A flash of Jenna and that dot on her temple flickered through my mind, and I shuddered.
Sleep wasn’t happening.
“Thierry?”
I leaned my head against the rock beside me, placing my ear closest to her voice, the only comfort to be had in this cold, hard place. “Yes?”
“I hate that you’re here—” a yawn interrupted her, “—but I’m glad that you are.”
“We’re going to get out of here.” My voice wavered.
“No,” she said sadly. “We won’t. You’ll lose your wits faster if you believe that.”
Far be it from me to judge her coping mechanism, but acceptance wasn’t my style.
“Rest,” I urged. “You sound like you need it. We’ll talk later.”
A low hum was her answer, leaving me alone to chew over the problem of our escape.
The guards’ defection stung my pride. My first line of defense was on the fritz, and my second had gone dark side on me. The three of us hadn’t been friends, but we had been friendly. There at the end, I had trusted them.
Shaw was my third and best hope of ever seeing the light of day again. I could summon Diode, but that was risky. If he appeared in my cell, he would crush me. Not to mention he couldn’t teleport. Summoning magic didn’t work that way. All I would accomplish by calling him would be to trap him in the cell with me.
That put me right back to option number three. Shaw. Magic was, of course, my primary defense, but my palm wasn’t sparking. Either the cells were spelled or the drink was spiked, so no help there.
After a while, my thoughts lagged, and closing my eyes seemed like a good way to help me think.
Thanks to the tender spots dappling my thighs, I knew I had been a prisoner for several days. I woke Branwen screaming the first time a frigid needle pierced my skin and pumped me full of stinging fluids. Now I just winced and endured.
The substance Jenna had force fed me in Linen’s study? Turned out it was some nutrient cocktail injected into the prisoners daily at chow time.
The combination of boredom, hunger and fear conspired against me. Exhaustion was winning. I hadn’t felt any pangs until I began to wonder why I wasn’t feeling them. Now that gnawing pain—and my upcoming injection—was all I could think about. Branwen’s light snores meant I was alone in my misery.
When a deep throat cleared next to my ear, I shot upright with a shout.
“Marshal Thackeray,” a disdainful voice ricocheted off the walls. “You are a difficult woman to pin down.”
“Are you serious?” I asked no one in particular. “This faux-British accent is the best my imagination can come up with? If I’m going to hallucinate, can’t it be in style? Doesn’t Tom Hiddleston do voice work?”
“I am not imaginary.”
Unimpressed, I fought back using the power of logic. “That’s exactly what an imaginary man would say. I’m a big girl. Let me have it. Tell me the truth.”
“I am as real as you are.”
I flicked my fingers at him. “I’m not up for philosophical debate here. Constructs of my mind would of course seem real to me—”
“Gods be praised, the woman has lost her marbles,” he mumbled.
“Pretty sure I never had any. Choking hazard, you know.”
He remained quiet for several blissful moments until clearing his throat.
“I have a matter to discuss with you.”
“No. I’m done talking to myself. I don’t want my next-door neighbor to think I’m nuts.” I waved at nothing. “Buh-bye.”
“But—”
“No,” I snarled. “Sanity’s all I’ve got going for me right now, and you’re kind of wrecking that for me. Beat it.”
“Rudeness is uncalled for.” A heavy pause. “Considering the circumstances, you are forgiven.”
“Thanks.” I would have curtsied if I had room. “For a second there, I was worried.”
Worried I was talking to someone who wasn’t there.
“Your sarcasm endears you to no one,” he said.
I don’t know. Shaw seemed to like it. “Why do you sound familiar?”
“We have spoken many times over the phone.”
Of course we had. Stress had finally cracked me. “You’re the stalker.” Of all people, why imagine him? My brain wasn’t doing me any favors by visualizing me tying up loose ends. I was not going to die, damn it. “Now that you’ve found me, what do you want?”
“You arrested my son, Herbert Slosson.”
“Herbert, really?” I thumped my forehead on the wall. “That’s the best you can come up with?”
“Perhaps this is not the best time— No. It must be done.” The voice continued, “I am Nasir, last anointed son of the Warith djinns. You restored my lamp to me, and I owe you recompense. Choose your boon wisely. Once spoken, your wish cannot be retracted nor expanded upon. It is said and will be done.” He made an impatient sound. “Fairness urges me to wait, but I cannot. I have little power left, and if I do not use the magic my son poured into the lamp to grant your wish, it will not manifest. We must hurry.”
I nodded like everything my imaginary friend had to say made total sense.
Three wishes. I had wanted those once. Even one wish could solve any number of my multitude of problems. I could sever the tie between me and Shaw, ensuring he would survive after I left for…
Crap. Adrenaline drenched me as my mind filled in the blanks the drugs had left empty.
I had been trapped here for days. Shaw got shaky if he held out for more than four days between feedings. He could go a week, maybe more, but once he got ahold of me, he would drain me dry. All this time, I hadn’t let the enormity of my incarceration faze me. Shaw was still out there. He wouldn’t stop until he found me.
Faced with a ravenous incubus, I might be safer inside the stone prison.
“Marshal?”
I touched my tongue to my chapped lips. “I’m thinking.”
One wish. I could go traditional and wish for gold so Mom never had to worry about bills again, but weighed against the life-and-death scenarios playing out around me, I couldn’t afford to be that selfish. I touched the wall separating me from Branwen. It was tempting to release her. She deserved it. But after centuries of confinement, even as a fae, I worried her muscles had atrophied. She may not be able to walk, and I wasn’t sure if wishing she was free and healed counted as two wishes or as a clarification of the first.
The same logic that made me ache to save her damned her in the end.
She endured. She would survive long after I was gone. And where there was life, there was hope.
A final option came to mind, and it felt right.
“Look,” I said to the djinn I wasn’t convinced wasn’t imaginary. “There’s a woman. I want you to find her and take her out of here. Her name is Jenna Shaw.” I bit my lip. “If you can heal her, do it. If you can’t…she would have died here anyway. At least this way her family gets a body to bury.”
“As you have said,” Nasir intoned, “so shall it be done.”
No flash of light. No goodbye. No token to prove the deed was done.
Nasir, the possibly real djinn, was simply gone.
Chapter 22
A hot sting in my gut roused me. I was kneeling, sort of, with my kneecaps braced on the wall in front of me and my feet wedged against the wall behind me. My forehead rested on stone, and the sliver of light my cell was allotted had gone dark. Someone was out there. I balled my fists and hammered against the rock.
“Hey,” I yelled. “Who’s out there?”
A heartbeat later the same intense prick of agony rippled through my stomach, and I dry heaved until my throat was raw. My arms weighed too much at first, but I strained until I got one raised. My fingers grazed a warm, slick cord. I tugged on it and felt a corresponding pull deep in my abdomen. I took a breath and yanked harder. One last jerk ripped the string free, smashing my hand into the wall and skinning my knuckles. The throbbing in my hand kept m
e from inhaling as if that would stop the misery. Finally, I had to gulp air or pass out, and that gave me the courage to test my healing wound.
The skin was knitting shut and the blood was drying, but a coin-shaped scab had formed. Clearing my throat, I said Branwen’s name.
“You get used to it after a while,” she said in a hollowed voice.
Apparently, I had experienced my first feeding. Please God let it be my last one too.
“I don’t want to get used to it.” My arms wrapped protectively around my stomach.
“Balamohan favors the tender parts.” Her voice wavered. “The ones that hurt us the most.”
I cringed. “He collects personally?”
“He has no choice. Feedings are rare, because he’s seldom here for any length of time. I suspect he sips from each of us to keep us alive longer. He devours the accumulation since his last visit, which rejuvenates us.” She made a thoughtful sound. “I can hear the screams sometimes. I know there are others nearby, but I have never had a confidante to speak to about such things. The cells beside me remained empty until the day he brought you.”
That was curious. “I wonder why he placed us together.”
“Would you hate me if I suggested it was a reward for my good behavior?”
I laughed. “None of this is your fault. If I had to be stuck here, at least I have good company.”
A bright note entered her voice. “I feel the same.”
Though ignorance can be bliss, I had to ask. I wanted to have accurate nightmares I guess.
“You never said…” I turned my head toward her voice. “What is Balamohan taking from us?”
“The accumulation of life.” Her voice wobbled. “He consumes that which marks the passage of time until we are held suspended in an eternity of pendulous moments. We do not age while he feeds from us, and his life is extended by the consumption of ours.”
I rubbed my forehead. “How is that possible?”
“You are one age today. You will be a day older tomorrow. Balamohan may not visit again for a month or for a year, but when he does, he will drink from you, dissolving the time that passed until you are again the age you are now, the age he prefers.” She let me absorb that. “He is particular in his captures. He catalogs us before shelving us, and he means to keep his collection pristine.”
I slumped in my cell. “That’s why you’re still alive.”
Not her fae lifespan, as I had assumed, but the inability to age. Ironic that Linen collected death-touched fae not to kill them, but to keep them alive.
“None of us will die. Not until he lets us.”
Being immortal was one thing. Being mortal and having the right to die stolen from you was another situation entirely.
But the essence of life as a food source?
The Morrigan’s tithes were paid in corpses. Empty husks were all I left her, but then again, I was unique. Besides Shaw, I couldn’t name another marshal who fed on souls, let alone consumed them the way I did. Either way I was handing the Morrigan an empty can and asking her to drink. She did, which meant she got something from it, but what? Did she feed off the same thing as Balamohan? Did that mean the essence of life was an element separate from the soul entirely?
I wasn’t sure.
When magical beings such as fae died, was a type of retroactive magic triggered to release at the end? Was all the magic inherent in a person distilled and then trapped inside an empty husk until it dissipated or was consumed? Did it exist in the tissues of the deceased? Was that why she consumed the bodies of her tithes?
Instead of snacking on victims with an eye toward maintaining balance like Linen, was she gulping down entire helpings of the stuff? Did she require more to keep her immortality intact?
I wasn’t sure of that either.
“You were talking in your sleep earlier.” Branwen sounded amused. “Your voice woke me.”
Fragments of my talk with Nasir came to mind. “What did I say?”
“You mentioned having a body to bury. That was all I heard.” She sounded apologetic. “I didn’t mean to eavesdrop.”
A shiver rippled through me, and I covered my stomach. “I was having a weird dream.”
“I don’t dream,” she confided. “What was yours about? If it’s not too personal to ask.”
Personal had flown out the nonexistent window days ago. “I dreamed a djinn offered to grant me one wish.”
“What did you ask for?” A dreamy quality filled her next word. “Freedom?”
“Sort of.” I thought about Jenna and told Branwen a white lie. “I wished for home.”
Thierry. Thierry. Thierry.
My name swirled through my ears. I kept my eyes closed and called out, “Branwen?”
The chanting quieted.
An ear-splitting roar took its place.
The razor edge of fear sent my heart fluttering into overdrive. “Branwen? What’s happening?”
“I don’t know,” she screamed. “The walls. He’s tearing them down.”
Slowly, I leveraged myself onto my feet and set my palms against the stone. My limbs trembled, and my head bobbled. I took Branwen’s word on the walls. Muzzy as my head was, they felt like stacked Jell-O cubes to me.
I strained for a glimpse through one of the cylindrical feeding holes. “Who’s out there?”
“I don’t know.” Her voice cracked. “He keeps screaming your name.”
Shaw.
He wasn’t yelling now. I slumped against the rock and prayed I was right.
My heart pumped. My breaths labored. My ears rang. All those things I heard, but not a peep from outside.
My knees wobbled, and I collapsed in a heap. “Are you sure? Did he say who he was—?”
The ground trembled beneath me. Bits of rock and dust peppered the top of my head.
A ferocious cry penetrated the stone wall. “Thierry.”
“Shaw?” I called as loud as I could. My voice broke, so I tried it again. “Shaw? Is that you?”
Rock shuddered, and the holes punched into the front of my cell went dark.
“What is that thing?” Branwen’s breaths came harder now.
“That’s my…” I couldn’t find the right word. “It’s Shaw.”
A pause. “Is he safe?”
I told her the absolute truth. “I don’t know.”
More rock crumbled, and she squealed, “Is he some type of enraged troll?”
“Worse.” Trolls were stupid. “He’s an incubus, and he’s starving.”
“He’s your mate?” Her voice shot up several octaves, so high the word mate was a screech.
“I— No.” I flattened myself against the rear wall. “It’s not like that.”
Incubi didn’t mate. And certainly not to me.
Then again, what did I know? Shaw’s brother had been married. What did that make his wife if not his mate?
“Thierry,” Branwen said in a voice sterner than any I had heard her use. “There is only one reason why an incubus starves himself.”
The thundering in my chest intensified until my heart felt bruised. Hope shouldn’t hurt so much.
“Are you all right?” A rising note of panic spiked her tone. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“You didn’t,” I lied. “I’m fine.”
A sniffle from her cell had my hand rising to touch the rock between us.
Lock it down, Thierry. Do your job. Help Shaw. Keep Branwen talking, keep her calm. Hell, maybe talking would keep me calm.
I kept my tone light. “How do you know about incubi?”
“When you live as long as I have, you try everything once.” Her voice wavered. “I shared a bed with an incubus for six months, and every visit he warned me against his cousin. His cousin lived out in the barn with their livestock, and I was never to go there.”
“Okay.” Curious despite our situation, I urged her on. “What happened?”
“One night my lover stayed out late, and boredom got the best of me.�
�� She cleared her throat. “I sneaked out to the barn and saw him, the cousin. He was a rabid thing. He tried to snap my neck, but I hid in a mare’s stall. My scream brought my lover running. He had been at the house looking for me.” Her voice gained strength. “He showed me a chain around his cousin’s ankle. When I asked what had turned him mad, he said it was love.”
Pulled from her story, I frowned. “I don’t follow.”
“Incubi unions are taboo. They are forbidden within incubi society. If one loses his mate, he will starve himself to death rather than feed from another. Incubi who bond are shunned by their families. When their mates die, most are killed as a mercy.” Branwen yelped in surprise when heavier rubble pattered us. “Be careful, Thierry. Please.”
No, no, no. Branwen had lost her ever-loving mind.
Shaw was off his rocker because he was starving. Hunger. That was it. My magic had cauterized his mojo. That’s why we were stuck together. Not some mystical, fated mumbo jumbo. Wonky magic was at fault. Even if— Not possible. He cheated on me. Soul mates didn’t screw around with harpies.
“Thierry.” That was Shaw again.
“You’re going to frighten her,” a muffled voice warned.
He raged at it. “Get out of my way.”
“Not until you call your hunger under control.”
I covered my mouth to hold back the sobs. Diode. He had come too.
“I am in control.”
“Calm down, or I will put you down,” the prim cat stated.
A full five minutes passed. The wall must have thinned, because now I heard ragged breathing.
“I’m okay,” I yelled. “Shaw—Jackson. I’m all right.”
“Thank the gods,” Diode breathed.
Shaw didn’t say a word, but the wall separating us quaked. Minutes ticked past. Noises grew sharper. Sounds like fingernails on a chalkboard had me slapping hands over my ears and humming. At some point, I had crushed my eyes shut. A block of rock bounced off my hip at the same time as a burst of glorious light blasted me in the face. Too bright. I couldn’t open my eyes to see my rescuers.
But then, I didn’t have to. I was scooped up and carried into the cavern’s fresher air.
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