Chapter Thirty-Two #2
I swallowed and tried to keep my eyes down. The words on the scroll might as well have been meaningless shapes, and I couldn’t help glancing up every few heartbeats.
I didn't hear the third male enter, but I saw him. Movement flickered in my peripheral vision, and I turned toward it before I could stop myself. He stood near the second entrance, blocking it as he nodded to the other two.
My heart stumbled before it slammed against my ribs. Even with Drazien’s training, I barely had a chance against one Morraki. Against three…
There had been more than that following us before the attack during Khavren, although I couldn’t tell if they were the same ones.
It was difficult to remember when my memories of that day were tangled with crowds, wind, fabric, and the hurt that came after, but I noticed their pattern was the same.
One was close, trying to draw attention, while another lingered further away, and the third guarded an exit.
Run.
Every survival instinct I had screamed it. Get up, call for Drazien, and let the warriors deal with the alphas.
I could almost feel the pressure of his hand around mine as Drazien had made me repeat the plan. If I thought I was in immediate danger, I was supposed to leave, not fight.
But they hadn't done anything yet, and if I called for help too soon, we might lose them.
Again.
The first time Drazien had used me as bait, I hadn't even known there was a hook buried in me. This time, I'd sharpened it myself, and I wasn’t going to let us walk away empty handed.
I breathed through the fear, reminding myself that I wasn't helpless. Drazien was close, his warriors were nearby, and I had a knife. I helped create the plan, and it needed to happen to keep others from being at risk.
I couldn’t stop my kethra from pulsing in time with my heartbeat, the frantic fluttering giving away the fear they could probably scent anyway. I supposed that was a good thing, because not being scared would have been a dead giveaway that something was up.
The third male started walking, but not toward me. He headed for the back of the Archives, which had my hackles rising.
He passed behind the shelves and disappeared. I held my breath and listened but heard nothing.
The second male was still somewhere to my left. I couldn't see him either, and the room suddenly felt too quiet.
My heart was beating so fast I worried it was about to give up altogether. My gut told me something wasn't right, but indecision froze me in my seat.
For several seconds, nothing happened, then I caught a faint scrape. My lungs loosened, thinking it was Drazien slipping into the room, and I pushed back from the table. I tried to keep my movements slow and steady, but I wasn’t sure my legs were going to support me when I stood.
I wasn’t supposed to run unless someone moved to stop me, but nothing happened when I rose and took a step around the table.
Then another.
The main entrance was close. I headed toward it, but a sound came from behind me that made everything freeze.
Not footsteps this time.
A click.
My stomach dropped as I remembered Drazien telling me they had explosives. Enough to breach an interior wall, but he had thought they wouldn’t use them and risk collapsing the entire cavern.
But these people wouldn’t care about books and history if they didn’t care about the lives of their own kind.
I ran.
The explosion hit before I made it three steps.
Sound disappeared, a high-pitched ringing and pressure on my eardrums taking its place.
A massive force slammed into my back and threw me forward, and I hit the floor hard enough to drive the air from my lungs as I blinked stupidly at the reddish rock inches from my face.
Stone cracked and something crashed behind me, hard enough for me to feel the vibration of it. Dust swirled around me until I couldn’t see or breathe, while the ringing still left me unable to hear.
Terror ripped through my chest, but I realized it wasn’t mine.
Drazien.
I pushed onto my hands and knees.
Move.
That was what Drazien and every instructor I’d ever had tried to pound into my skull.
If I fell, keep moving.
If I couldn't fight, find a secure place.
If I couldn't find safety, then make the other person regret coming too close.
I crawled. It was all I could manage with my head ringing and the dust choking the air.
A shelf had fallen beside me, littering the floor with books and scrolls. I dragged myself behind it just as something struck the other side.
A body?
Stone?
I didn't know. The ringing was fading but still blocked me from hearing anything beyond my own ragged breaths. The dust was too thick to see more than vague shapes, the light I’d read by buried somewhere.
A hand grabbed my ankle and I screamed, kicking out. My heel connected with something and the grip loosened, so I kicked again, harder.
The hand disappeared and I scrambled forward, but a shadow loomed through the dust.
Too large.
Every Morraki was too damn big. I couldn't overpower one, so I didn't try.
The male reached for me, but I snatched the thickest book within reach, throwing it at his face before he knew what I was doing. His arm came up to block it, and I lunged in the opposite direction, but he caught the back of my shirt.
Fabric tightened around my throat and panic exploded through me. I twisted instead of pulling away, turning toward him the way Drazien had taught me.
My elbow slammed into his ribs, but he barely reacted, so I drove my foot back into his shin. That made him loosen his grip just enough for me to duck and slip out of the shirt.
I took off, running for the clear space I thought was the doorway as a roar shook the Archives.
I felt it as much as heard it, and a dark smile twisted my lips even as goosebumps erupted along my exposed flesh.
The bond was flooded with rage, and the rebels were about to find out how dangerous Drazien was when he was pissed.
A Morraki came through the dust beside me and for one terrible second I thought it was another rebel, but he passed me, heading straight toward the male who'd grabbed me.
One of ours.
The trap was sprung, but it was pure chaos. Warriors poured through the entrance, people were shouting, and crashing overlaid it all.
I backed toward the place we'd designated as my safe spot. Away from the fighting, out of the center of the Archives, but still defensible.
I wasn't supposed to help. That had been one of the few things Drazien refused to negotiate. My job was to survive, not fight, and I could do that.
A male stumbled into the open space in front of me, and I realized he was the one who'd spoken to me. His gaze locked on mine, and there was no uncertainty now. Hatred twisted his face as he charged.
I darted sideways. There was an unstable table between us, and I kept it there. He went left, so I went right. His snarl would have been terrifying if the entire situation hadn't been so absurd.
We circled before he finally lunged across it, his longer reach almost letting him grab ahold of me. I shoved the stack of books on the corner toward him, but he just knocked them aside.
It still bought me half a second, and that was enough for me to grab the chair. I didn't swing it, I couldn’t lift the Morraki sized thing enough to use it as a weapon, so I waited until he came for me and jammed it between his legs.
His shin struck the seat, making him stumble, and I ran again. Fingers brushed through my hair, but a sudden grunt behind me explained why they didn’t tighten.
Drazien hit him from the side with enough force to send both of them into a shelf. It made a cracking sound and books rained down on them, but Drazien didn't seem to notice.
He grabbed the male by the throat and slammed him into the floor.
Once.
Twice.
By the third time I untangled what I felt through the bond, and my stomach clenched.
“Drazien!”
His arm froze. The rebel wheezed beneath him, eyes bulging as his claws sliced into Drazien’s wrist, but my mate didn’t seem to feel the pain.
Drazien's head turned and his dark eyes found mine. The whirling chaos inside him slowed, the rage vanishing beneath something colder and infinitely more frightening.
Fear.
His gaze swept over me. My bare chest from slipping out of the shirt, the dust coating my skin, and the blood running from numerous small cuts all catalogued by his eyes.
His pupils narrowed and a growl vibrated loud enough that I felt it in my chest like another explosion. I held up my hands, taking a step towards him, trying to push calm through our bond.
“I'm okay.”
He turned to look back at the male beneath him, a wave of rage pushing against my chest, but I gritted my teeth and took another step closer.
“Drazien.”
His tail lashed, his kethra glowing as blue as mine, but from an entirely different emotion.
“You need him alive.”
For one horrible moment, I thought he might ignore me, but another warrior appeared and took hold of the rebel’s shoulder. Drazien was on his feet before I could blink, and he crossed the distance between us and grabbed me, plastering me to his chest.
He wasn’t gentle. His hands moved over my back, shoulders, arms, and ribs.
“Where?”
The word was guttural, as if he hadn’t spoken in years.
“I'm fine.”
He snarled before cutting it off in the next heartbeat.
“You’re bleeding.”