Chapter Fifteen
………………………….
Ily
VICTOR WAS HURT.
I’d watched it happen with my own eyes. Yet…he moved as if he didn’t feel a damn thing. He fisted my hair and half dragged, half carried me as he carted me through the gardens.
Out here, the skies were clear, the stars exquisitely bright.
No water fell from the heavens like in his citadel. No smoke or bangs or rubble.
I shivered as the droplets on my skin soaked into me with ice. The cut on the side of my throat felt deep but not too deep. I bled but…not enough to die.
I hope…
I cried out as he jerked me forward, sending me onto my knees again. My kneecaps crunched and bellowed, agony throbbing through my bones.
“ Move !” he screamed. “ Now !”
I tried to fight him.
I clawed at his wrist where he held me.
But after two months of hunger and abuse, I was embarrassingly weak. Horribly useless as he kept yanking me toward the battlement walls in the distance.
Another boom behind us.
Victor looked over his shoulder, his eyes bugging as fire billowed from broken parlour windows, cheery and orange-licking in the night.
“What the fuck is going on?” he hissed. “How is this possible?”
I wanted so much to gloat in his face. To say this was planned. That I knew those involved and just how proud I was of my fellow jewels.
But…I didn’t know how this was possible either.
I’d assumed the jewels had been punished enough to erase the very notion of escape. No one ever looked at Peter and me at night. No whispers, no winks.
Nothing.
But somehow, war had been delivered with a single command from an unseen man in the shadows.
Had it been Ben or Stewart who fired first?
How many guns did they have now?
How many guards were on our side?
Huge spotlights clicked on from the walls, scanning the gardens with giant yellow pools of illumination. One caught us in its arc. A guard high above and silhouetted by the moon, shouted in his loudhailer, “Sir…is that you?”
Victor waved his left arm, grunting in pain. “Don’t shoot, you idiots! I’m coming to you.”
I didn’t know if they could hear him, but he threw himself into a lumbering jog, forcing me to crawl and trip beside him. He yanked out handfuls of my hair, sending gushes of pain through my already overloaded system.
Every hedgerow we passed, I tried to grab one. To break off a branch and hit him with it. To find a way to escape and get back to Henri. “Let me go!” I screamed.
He ignored me, running faster like the coward he was.
If he got me into the battlement’s protection, I’d never get free.
I’d be used as collateral again.
Henri would be shot.
“HELP!” I screeched as loud as I could. “Someone!”
“ Quiet .” He shook me. “Do that again, and I’ll rip out your throat.”
I’d lived too long with his threats. I had a physical reaction to his command and swallowed hard in silence, but then…the old me came roaring back. That feral creature who’d been born in these very gardens in a thunderstorm and a treasure hunt.
And I snapped.
Instead of fighting his hold, I leapt on him.
I threw all my weight against his trim torso and managed to knock him to the ground. He went sprawling in the grass, grunting in agony as he landed on his shot shoulder.
For a second, I couldn’t believe my luck.
Then adrenaline poured like gasoline, igniting every ounce of rebellion.
Falling on him, I slapped and punched and kicked.
He cried out as I became an unhinged animal. I raked my nails over his face. I tried to knee him in the balls. I managed to punch a few soft places, but then he gathered a lifetime of cultivated power and threw me off him like I was a damn mosquito.
“ENOUGH!” Struggling to his feet, he loomed over me. “Fuck’s sake, do I have to do everything myself?” Grabbing me around my blood-slicked throat, he pushed his thumbs into my larynx. “I should’ve done this the very first night you arrived.” His eyes flashed with evil insanity. “ Au revoir , little pain in my ass.”
I tried to scream. I kicked. I scratched.
No use.
No use!
He cut off my air supply.
He coated me in blood, his and mine, blending, dripping…
Black spots danced in my vision.
My already tortured body faded far quicker than it should, thanks to so many nights of horror.
No.
Henri.
I gasped and choked.
I tried to hold on.
He went hazy, ghostly. The world faded and—
Victor bellowed as a bullet cracked from the hedges.
Rolling off me, he staggered to his feet and hopped on his left leg. Cursing with feral French, he looked down at the fresh bloom of blood on his trousers by his calf.
Scooting backward on my hands, I tried to put as much distance between us as possible.
My elbows wobbled and failed, sending me sprawling onto my back. Too weak. Too damaged. So useless !
Fuck!
My head roared. My empty stomach ached. My muscles were hopeless in this fight.
Limping toward me, Victor ducked to finish my murder, only another gunshot and a rustle of branches sent him reeling back. He spun and faced Mollie as she stepped out of the orchard, holding a scary-looking gun and pointing it right at Victor.
He froze.
She smiled.
She raised the muzzle to point at his heart. “Give the devil my regards—”
A horrifying pop sent Mollie tumbling backward. A spritz of blood erupted from her forehead. She fell like a brick wall, landing straight on her back.
“Sir, run !” a guard on the wall shouted in their loudhailer. Another pop released, kicking up dirt by my feet.
Snipers.
No.
Victor bared his teeth. He glowered at me and swayed in my direction. But then he smiled and winked. “I’ll see you in a few minutes, Ilyana. Once order has been restored, you’re the first I’m going to hang, draw, and quarter.”
He took off.
Cradling his arm, limping and cursing, he vanished past the invisible line of protection granted by his snipers.
Mollie.
Cupping my bleeding, bruised throat with one hand, I staggered to my trembling legs and stumbled to where Mollie lay.
Please, don’t…please don’t be dead.
“Mollie.” I dropped to my knees and cupped her cheek.
I recoiled in horror.
The perfect hole in her skull.
The blank glaze of her stare.
No…
Another pock-mock of dirt bounced into the air.
Another aimed right at my feet.
I threw myself behind the bush where Mollie had appeared, hiding from the snipers on the wall.
Through the branches and night-glossed leaves, I stared at my friend.
A woman who’d been so brave.
A jewel who’d traded her life for mine.
Great wracking sobs gathered in my belly.
I bit my fist.
Not yet.
Not yet.
I couldn’t cry.
Not yet.
Looking back at the fortress, I staggered to my feet and ran.
Flames danced from multiple stories and windows. The west wing had a hole in it where a dayroom used to be. The deck where I’d kneeled beside Henri so many times had caught fire, the wooden planks blazing like a platform to hell.
Another island-shaking BOOM .
In the distance, the tower standing guard to the dungeons shivered, shuddered, and tumbled. A waterfall of stone fell in slow motion, taking with it carved angels and gargoyles and Victor’s proudly waving flag of a brilliant sparkling diamond.
I kept running into battle.
Shadows of fights between Masters and jewels flickered in the backdrop of chaos. A few jewels jerked and twitched on the ground where Masters electrocuted them, only to be pounced on from behind by other jewels.
I ran into the thick of the acrid smoke, ducking past a fighting Master and guard, then dashing past a jewel hacking a Master to pieces with a butcher’s blade from the kitchens.
I didn’t study faces.
I didn’t want to know.
Rain continued to fall from the sprinkler system, hissing and splashing all around me as I darted back into the fortress.
I almost ran straight into Kirk who staggered out of the games room, soot streaking his face, blood dripping down his arms.
“Kirk.”
He blinked, dead-eyed and barely alive. “Ily, I....” Raising his hands, he frowned as if he couldn’t remember how he’d bathed in crimson. I’d always thought he looked like a Viking with his tall frame, blond hair, and slightly wild eyes, but now he looked as if he’d stepped through time after slaughtering an entire medieval village.
Looking past him into the room where a billiards table waited along with dart boards, chessboards, and so many other games, I spied the reason for all the blood.
A Master I didn’t recognise lay in the middle of the carpet—his face caved in thanks to the billiard ball used to smash his skull apart. The black eight ball sat in a pool of gleaming red, streaked with evidence of its involvement.
Kirk’s hands shook as he stepped toward me, his gaze beseeching, broken. “Help me. Help me bring her back.”
I flinched as he crashed into me, slamming me into a wall. Water hissed over our shoulders, raining, always raining. “Suri. She left me. She’s hiding. But…we’re fighting back. She can come home now. I’ve made it safe for her. See?” He grabbed my cheeks, smearing me in the Master’s cooling blood. “Help me find her, Ily. Please .”
My heart cracked all over again even as nausea rushed up my throat.
God, his mind had snapped. How many others had snapped too? We might lose today or win today, but none of us would walk away from this without lifelong, soul-crippling scars.
“It’s okay, Kirk.” I squeezed his forearms, my skin slipping on his. “Just let me go, and we can—”
“Do you know where she is?” His fingers tightened on my temples.
I winced as he added yet more pain to all the rest. A flash of light-headedness made me sway. “No. But if you—”
“You’re hiding her from me. You’re all hiding her. No one will tell me where she is!”
“Kirk, stop—”
“No, you stop!” He pressed his nose to mine, snarling right in my face. “Tell me where Suri is and—”
“ Kirk .” A masculine, familiar wonderful voice. I looked around Kirk’s slim shoulders and sagged in relief.
Peter.
Not dead.
Alive.
Vibrant and alive and…different.
He stepped out of the smoky, raining gloom. Back in his rightful place as shepherd of the jewels, his fingers wrapped tightly around a sword from the armoury. His linen trousers singed in places and blackened in others. Soot dabbled his chest while his handsome face no longer looked kind and protective but ruthless and vicious.
He reminds me of Henri.
Stepping toward us, he held the sword facing downward, but his chest flexed as if ready to swing. “Suri is dead, Kirk. And you will be too if you don’t let Ily go.”
A switch flicked in Kirk’s barely functioning stare. He blinked again and saw reality instead of nightmares. “Oh God. Oh fuck.” Ripping his hands off me, he reeled backward. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay—”
“I have to find her.” His face blanked again, and with a blood-curdling scream, he charged through the smoke and vanished deeper into the fortress.
Peter stepped close and touched my throat, making me jump. His power from before faded a little as his shoulders slouched. “You’re drenched in blood, jaanu .”
I threw myself into him.
I hugged him ever so tight.
He hissed between his teeth as my arms lashed around him. “Gently, Ily. Gently.”
Breaking the hug as quickly as I’d given it, I ducked around him and choked. “Y-Your back.”
Scowling, he turned to face me, preventing me from seeing the twenty lashes he’d earned because of me and my stupid mouth.
“I’m so sorry, Paavak. I didn’t mean—”
“We don’t have time for that. Come.” Grabbing my hand, he carted me into the billowing blackness. We both coughed as the smoke turned thicker, wetter. The air dense with two elements fighting each other for supremacy. He cut into yet another luxurious room and let me go as he stalked toward the side table with a purple silk runner draping over its sides.
Yanking it off the table, he sent a small figurine of a field mouse flying.
I had no idea what he was doing.
“We need to fight with the others,” I rushed. “I need to find Henri.” I staggered a little as my eyesight vanished, then reappeared.
Annoying.
Inconvenient.
Balling my hands, I braced my legs for stability. “Victor ran toward the battlement. He’s probably safe with his snipers by now. We need to figure out a way to—”
“I know.” Marching back to me, he stabbed the sword into the thick carpet and beckoned me to move closer. “Come here.”
“Why? What are you doing?”
Stepping into me with a snarl, he pointed at my silver lingerie.
Well...not so silver anymore.
In fact…most of it was a rich ruby red.
Oh, that’s strange.
I hadn’t killed anyone like Kirk.
Victor hadn’t been bleeding that much, and Mollie barely bled at all.
God, Mollie.
He needs to know .
“Peter…Mollie, she—”
“Don’t. I don’t want to know. Not until after.” Gathering my hair off my sticky shoulders, he ordered, “ Apne baal upar karo. ” (Hold your hair up.)
I went to obey.
To take my hair that he’d twisted into a ponytail—
Only…somehow, I was on the floor.
And Peter’s face had switched from determined to terrified. “Ily… Ily .”
I frowned and licked my lips. “I-I’m fine.” Something soft lashed around my neck, tying tightly. Tracing my fingers over it, I followed the ends of the purple table runner draping down my chest. “Why…why am I wearing the decorations?”
“You’ve lost a lot of blood.” He swallowed hard, doing his best to hide his fear but drowning in it anyway. “I’ve tried to staunch it. We need to get you to Dr Belford. If she’s even still alive.”
“No. No. No.” I sat up. “I’m fine.”
The room spun around me.
Drunk.
I felt drunk and light and spacey.
Had my food been spiked?
What food?
Ah, so that was the problem.
“I’m just hungry, Paavak. I haven’t eaten in…I can’t remember when.”
“Me too. But I’m not the one who just passed out in my arms.”
“Passed out?” I shook my head. “No, I didn’t. I—”
“It was only for a second. I caught you. You’re okay. Just…stay behind me, alright? Don’t overexert yourself. No running. No murdering. I’ll get you upstairs to the doc somehow. If it’s not on fire. Actually, I should probably get you out of here instead. We’ll find Belford some other way. Shit, that doesn’t matter.” He shook away his scattered thoughts. “What does matter is, whatever direction we take, I’m going to have to fight, and I can’t be worrying about you.” He pinched my chin with shaking fingers. “Promise me you’ll do what I say and don’t get in the way, alright?”
I smirked. “You’re sounding more and more like Henri every day.”
He smiled sadly. “Yes, well…I know who I am, and I’m not him. But…I vow to you if you do what I say, I’ll take you to him. Just keep breathing for me. Keep that cloth tight around your throat, and don’t remove it. I have no idea if it will stop your bleeding, but it might buy us a bit more time.”
“More time?” I struggled to sit up. “I know Victor cut me, but it’s not that deep. Whoever fired that first shot saved my life.”
“That was Stewart. Ben followed. Then the guards they’ve been getting friendly with opened fire.”
“And the explosions that have been going off? Is that really Rachel and Mollie’s handiwork?”
“Carlos got me free when all hell broke loose. He’s the engineer who’s been helping them. He said they gave up on the bleach and household detonations after Victor tortured all those involved and forbade them from ever stepping foot out of the slave quarters unless with a Master.”
“Then how…?”
“The guards have apparently been very generous with their bullets.” He grinned. “Jin, Sadie, Tanya, and Devi—the new girls who didn’t get punished because they weren’t involved in the first rebellion—took up the fight without telling anyone. They made explosives out of gunpowder thanks to Jin’s older brother being a bit of a pyro in his youth and rather good at delayed fuses.”
Another teeth-rattling boom.
Peter threw himself over me, sheltering me as the chandelier swung wildly and dust rained from above.
The entire citadel of Joyero groaned and shuddered. Almost as if it agreed with Peter that gunpowder was far more effective than flower fertilizer and chlorine. The sprinklers cut off as if the latest explosion had either damaged their plumbing or they’d reached the end of their water reserves.
Someone screamed in the distance.
“We have to help them.” I shoved Peter’s bulk. “Let me up.”
Rolling off me, he clambered to his feet. Holding the handle of the sword as a walking stick, he gave me his hand to help me up.
The moment I slipped my fingers into his, everything I’d been ignoring pounced on me in horrible detail.
I wasn’t just lightheaded from hunger or clumsy from exhaustion.
I was ice, ice cold.
Nothing worked quite right.
I was stiff and achy, heavy and lumpish.
Almost as if my body was missing its lifeforce.
The lifeforce currently soaked into my silver negligée.
What if he’s right?
What if I’ve lost too much blood?
Swallowing back my fear, I leaned on him for support.
With a grunt, he hoisted me up.
His arm wasn’t nearly strong enough after two months of torture, but together…we managed.
Standing, he didn’t release my hand.
He was so warm.
So, so warm compared to me. Positively on fire compared to me.
Fire.
Flame.
Henri.
I have to find him.
Before it’s too late…
“Come on.” I tugged my fingers from his and headed with a slight sway toward the door.
“Wait.” Marching beside me, Peter reached into his trouser pocket and pulled out a rusty dagger. “I got this from the armoury. I don’t know how old it is, but hopefully it holds centuries of protection and accuracy.” Passing it to me, he ordered, “Only use it if your life is in danger. Do not go stabbing everyone we come across. You get your heart rate up any more than it already is, and you’ll probably die.”
“I’m not going to die.”
“Regardless.” He smirked to hide his fear. “Let me do the exterminating, okay? I need you still breathing after this.”
Curling my fingers around the dagger, I nodded and kissed his dirty cheek. “I need you still breathing too, Paavak.”
“In that case, let’s get this over with so we can breathe free together.”
Without another word, we slipped into the smoke-thick corridor and hoped we’d be alive come dawn.