Chapter 46
Rubi.
Rubi.
My eyes jolted open, heart pounding.
Rubi, I feel strange.
Stomach dropping, I scooted out from under Blake’s arm, careful not to wake him.
I’m here, beautiful one. What’s wrong?
I…I don’t know—
I quickly put a cloak on over my nightclothes, then slipped out to Flame.
The air was heavy with fog as I searched for Flame by moonlight. She wasn’t in the area Jace and I had blocked out near my tent. I could only see ten feet before me and focused on following our Bond.
Where are you, my love?
Her response came back, sounding muddled: I thought someone was calling me. Beyond the fire.
I silently slipped past where the Red Phoenix fire burned low and beyond, to the edge of the forest. Panic rose in my chest. Where was my tygress?
Finally I spotted a glimmer of copper and gold at the base of a tree and ran to Flame.
Kneeling by her side, I passed my hand over her fur, feeling the tension in her muscles as she lay down.
Something felt off.
“Easy, girl,” I whispered, but my own nerves were on edge. Her unease reached out through the Bond.
A cool wind made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. Flame let out a low growl, her golden eyes narrowing as they fixed on a shadow just beyond the trees.
Blazing hell. Why hadn’t I put on my ribbon wands before coming out here? I’m never unarmed, I’d said to Blake. What an ashbrain I was.
Flame flinched, shaking her head, and that’s when I saw a faint gleam on her jowls, something oily that hadn’t been there earlier.
Open your mouth for me? I asked.
My heart pounded in my chest, my breath coming faster as I examined her tongue. The substance was subtle, nearly invisible in the moonlight, but I could feel its dark magic.
Drugs. But who, and why? I saw more of the substance across her fur.
“Flame,” I whispered urgently, running my hands over her. She huffed, shaking her head again, her body tensing as if she could feel the drug working its way into her system. Was it poison?
My mind raced. I needed to stop it, neutralize it somehow.
I ripped off my cloak and quickly began rubbing her down, trying to wipe the vile stuff away. My hands shook as I worked, and Flame let out a soft, pained growl.
I feel so dizzy. She sounded weak in my mind. I’m just going to close my eyes.
I won’t let them hurt you, I vowed, though fear clawed at my chest. Stay with me.
I felt my thought come up against a wall. The Bond was tethered to darkness. This had never happened before. Even when Flame was asleep, I could usually feel and speak to her.
I shook her, shouting down the Bond. Flame! Fla—
A blur of movement in the darkness and I froze.
Three large masked figures silently appeared out of the night with their weapons drawn.
I barely had time to react before they were upon me.
One of them threw a net over Flame, binding her while the other two lunged for me.
My body moved on instinct, ducking beneath the first strike and rolling to the side.
Their blades gleamed in the moonlight, coated with the same oily drug that had been on Flame’s fur.
I grabbed for the cloak to block and twist around one attacker’s wrist. I managed to disarm him, but the other figure slammed into me and I stumbled back, barely keeping on my feet.
The man to my left lunged again, and I just managed to spin out of the way. His partner lunged at me in seconds, and I felt the cold sting of a blade slice across my forearm.
I gasped, my vision blurring.
The drug from the blade seeped into my bloodstream, its effects almost immediate. My head spun, my body growing weak, but I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t let them win.
The magic inside me stirred, a flicker of music rising in my chest, but I already felt so groggy, my tongue heavy in my mouth.
I lashed out, catching the second intruder in the leg, sending him sprawling to the ground. But the third man, the one who’d bound Flame, turned on me, his dagger flashing toward me.
I ducked, but not fast enough. The knife caught me across the shoulder, sending a searing pain through my body. I stumbled back, my vision blurring further as the drug spread through my veins.
As everything went dark, a quiet, low chuckle followed me down.
—
I woke up in a cage.
The cold bite of metal pressed against my skin. The space was barely tall enough for me to sit up. A thick metal collar encircled my neck, fastened to the bars with a heavy chain that rattled ominously with my every movement. My wrists were manacled in front of me with heavy iron cuffs.
I deeply regretted my scant sleepwear now I was on the cold, hard ground.
The air smelled of hay, damp stone, and the lingering musk of tygers. After the last weeks, I knew that scent well. I was in a tyger stall, the walls of which were reinforced, but smaller than the royal tyger stables. Built not for a full ambush of tygers, but for a select few.
And now, apparently, for me.
“Get on all fours for me, won’t you?” I recognized the voice and turned, searching for its source. My chain rattled against my cage.
Ire. He leaned against the wall, his eyes dark with hunger as they roamed over my breasts, my nipples peaked against the thin cotton of my nightdress from the cold. Then he moved to my legs, my barely covered sex, drinking in the sight like he had all the time in the world.
I met his gaze with cold defiance, refusing to shrink beneath it. “Is kidnapping the only way you can get a woman?”
“That smart mouth of yours”—he sneered, stepping closer—“has been a problem since day one. And since no one else is going to bring you to heel—”
“Burn and die,” I snapped.
He leaned over the stall door with a tsk. “Careful, Azure. We don’t want the tygress queen to wake.”
My stomach dropped at the clear threat in his words, his tone. The stall beside the cage I was in wasn’t empty. Flame.
Ripping myself up off the ground, I jolted toward the wall of the cage, fingers gripping the metal. She lay still, her powerful body shackled in chains thick enough to hold even her strength. Unconscious, her sleek fur glistened with sweat, her chest rising and falling in slow, steady breaths.
We’d both been drugged.
“This is your plan?” I laughed, desperate to hide the fear in my voice. “How long do you think you can possibly keep us here?”
Ire sneered, his voice thick with satisfaction. “Long enough.”
The blood in my veins turned to ice. Long enough for what? What did he have planned? My fingers curled into fists against the rough metal of my cage.
Flame, wake up! I called in my mind, but again the thought felt like it dropped into darkness. She didn’t stir. How much of that drug had they put in her?
I called and called, my mental voice desperate.
Wake up, wake up. But she didn’t move. Her great form remained still, the rise and fall of her breathing steady but unnervingly slow.
The chains around her glowed faintly with runes I didn’t recognize, and my stomach twisted.
Something in addition to the drugs was keeping her under.
Ire started a slow, deliberate walk around me, dragging his fingertips along the bars, each metallic clink sending a shudder of revulsion through me.
“She’s going to stay unconscious. We’ve made sure of that.” His voice was full of smug satisfaction. “You know, someone different—a Tyger Warrior worthy of our tygress queen—wouldn’t have allowed this to happen. What shame you bring on her. Upon all of us.”
He bent to unlock my cage, the sheer size of him filling the space, oppressive and inescapable.
The leash at my neck jerked suddenly, yanking me out of the cage, pulling the metal against my skin in a way that made me gasp.
This was no ordinary collar. I could feel it pulse with dark magic, like pinpricks against my skin where it touched. Ire crouched in front of me, so close I could see the smug curve of his lips.
“Useless, weak yin,” he purred. His free hand skimmed over my bare shoulder, tracing my collarbone. “Blake’s whore, hmm? Is that why he’s kept you around?”
I clenched my jaw, forcing myself not to flinch. I stayed still, breathing shallowly. The chain pulled again, and I staggered forward, catching myself on my palms. His fingers tangled in my hair and yanked my head back, forcing my eyes up to meet his.
“That defiance in you?” He laughed, pulling me to stand by my hair. “We’ll burn it out. Slowly.”
My restraint snapped and I spat in his face. He reared back, striking me across the cheek. My head snapped sideways, but I didn’t cry out, biting my lip until I tasted blood.
“That all you’ve got?” I sneered. I deliberately flicked my eyes downward, a parody of the way his eyes roamed over my body. “I guess I should’ve known, considering your unimpressive performance.”
“Try me again and see how your tygress likes my blade.”
My eyes flickered to Flame’s shackled unconscious body.
“Don’t touch her,” I snarled.
“Then do as I say.”
“Fuck you,” I screamed, trying to throw my voice as loud and cacophonous as I could, to access the magic that had managed to stop a Thirst demon draining me.
But nothing happened. Ire sneered as he slammed me up against the stall wall.
He held my wrists and pinned them above my head, leaning in and pressing himself against me.
Then he locked my wrists over a hook above my head, leaving me balancing on my toes.
He drew a long, thin knife from his belt and glanced at Flame.
“No!” I screamed, kicking out at him uselessly.
Ire crouched beside Flame, his hand sliding along her flank before he pressed the blade to her side and drew a deliberate, shallow line across her skin.
“STOP!” I cried out, kicking and writhing against my chains. “Please, stop! Please!”
Blood welled along the cut. Not deep. But the sight of it made me unravel.
I screamed again, raw and furious, my voice filled with tears now. But he only stood, watching me with cool satisfaction.
“You get it now?” he said, his voice calm, almost gentle. “You’re not the one in control. You do what I say.”
I clenched my fists. I couldn’t protect her. Not like this.
“I’ll do what you want,” I rasped. “Just don’t touch her again.”
He took a step toward me, grinning. “That’s better.”
I turned my face away, breathing hard, trembling with fury. I needed time. Time to figure out his endgame. Time to cast a message to Blake. Time to get Ire to let his guard down.
I’d play along.
For now.