think about the black hole. Don’t think about the darkness, the rats, the man with the gravelly voice.
I stared at the cobblestones, concentrating on the droplets of rain that shimmered over the stones. It must have rained recently, before the blazing sun had come out. Think of nothing but stones and rain. Gray, boring stones. Stones beneath my fingers, the wearing down of the pen, a creature scurrying over the floor…
Thud, thud, thud.
The sound of my own heart deafened me. Surely all the fae noticed it thundering over the courtyard, echoing off the cobblestones?
I took a tentative step, trying to act normal. Just focus on what you see, Cassandra. A quantitative analysis.
I scanned the fae milling in the courtyard. Three traders, a mother with her three children, so that’s a total of seven. Seven times seven is forty-nine. Forty-nine times seven… three hundred and something… add to that six guards and two archers who could catch us…
Just as I took another step, slowing my breathing, the sound of alarm bells pealed over the courtyard, echoing off the stones, off the interior of my skull.
I sucked in a sharp breath, dread climbing up my throat. We were so close.
The guards shifted their stances, forming a barrier in front of the gate, their pikes ready to impale anyone who stepped out of line. One of them slowly turned his face to look at me, and I could instantly tell that he felt my pixie fear, even with Roan trying to mask it. He had a rat-like appearance, with a long-thin face. “Nobody move!”
Rage began simmering in my blood. I knew that voice.
Drink up, bitch.
The man next to him shifted his stance. “Go get the captain. I think we have escaped prisoners here.”
Him, too. I knew that voice, too.
The mongrel’s leash. I could do that all day.
Molten lava erupted in my skull, burning away all other thoughts. But as we were trapped in here, maybe I could use my rage.
“Cassandra…” said Roan.
Slowly, they all began to aim their pikes on me.
“I’ve got this,” I whispered.
Around us, the crowds began to point and stare. My fury was attracting attention. It didn’t matter. I had the guards right where I wanted them now, and I wanted them to feel the terror I’d felt.
Time crawled slowly, thin tendrils of fear creeping closer through the air like silk from a spider’s web. Not much fear—yet. But it was enough. I took it. I arched my back, letting it flow into me. And when I’d pulled the fear into my chest, I churned their unease into foreboding, then simmered it into fear. At last, I turned up the heat, boiling it into full blown terror.
I spread my arms, flinging the terror at the guards, the men who’d tortured me, mocked me, and humiliated me. I brought them to their knees, eyes wide. The guard to my right clutched his heart, sliding to the ground, eyes wide, dead. A heart attack. The others fell to their knees, blubbering, whimpering. One of the archers on the wall fainted and toppled down. People around us screamed and shouted.
“Now,” said Roan.
With the guards incapacitated, we ran for the gate, my body still slowed by weakness. My muscles struggled as I tried to hurry, stumbling closer to the guards. Roan had drawn his sword, and from the corner of my eye, I caught the arc of blood, the flash of steel. He’d cut down the two guards blocking our path, and we pushed through the gate, my body aching.
Our feet pounded over the grass in a frantic attempt to escape. Ten feet from the gate, I heard the unmistakable twang of a bow string releasing. It went wide and missed us by inches, clanking on the ground. The wind picked up, shrieking around us. On the horizon, storm clouds darkened the sky, roiling like oil in a cauldron.
Roan ran behind me—probably trying to make sure I didn’t fall behind. Was he shielding me? Each footstep sent a sharp ache racing up my bones. I was slowing him down. I might be glamoured like a guard, but it was my own weakened body underneath the illusion.
More arrows rained around us, but the wind knocked them off their trajectory, shifting them to the right.
My breath grew ragged in my lungs, and I breathed in the dirt whirling through the air in the impending storm. Roan shifted from behind me. Now the wind gusted at my back, driving me onward with powerful gusts. My speed increased.
As we ran for the tree line, a hundred years away, lighting cracked the sky, touching down in the nearby forest. A few fat drops of rain fell from the clouds, and thunder rumbled the drops nearly horizontal as the wind blew them. But underneath the thunder was another sound—one like hooves pounding the earth.
“Horses!” I gasped, trying to shout above the gale. “They’re chasing us!”
Adrenaline ignited. They’ll take you back, to the black hole and the rats, the fetid sack over your head, the mongrel leash.
The storm clouds unleashed a heavy rain, and cold droplets hammered against my skin.
A powerful gust knocked me over, and I fell to my knees. As I scrambled to my feet, Roan scooped me up in his powerful arms. As soon as he did, the glamour faded from my body, and I looked like Cassandra again—Cassandra the filthy, the bony, eater of rats.
Roan broke into a sprint, clutching me tight to his chest.
“You’ll never outrun them like that!” I yelled. “Leave me here! Get out of here on your own!”
“I’m just getting away from the fortress. I don’t want to hurt any innocent fae.”
What the hell is he talking about?
The storm whipped at his hair—long now, and pale blond, snaking around his head in the wind. A flash of lightning gleamed off his antlers, his pointed ears. At that moment, as I stared up at him from his powerful arms, he looked like a vengeful storm god, about to cast his wrath around him. Roan Taranis, storm-kissed.
My teeth chattered as his speedy gait jostled my body. So close now, nearly at the forest line.
I craned my neck, peering over his shoulder. An icy tend
ril of fear coiled through me. Nine horsemen thundered toward us, a few hundred yards away, their enormous horses kicking up dirt and grass.
“They’re here,” I whispered.
Roan whirled, then gently lowered me to the wet grass. “No matter what, don’t move, Cassandra!”
He widened his stance, pulling his sword from his scabbard as the cavalry raced toward us, a hundred yards away now. Lighting ignited the sky, touching down just in front of the horsemen. Two horses reared on their hind legs, throwing off their riders. The panicked horses bolted.
Lighting struck again, searing the earth just by the horsemen.
I suddenly realized that I could hardly feel the wind, though all around us branches, dirt and rocks spun into the air, hitting the riders and their frightened horses. We were standing exactly in the eye of the storm.
Was this why Roan had told me not to move?
A powerful bolt struck a horseman, and he and his mount tumbled to the ground, the air filling with the scent of burning flesh. The thunderclap that followed boomed in my eardrums, and I clamped my hands over my ears.
All around us, lighting struck again and again, the world a chaotic maelstrom of fire and rain, until, at last, no riders remained
Slowly, the storm around us abated, the wind dying down.
Roan fell to his knees, spent.
I knelt down, pulling at his arm. “We need to go.”
“Give me a moment, Cass. I need to rest,” he mumbled.
He had never called me Cass. No one did, except for Scarlett.
“Look!” I pointed. Twenty yards from us stood a riderless horse. “We can use that.”
That made Roan rise to his feet, moving toward the horse as I followed close behind. The black horse didn’t budge, eyeing Roan warily.
When we reached it, Roan carefully grabbed for its harness, uttering soothing words in a language I didn’t understand. When the horse’s breathing had slowed, Roan turned and reached for me, lifting me onto the horse.
Agent of Darkness (Dark Fae FBI Book 3) Page 24