CHAPTER 27 AILEEN
CHAPTER 27
AILEEN
Hours after Atalon left, a new face appeared in the dungeon, belonging to a man I did not expect to see.
Oz entered the room, holding what seemed to be a large bundle of black clothes. He didn’t say a word as he pressed some sort of button, making the bars retreat into the ceiling.
I knew why he didn’t tell me something along the lines of Don’t try to escape . In my current exhausted state, even sitting up took all my strength to manage. Running away? What a joke.
Surprisingly gently, Oz put the black bundle in his arms on the stone floor of my chamber before he stepped back out and returned the bars to their place. He looked at me, then at the black bundle before he motioned toward the latter and said, “Olive branch.”
Then he was gone.
Confused, I turned to look at the black bundle and paused. Did it just ... move?
An ominous feeling twisted in my stomach as I crawled toward the bundle and somehow managed to push some of it away. What I saw made me feel so sick that even if I had a five-star meal laid out in front of me, I wouldn’t have been able to take a bite.
A bone stuck out between the black blankets. Or, at least, almost a bone. The skin that covered what seemed to have once been a person’s arm was so thin, it was practically transparent.
Slowly, I pushed more of the black blankets until I found the vampire’s face, and my heart sank. The cheeks were nonexistent. None of the skin on the face existed, really; it was thinner than the rest of the body, looking like I could cut it with a feather. The face bones jutted out, so sharp and visible as to be horrifying. The hair around the head was thin, too, and gray, devoid of all color.
My eyes told me it was a corpse. My mind said it was a friend clinging to what little life she had left to save.
My gut told me it was Isora. Sweet, sweet Isora who had been dealt a hand far worse than she deserved, not once, but twice. Just then her words came back to me: From one hell to another.
With a shaky hand, I reached out to her face and softly pushed back a few strands of hair. She jolted, almost like she’d received an electric shock but then stilled. Tears fell down on her cheek. My tears.
Because this ... this was a nightmare.
Isora was my friend, and I ...
I didn’t save her.
My head rested against Isora’s chest, listening to the slow cadence of her heart. That’s what I’d been doing for hours: listening to her heartbeat to reassure myself she was still alive. Barely.
I had no idea what kind of “olive branch” Oz thought this would be. It wouldn’t be long until Isora started crumbling to ash. So why bring her here? For me to say goodbye? For me to see evidence of what a failure I was? What a shitty friend I was? To prove to me that my influence with Atalon was done? That I was back to being a nobody like I’d been in the Rayne League?
Footsteps echoed through the chamber. Multiple footsteps, in fact.
Straightening, I stared as Atalon appeared, along with an entourage of about a dozen people I didn’t recognize. Some of them looked normal, but there were three of them who were taller than basketball players, with horns and hooves.
The Jinn.
“Evening, Aileen,” Atalon now said as he came to a stop before the bars. “Meet your new owners for the next few weeks.”
A Jinni man walked forward, giving me a smile. He looked familiar. Maybe it was his unbound inky black curls or his startling violet-tinted silver eyes set in a ruggedly handsome face that sported a five-o’clock shadow. Wearing black cargo pants and a turtleneck shirt, he could’ve passed as one of those bad boys in the rom-coms I used to watch with Cassidy and Skye.
The only difference was that he couldn’t possibly be human. In fact, as he walked toward the bars, his movements were languid and silent, a contrast to his ripped figure. I knew that even if I’d seen him on the street, I wouldn’t have mistaken him for a human.
When his violet eyes landed on me, surprisingly kind, I jolted as a memory pierced my head.
A park in Las Vegas, being held at a scythe point by a hooded man, and a pair of unforgettable quicksilver eyes shining in the darkness ...
Recognition spread through me, and I felt my face pale. This man was one of the three who had kidnapped me when I attempted to run away from the Renaldi League during the field trip with the Rayne League. His companions had been killed and beheaded by a monstrous-looking Ragnor at the time, and somehow, this one convinced my former Lord to let him get away.
And now he was here.
And by the warm look in his eyes, he recognized me too.
“Nice to finally meet you, Hemet,” my past kidnapper said now. “I’m Wode.”
I had no idea what Hemet meant, but something told me it couldn’t be good.
Atalon pressed a button to raise the bars and turned to Wode. “As per our agreement, you’ll take Aileen and the blood slave in exchange for the Tears of Euphorrey.”
Wode’s eyes didn’t leave my face as he said, “Marcia, bring the box.”
One of the seven-foot-tall Jinn stepped forward. She was stark naked, emerald green covering her large pierced breasts and hairy crotch, with long bright-red hair and a set of eyes with enlarged pupils. Curved horns, like those of a goat, sprouted out of her head, and horselike hooves adorned her feet. She held a small velvet box in her wide palms as though it contained something fragile and got down on one knee next to Wode.
After taking the box, Wode handed it over to Atalon. “Be careful,” he said, a warning in his voice as Atalon opened the box and stared at its contents, hidden from me, with cold yet greedy eyes. “The Tears are very fragile, and we expect you to return them in perfect condition.”
“No worries,” Atalon said dismissively, not taking his greedy eyes off the box.
There was something ominous about those Tears they were talking about. Why would Atalon exchange me and Isora for this thing? Isora was one thing—Atalon thought of her as disposable. But with me being Sacred, I thought he would’ve wanted to keep a leash on me. So these Tears of Euphorrey—or whatever they were called—had to be something worthy enough for Atalon to part with me for a while in exchange for owning them, even if just until I returned.
“Then I believe we’re done here,” Atalon said, motioning toward me and Isora. “They’re all yours.”
A noise from somewhere up above us shook the room, effectively cutting Atalon off. Wode glared at the ceiling while Marcia, the Jinni who’d brought the box, glowered at Atalon in suspicion. “What the hell is this?” she snarled, her feminine voice so normal, it was too much of a stark contrast to her grotesque looks.
Atalon seemed to be genuinely confused. “I don’t—”
BOOM!
The stone ceiling suddenly broke in with such force, the ground quaked. I held on to Isora protectively, staring as Atalon backed away with wide eyes and the Jinni prepared for a fight.
When the debris settled, a man straightened, a luminous glow coating his skin. Cobalt blue eyes shone in his contorted face, and his fangs were unsheathed. His dark-brown hair rested on his shoulders in a haphazard mess, and his shirtless chest rippled with muscles. His barefoot long legs, covered by a pair of faded jeans, suddenly crouched, and in an instant, the man launched himself at the Jinni.
A fight broke out, so fast it was a blur—all I could do was simply stare, clutching Isora to me in fear. I tried to follow what was happening, but all I could see were heads flying into the air, following the horrible sounds of bones breaking and flesh being torn like paper. A pool of golden liquid, the Jinni’s blood, covered the floor.
I glanced at Atalon, who stared at the scene in shock, the precious box forgotten in his hands.
Suddenly, Wode was in front of me, gold blood and a look of determination on his face. Before I could protest, he grabbed Isora and put her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, while with his other hand he pulled me quickly to my feet.
But before we could move, the luminous man came crashing into him. Wode let me go but somehow still got hold of Isora; then the luminous man was on me, his eyes glowing neon as he took in my state.
He didn’t speak, however, as he lifted me in his arms and carried me princess-style, somehow enfolding my body in the same white glow as his, and, without a look back, jumped straight up into the hole he’d created in the ceiling.
There were screams and shouts from below as the luminous man moved so fast, it was as if he was flying upward rather than jumping from floor to floor. Quite belatedly, I realized he was taking me away, saving me, but—“Go back,” I said, voice raspy. “We need to go back!”
Isora was still there.
I couldn’t leave without her!
In less than a minute, the luminous man and I were suddenly outside the Atalon League compound and in a dimly lit underground parking lot. The man landed us on the floor next to a large hole in the ground and ran toward a sleek SUV. He quickly put me in the passenger seat, but before he could shut my door, I put my hand against it and looked at him, desperate and afraid to do what I assumed we were going to do next. “We need to get Isora,” I pleaded. “She’s my friend!”
The man paused, and suddenly he was no longer luminous, his eyes were no longer glowing ferociously, and his fangs returned to their normal size as he retracted them into his gums.
Midnight blues trained on me as Ragnor murmured something in a language I couldn’t decipher, and against my will, my lashes were a heavy blanket across my eyes, and slumber pulled me under.