Chapter 34
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Ryker
My pull to Ellery grew stronger as we made our way through the passage to the dungeons. This section of passage was larger than some of the others we’d traversed, probably because soldiers moved through here to get in and out of the dungeon.
With every step I took, my heart hammered with excitement and apprehension. She was close, but that didn’t mean I’d get to her in time. There could be countless soldiers between us. She was closer than she’d been in days, yet she’d never seemed further.
Fuck. How did she get here?
But then I answered my own question. Ellery had a way of pulling off the impossible.
“Slow down,” Samael muttered.
I couldn’t slow down with Ellery ahead. Spurred on by that knowledge, I ignored Samael’s warning as I rushed down the descending tunnel while footsteps sounded from ahead.
Those steps rebounded off the walls, along with their frantic, labored breathing. I couldn’t tell how many were coming, but they’d be here soon.
As they neared, I planted my feet and waited to see who rounded the corner. Behind me, the others stopped too.
After a few more seconds, two guards emerged from around a curve in the passage. Their nostrils flared as they sprinted heedlessly toward us.
They were so frantic that they didn’t notice me until they were only a few feet away. When they spotted me, they skidded to a halt.
One of them raised his sword, but I threw up my hands to unleash my lightning on them. It tore through their chests and left a gaping, smoking hole where their hearts used to be.
Thrown back from the impact, their bodies hit the ground and tumbled a few feet away before coming to a stop near the wall. Sprinting forward, I leapt over their bodies and sprinted down the passage.
If they were fleeing, then Ellery was on the attack, and I had to help her. Behind me, the footsteps of the others faded as I raced through the tunnel. The light at my fingertips and the torches barely illuminated enough of the space for me not to run into a wall.
Keeping my senses honed ahead of me, I managed to avoid hitting anything, and I didn’t hear anyone else approaching. I rounded a bend and abruptly halted before crashing into something that looked like a wall but had to be a door… without a handle.
I fumbled over the cool stones in search of the one to open it. Frustration growing, I had the urge to bash my hands against the stones but restrained myself.
By the time Samael caught up with me, I was ready to rip the head off anyone who came near. He must have sensed this as he stopped a few feet away and held up his hands.
“Open the door,” I growled.
“Shit, Ryker, calm down.”
“Open the fucking door.”
Wary of coming close to me, Samael glanced anxiously back at Tucker.
“The sooner you open the door, the better,” Tucker said.
Samael kept an eye on me as he edged past. He turned sideways so his chest brushed mine before he bent to push a rock set at knee height in the wall.
With a click, the door swung open, and I shoved through it as three more soldiers sprinted toward us. Behind them, smoking bodies lay strewn across the ground.
From somewhere deeper in the passage, shouts sounded, and lightning crackled. A chunk of rock ripped from the wall when a lightning bolt smashed into it; stones peppered the walls and floor as they flew everywhere.
Because of a bend in the cave ahead of me, I couldn’t see her, but Ellery was here. Despite the increasing draw I’d felt to her, I hadn’t fully believed it possible. Having her so close yet still not being able to see her was worse torture than anything Veni could devise.
The guard sprinting toward me froze when he spotted me in the doorway. He started to lift his blade, but his expression made it clear he knew he was about to die. I was happy to be the one to send him to his grave with a lightning bolt straight to his chest.
As his body fell, the clash of steel and sizzle of lightning from the other end of the passage stopped. Silence descended for a few seconds, and then the patter of footfalls rebounded off the walls as they rushed toward me.
I didn’t have to see her; I recognized the apple scent that somehow managed to penetrate the blood, terror, and excrement clinging to this place. I sprinted toward the bend in the passage.
I was ten feet away from it when Ellery skidded around the corner. She emitted a strangled cry as she raced toward me with tears streaking her face.