“No one is going anywhere without anyone.” Ty’s authoritative tone shut down any suggestion to the contrary. “Just hang on.”
“Yeah, Tyler, whatever you’re going to do…you might want to get a move on.” The sound of metal scraping against a scabbard followed Julian’s words. “Something’s coming this way. My guess, it isn’t friendly.”
Wet gurgles and snarls echoed toward us, growing louder with each passing second. My heart pounded in my ribcage, the sound of my own pulse almost drowning out the unseen commotion up ahead. “Ty, please tell me this is another illusion.”
“Goblins,” he replied. “Not an illusion.”
Son of a bitch.
Asher let out a growl of frustration. “That’s it. I’m going over.”
Asher’s agitation mirrored my own. The last thing I wanted was to be trapped and useless during a fight. I hadn’t considered climbing over Liam, and until we could get the metal spike out of his chest, our only option was to make a stand and defend ourselves.
“Right behind you.” There was no way for me to disengage from the spikes as quickly, especially with one of them so close to my face. “Don’t move, Liam, we’ll be right back.”
“Hilarious,” he grunted. “Try not to get killed.”
“I’ll do that.”
Getting myself out of this mess was going to take patience that I didn’t have time for. A fight was coming our way and every available body needed to be front and center. The back of my head scraped on the rock wall behind me as I eased to my left. The spike positioned over my right eyeball slid into the periphery of my vision and I sucked in a breath in an effort to make myself as small as possible. The sharp tip caught on the delicate skin at the corner of my eye and I winced. A trickle of warmth slid down my cheek before the wound began to heel. I let out my breath in slow degrees as I continued to sidle sideways until I came to a spot where I had enough clearance to begin to climb the spikes and get myself out of there.
I felt a lot like that little round disk making its way down the Plink-O board on the Price is Right. I had a good twenty-five feet of the metal spikes to navigate and they were packed so close together that it was slow going to get to the other side. The sounds of growls and sick wet gurgles grew louder and with it, the bloodlust that pulsed like a heartbeat in the daggers at my side. I almost feared using them more than I feared the goblins I was about to kill. I’d be damned if I didn’t put them to use now, though. When they could actually do us some good.
By the time I made it out of the forest of spikes, the goblins had launched their attack. I ripped the daggers free of their scabbards and I swore the damned things sang their approval as I entered the fray.
The longer they went without use, the hungrier for blood the daggers became. My right arm swung out as though I had no control over the action and I realized that the daggers weren’t just hungry, they were famished. “To your left!”
Asher dropped from the spike he’d been hanging from as a heavy steel ball came crashing toward him. It bounced off of the spike and drilled Ash in the center of his back, sending him sprawling to the ground. Julian’s flashlight lay in the dirt a few feet away, discarded in the fight. Darkness permeated my senses, thick and impenetrable despite my supernatural eyesight. We might as well have been fighting blind. There was no way of knowing if the body I swung out at belonged to one of the goblins or one of my friends.
The daggers sure as shit didn’t care.
A fetid stench choked the air from my lungs. I gaged on the earthy rot but pressed forward, parrying a flash of metal that cut toward my face as I stabbed low and to the side with my right hand. The blade sliced through leathery, unyielding flesh. I had to put all of my weight behind the action before the skin gave way and the dagger sunk to the hilt. Gross. Warm, slimy blood gushed over my hand and my stomach lurched. The goblin bellowed in pain and the cave walls vibrated as bits of rocks and dirt showered down on us.
“I can’t see for shit!” Myles’s breath labored with each word. “Louella, guard your flank!”
I was too busy trying to save my own skin to worry about the rest of the team. They were all capable, seasoned fighters and I had to trust that they could take care of themselves. The daggers had gotten a taste of goblin blood and they vibrated in my palms, eager for more. I didn’t need my eyes to guide me in this fight. The blades clenched in my fists guided my hands where they needed to go.
Another forceful stab and a long slice of the dagger dropped the goblin at my feet. One down…who knew how many to go. Cold magic snaked around my thumb as it wound a path up my wrist and arm. “Tyler?” The unknown element of my ring and my inability to control it filled me with panic. Was it a sign that Ty was in trouble? “Ty! God damn it, answer me!”
A shock of energy barreled down the tunnel with the force of an explosion. Bodies scattered, leaves tossed in the wake of a storm. Brilliant white light flashed and the outlines of at least twenty goblins cast garish shadows on the cave walls before their squat bodies turned to ash. The stench stalled my breath and the burn of residual magic scorched a path down my throat.
My eyes met Tyler’s for the barest of moments. His expression was grave and the chilly air fogged with his breath. Darkness returned to swallow the light and I was once again submerged in an almost sensory deprivation. I didn’t know what I was more afraid of: the horrors of Padma’s dungeon, or the man whose power continued to shock me.
CHAPTER NINE
“Is everyone okay?” A million other questions formed in my mind, questions that I didn’t have time—and was afraid—to ask. Metal scraped against stone as the spikes retracted and Liam gave a loud and painful shout. At least one member of my team was accounted for.
“I’m okay.” Louella sounded out of breath, but otherwise all right.
“Me too.” Julian’s voice came from my right.
“Yeah.” And Myles to my left.
“Ash?” My voice hitched with worry and I swallowed the emotion down. “Asher?”
“Seriously fucking cool,” he finally responded with his trademark cavalier snark. “Hey, Ty? How ‘bout a repeat?”
We were answered by silence and that worry that I’d pushed away made an unwelcome reappearance. “Tyler?” I couldn’t get the word out forcefully enough for more than a whisper. “Goddamn it, Ty. Answer me.”
“Fine.” The ten or so seconds it took him to answer damned near killed me. “I’m fine. I just need a minute.”
Holy shit. My heart pounded against my chest with enough force to break right through my ribs. Adrenaline rushed through my veins, causing my legs to shake and my knees to go weak. It was the kind of fear that was tough to rebound from. Crippling. Devastating. In the span of seconds, my entire world had shattered and reformed itself.
Icy cold snaked up my arm and I shuddered. Through the darkness, I felt my way to where I thought I’d seen him before the flash of magic burned out. The rest of the team was busy seeing to Liam. I couldn’t help him. I couldn’t help anyone. This had been my bright idea and I didn’t have the power necessary to protect us. If Tyler hadn’t done…whatever the hell he’d done…we’d all be dead right now.
If I ever laid eyes on Padma again, I swore I’d make her pay for all of it.
I sensed his energy before I was close enough to lay my hands on him. I reached out and he took my hand, pulling me tight against his chest, only it wasn’t to offer me comfort. He slumped against me and I braced one leg behind me as I balanced his weight. “Jesus, Tyler. Are you okay? How in the hell did you do that?”
“Later.”
“You and Liam should go back. The rest of us can go on and—”
“Darian. I said I was fine.” His tone brooked no argument. “If you think I’m letting you take another step without me, you’re crazier than I thought you were. I need a minute or two. To gather my energy. In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m a little tapped out.”
Yeah, no shit. For being in a place where magic was n
ull, Tyler had done a pretty damned good job of using his. Jesus.
“How much farther?”
His voice dropped to almost a whisper. “Your guess is as good as mine.”
I pulled the pendulum from my pocket and held it out in front of me. The crystal was no longer dark, but glowed with a pinpoint white light in its center that barely illuminated Ty’s face. We stared at one another for a moment that lasted at least a year. “Ty,” I knew this wasn’t the time but I couldn’t help it. “You have to come clean with me. I’m going fucking crazy worrying about you.”
“Now you know how I feel.” His teasing words did nothing to assuage mine. “We’ll talk. After we get Xander out of here. We need to keep moving.”
Thanks to whatever mojo Padma was working down in the tunnels, Liam wasn’t healing as quickly as he should have. Luckily the puncture wound wasn’t too deep because he refused to turn around and head back to ground level. Louella managed to patch him up with supplies she’d stowed in her pack. At least we’d been able to stop the bleeding. I doubted he’d be fully healed until we returned to the surface.
Julian’s flashlight only illuminated a foot or so of the path but it was enough to keep us moving forward. Another half mile or so later, we came to a halt where the tunnels forked off in a Y and I dug out the pendulum to keep us on track. As leery as I was of human magick, I was damn glad Levi had thought to call Pamela in to help us. God knew how long we would’ve wandered the underground tunnels otherwise.
The pendulum dimmed as I held it aloft to my left. I switched hands and the faint pinpoint of light returned to the crystal’s center. I stuffed it back in my pocket. “Looks like we’re headed this way.”
I started off but Tyler grabbed onto my arm and tucked me behind him. “Do not leave my side,” he warned. “It’s going to get dicey from here on out.”
Seriously? What could be dicier than booby traps, illusions, and bloodthirsty goblins? Then again, I’d met the head bitch in charge. She was worse than all of those horrors put together. “We all need to stay on our toes,” I said to the group at large. “We already know what we’re up against, but it’s going to get worse.”
“How much worse?” Louella asked.
I waited for Tyler to supply the answer to that one.
“Goblins are a piece of cake in comparison to the Rakshasa,” Tyler said. “Goblins will simply kill you. If a ghoul gets their hands on you…”
I shuddered at the memories of what Padma had done to me. Panic welled hot and thick in my chest and I breathed through the anxiety that numbed my limbs and caused my heart to pound in my chest.
“What?” Louella asked with the slightest hitch of trepidation.
“They thrive on fear,” I said. There was no use in sugarcoating it. Every one of them needed to know what we were up against. “It gives them power. They drink the blood of their victims and they eat living flesh.”
“Darian.” Asher’s voice broke the ensuing silence.
“Not now.” I wasn’t about to go into detail about what I’d gone through in these very caverns. “Just don’t let one of them get their hands on you.”
“Got it,” Julian said quietly. “I think it’s a good idea to close ranks.”
“Agreed.” From here on out, we’d need to watch each other’s backs.
“Don’t trust what you see or hear,” Tyler added. “The wave that crashed over us was nothing in comparison to the illusions they can conjure.”
“How in the hell are we going to know what’s real or not?” Myles asked.
I thought back to when Ty showed up to take me home. The way his homey scent and the chill of his magic couldn’t be replicated. “The illusions are empty representations of reality,” I replied. “Your eyes and ears can be tricked. But your other senses can’t. Scents, sensations…that’s what you have to pay attention to. Don’t fall down the rabbit hole. Your mind has to be sharp. Don’t fall for the tricks.”
“Easier said than done,” Liam muttered.
I knew that better than anyone. But I’d been alone in Padma’s dungeon. “We have each other,” I said. “And we’ll get through it together.”
I spoke the words with confidence I didn’t feel. Only Asher remained silent during my pep talk and I looked through the darkness in hopes of getting a glimpse of him. I had his back. I had all of their backs. And Ty would get us through this. I knew it like I knew my own heart. There wasn’t anything in this world or any other that he couldn’t do.
“All right then,” Julian said. “Let’s get a move on.”
“Ready, Ty?”
He took my hand in his and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “Ready.”
“I want bodies touching,” I said. “Everyone accounted for. Ash?”
“Yeah.” His tone vibrated with tension.
“You ready?”
“Yeah.”
He wasn’t ready. But he didn’t have a choice. I’d meant what I said. We’d get through this together. He wouldn’t have to go it alone. “Okay, time to move out.”
Ty let go of my hand but he kept his body close to mine as we continued down the dark corridor of the labyrinth. The air thickened and sweat trickled down the back of my neck and into my shirt despite the chill that permeated my clothes. Every step forward took a concentrated effort as every instinct in my body urged me to turn around and run back the way I’d come.
Quiet descended on our group, the only sound that of our footfalls on the solid ground beneath us. My mind raced with questions, so many things I wanted to ask Tyler in the hopes that he’d finally open up to me. The words he’d asked me to speak aloud in my studio—Sia’i, rolqir al Nys’Asdar—echoed in my mind and cold power flared from my ring. What in the hell had those words meant? What sort of magic had they awoken? And what inescapable consequences had speaking them triggered?
“You’re going to fail, you know.”
The darkness melted away in an instant and I stood face-to-face with Azriel. Tyler and the rest of the team vanished and I spun in a circle to find myself enclosed by four stone walls. Don’t fall for it, Darian. This isn’t real.
“You should have drown yourself in that bathtub all of those years ago,” Azriel replied in his cool, silky tone. “It would have saved us both a world of trouble.”
I’d never told him that mere nights before we’d met, I’d thought about drowning myself in order to escape Henry’s abuse. But my husband had barged into the bathroom and yanked me from the tub before I could do anything quite so foolish. The illusions conjured by the Rakshasa used my own painful past to get under my skin, but they never did get the details quite right. That’s not to say they didn’t affect me, though.
Could I walk out of an illusion? Any step I took could lead me in the wrong direction which might’ve been the illusion’s intent all along.
“You’re giving her exactly what she wants. The both of you in the same place. She won’t make another bargain, Darian. If you go back, you won’t ever leave.”
“Why don’t you shut the fuck up, Az?” I’d sworn not to engage, but it was too easy to fall victim to the false reality. “I wouldn’t be in this mess if you’d just left me alone to begin with.”
My name carried to my ears on a long drawn out whisper. Azriel’s dark gaze held mine as I tried to turn toward the sound that seemed to surround me.
“Stay with me.” The coldness in his eyes gave way to longing and his lips curved in a sensual smile. “We can be together here. We’re the same, Darian. We’re meant to be together.”
If that was the truth, not Xander, his own ambitions, or the entire supernatural world would have kept him from me. Instead, he’d left me. “You’re a liar, Azriel. You’ve always been a liar.”
“Daarriiaan!”
Again the whispered voice intruded into my consciousness. I broke the hold of Azriel’s gaze and looked over both of my shoulders. “Tyler?” A ghost of sensation danced along my left arm as though invisible fingers gripped me tight. I
leaned in to the contact and let out a sigh at the reassurance I felt. “I got out of here once, Azriel. I’ll get out again.”
“Who says you ever left?” The kernel of doubt planted by his words rippled through me in a wave of fear. I swallowed against the lump that rose to my throat and willed myself to calm the hell down.
“No.” I refused to believe it. I’d smelled Ty’s scent when he came to get me. Felt the icy chill of his magic. It pulsed from my ring now to remind me of its presence. “You’re not real,” I said with finality. “Now leave me the hell alone.”
A surge of power shot up my arm and I gasped as though emerging to the surface of frigid water. Darkness permeated my vision and I coughed as I tried to fill my lungs with air. Power vibrated through me and I shook out my hand, desperate to banish the sensation and at the same time grateful for the clarity it provided me.
“Get it the hell off of me!” I said through pants of breath. I pulled at the ring but it wouldn’t budge. I couldn’t control the power, had no idea what it even was.
“Darian.” Tyler spoke low in my ear, his words meant for me alone.
“No!” I shook the remaining cobwebs from my mind as I gave the ring another tug. “It’s too much, Tyler. I don’t know how to handle it.”
“You have to calm down.” The urgency in his tone caused me to still. “Breathe through it and let the magic work.” I took several slow breaths and Ty relaxed beside me. “That’s it. Don’t panic. Don’t fight it. It’s the bond,” he explained. “That’s all. Settle into it.”
That wasn’t all. But now wasn’t the time or place to get into it.
“I need you solid, Darian. Because shit’s falling apart.”
My mind further cleared and though I couldn’t see more than a few inches in front of my own face, I heard the chaos around me. Tyler was right: shit was falling apart and I had no idea in hell how to get us out of this.
CHAPTER TEN
I wasn’t the only one who’d succumbed to the illusions. Ty seemed to be alone in his ability to withstand the invasive Rakshasa magic. He kept it together amid the disoriented conversations the other members of my team held with themselves and the visions implanted in their minds. Concern for Asher was foremost in my thoughts as I reached out and steadied myself on Tyler’s strong frame. “How in hell are we going to help them?”
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