18. Out Of The Dungeon
Out Of The Dungeon
Asecond hand clamped over my mouth before I could scream.
Then a larger body shoved itself into the alcove with me, and pressed me hard into the wall. I looked up. My eyes widened as glowing gold-green eyes stared into mine.
“What in the fucking gods is wrong with you?” he demanded harshly.
My breath stopped.
“Is your mind broken?” he spat. “Have those Golden Sun wankers dosed you with some kind of suicide curse?”
My heart jerked violently in my chest. It hurt so badly I couldn’t think, couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. I stared up at him, at those familiar gold eyes I barely recognized, and felt like I’d been ripped open from the inside.
Bones.
For that long-feeling silence, all I could do was stare at him.
He wasn’t naked, filthy, chained to a wall, or alone inside an underground dungeon. He wasn’t being branded with a hot iron. He wasn’t bleeding. He didn’t look broken, or lost.
He also wouldn’t quite look at me.
Leached of feeling, even of recognition, his eyes stared coldly at the stone wall to the right of my face.
He wore one of his expensive suits, gold cufflinks, his usual rings.
His hair appeared to be slightly damp, like he’d taken a shower not so long ago, or a bath.
He held me firmly to the wall, his hands clenched brutally.
He’d changed their positions at some point, and now gripped me by the shoulder and part of my neck, his other hand still over my mouth.
Briefly, for the barest breath, I saw what might’ve been conflict in his eyes, right before his gaze flattened even more.
“What is wrong with you?” he hissed again. “Wasn’t my threatening to kill you enough?”
I didn’t think about it, really.
I kneed him, hard, in the crotch.
He stood too close to maneuver entirely out of the way, although he managed to block me partly with one leg. He still let out a pained gasp. More to the point, he released my mouth long enough for me to suck in a full breath.
By the time I’d let it out, he had a dagger to my throat, his mouth by my ear.
“Make one fucking sound, I’ll kill us both,” he hissed.
I went totally still.
Somehow, that time, I believed him.
He still held my throat, but not as tightly. His other hand gripped the knife.
He’d stopped breathing, and I found myself holding my own breath. I heard what he must’ve picked up on before I got all the way there. Footsteps, coming down the corridor, loud enough that they seemed to echo through my ears.
I soundlessly mouthed the incantation Alaric had given me for the talisman, and nearly let out a squeak when Bones disappeared in front of me.
His fingers tightened on my throat, and I felt the blade nick my skin and looked down.
Both of us were invisible now. I wondered if he even knew he’d cut me.
Take the blade off my throat before you kill me, I snapped in his mind.
The cold metal instantly left my skin, but not before he managed to nick me again.
I could feel his fingers still wrapped around my throat, and now they were feeling around.
I felt the instant he accidentally touched the cut, and likely some of my blood, and flinched.
He tensed, and I felt him breathing harder where he held me.
He still didn’t make a sound.
We both just stood there as the sound of footsteps continued to come closer.
I could tell they were walking the same direction the first group had, towards the main receiving hall, and the southern wing of the castle.
Whoever it was, they were alone, and they walked much more quickly than the first group had.
Despite the lack of carpet on the long, tile hall, their footsteps remained shockingly quiet, almost like they were walking barefoot on the marble.
“Where are you, runt?” a voice asked coldly.
I flinched, then froze utterly.
I stopped breathing. I silenced my mind.
The voice had been near. Too near.
It sounded like it had come from right outside the alcove’s opening.
“I know you came this way,” he purred silkily. “You really want to play this game with me, you little fuck? You know how it always goes in the end.”
I felt Caelum’s attention on me, narrowed to a point as if willing me to be quiet with everything in his being.
“You better not be getting any ideas about running, runt,” the voice cooed.
“You know you’ll never get out of here, collar or no collar.
You even think about bolting before the job tonight, and I’ll give you back to Sirena to play with.
You know how much she loves to play with you.
Then again, maybe you’re beginning to like it… ”
A wave of sickness hit me, and I closed my eyes.
I felt Bones flinch, but he didn’t release my neck. I felt his finger trace lightly over the cut, almost like he was trying to gauge how deep it was.
“Come out, you fuck. Now!” Real anger seeped into his thick words. “You’ll regret making me miss your father’s opening remarks, I promise you!”
I thought maybe Bones would. That he’d let go of me, and step back out there.
Maybe I even felt him thinking about it.
My hand closed on his arm, gripping it tightly.
He didn’t move. He held me, his breath silent where he pressed me into the wall.
After a long-feeling pause, I heard those feet resume moving.
They continued down the corridor faster, and louder than before.
“Gods-damned little prick,” I heard him mutter. “Father’s going to skin him… then he’s going to skin me…”
I listened, ears straining, as the sounds followed the turn at the portrait, walking around the same sharp corner the others had taken. Neither of us moved, even after it had grown silent once more, and all that could be heard was the faintest whisper of magical fire.
Then, all at once, the talisman clicked off.
Five minutes and eight seconds had passed.
I found myself staring up at Bones, who stood over me, his eyes aimed at the corridor.
Because it took him a few seconds longer to realize we were no longer invisible, he stared out the lit opening, his chest moving in silent, shallow breaths, his eyes wide, his face taut.
I used those seconds to really look at him, and realized I’d missed a few things in my initial shock at seeing him.
A new scar decorated one cheekbone. It wasn’t wide, but it cut at an angle down one side of his face.
He’d told me once that magic prevented most scarring.
Either he’d gotten it from some kind of dark curse, or it had been bad enough that even magic couldn’t fix it.
He turned, sharply, and stared down at me.
For the first time, he really looked at my face.
His eyes looked faintly sunken. He looked older, and disturbingly more like his father.
How did he look older in only a few months?
When I refocused on his expression, I saw him trying to control some emotional reaction that once more caused his eyes to glow.
He was breathing harder. Still silently, but hard enough to move his chest, and make his hand tremble where he held me.
He looked over my face like he was struggling with my appearance, too, or maybe like he’d never expected to see me again.
Then his eyes fell to my throat.
He stared at whatever the dagger had done and I saw his own throat move in a swallow.
His thumb lightly traced the cut there.
“You’re bleeding,” he said, soft as a breath.
“Whose fault is that?” I whispered.
I was crying, though. I guess I knew that, even before my vision blurred.
Before I could say anything else, he abruptly bent his head.
His mouth crashed into mine, and the contact shocked me so much, every thought in my mind scattered.
All of it was gone, everything I might have asked him or wanted to tell him.
His first kiss was almost rough, but it turned sensual in seconds, shocking me even more when he let out a low groan and pressed me into the stone.
His whole body leaned into mine, and I let out an involuntary gasp.
My fingers were clutching his hair then, pulling him into me as I pressed the length of my body up and into his. He reacted sharply, tightening his hold on me almost violently before his arm wrapped roughly around my back, forcing me against him even tighter.
It felt like drowning and finally getting air all in the same instant. I felt a starved quality on both of us, even as relief suffused me, erasing everything else.
I have no idea how long we were kissing like that.
I know we didn’t stop until another set of footsteps echoed on the stone, and I frantically murmured the cast to activate Alaric’s talisman again.
Bones vanished where I held him.
His whole body immediately tensed.
He hadn’t heard the new person approaching. He hadn’t noticed anything until I distracted him by disappearing in his arms.
I couldn’t help noticing other things, now that I wasn’t solely focused on his mouth and magic.
Our positions had changed since he first kissed me.
Bones had one hand wrapped tightly around my lower thigh, which he’d yanked up and around his waist. He leaned most of his weight on me still, and had his crotch pressed up against mine, the fingers of his other hand massaging the back of my neck.
He was hard enough I struggled not to focus on that, too.
I’d maneuvered a hand inside his shirt and I could feel his bare skin and his thudding heart as his chest breathed against my fingers. His lips gasped lightly against my neck.
I felt other things under his shirt, things that were hard to ignore.
More scars. More marks and swellings I didn’t recognize.
I felt the gold in the center of his chest, the symbol of the vow he’d taken to Dark Cathedral.
He also felt like he’d gained back some of the weight he’d lost, most of it in muscle.
I’d noticed that when I’d seen him in that ritual haul with Blackstone, too.
He’d looked bigger. Maybe bigger than I’d ever seen him.
He flinched and I swear I felt him look at me.
I had to fight not to kiss him again.
I felt him struggling with the same thing.
Neither of us could see the other, though. In some ways, that made it easier.
As the steps receded on the stone, my fingers tightened in his hair.
Come with me, I whispered in his mind. We need to go, Bones. Now. Phase both of us out of here. Help me do it, if you can’t.
I could already feel him shaking his head.
I felt it, even before his magic began to withdraw reluctantly from mine.
It’s impossible, he thought back, even quieter.
Why? I demanded. Why is it impossible?
When he didn’t answer, I rubbed his chest. After a few seconds, with my magic in his, my hand massaging his bare skin, I felt his whole body shudder.
I just can’t. Please, Leda––
Is Varya still here? I asked, softer. I don’t want to leave her here either, Bones, not if there’s even a chance we could––
He flinched violently that time, like my words hurt him.
I fell silent, staring at the space where he should be.
A sick dread pooled in my gut.
Bones, I thought softly. Varya, is she––
I told you, I haven’t seen her, he cut in. His thoughts grew deadened. I wouldn’t even know where to look for her, Leda, and anyway, you’re not hearing me. I can’t leave. With or without my mother, I can’t leave this place. I can’t leave him. I can’t.
I felt my magic coil in rage around my body.
Then help me kill him, I said coldly. Feeling him flinch, I cut him off. You can’t kill him, but I can. You can help me get close enough, Bones. That fucking loyalty oath won’t mean shit with him dead. He is Dark Cathedral.
I could feel his own anger growing in my magic.
You know the oath wants me to kill you for even saying that? he hissed in my mind. What the fuck is wrong with you? If you went after him, I’d have to stop you. I’d have to, Leda. My magic is sworn to his. It is bound to protect his.
His fingers gripped my thigh. Do you want me to kill you? Is that what this is, Leda? Did you come here to destroy me by committing suicide?
Instead of answering him, I bit my tongue.
I could feel myself crying, but I didn’t dare make a sound.
I felt him take a long, shuddering breath.
His thoughts grew distant when he next spoke in my mind, and oddly polite.
Shadow, he thought at me. If you could find my mother, and convince her to go with you, I would be greatly in your debt. If it would be at all possible to get her out of here, and back with her family––
Come with me to find her, I thought back at him angrily. We’ll bring her out together. There has to be a way to reverse the vow… Blackstone and Forsooth can figure out something, along with Luc, Jolie, Alaric, and the rest of us. Maybe we can even do it from Russia, with your mother’s family.
When he started to pull away, shaking his head, I gripped his hair.
I’m not fucking leaving you here, Bones. I don’t give a damn what you say. There’s no possible way I’ll just––
But another voice cut me off before I could finish.
“Well, well,” it said.
The voice was loud.
Lilting.
Disturbingly relaxed.
Those two words made both of us freeze. They echoed coldly over the stone, carrying a hint of dark humor, even satisfaction.
“…Isn’t this touching,” it remarked.
My heart stopped.
Adrenaline spiked through my blood.
I already knew who it was. I knew, maybe because some part of me expected it, even before he stepped into the opening of the narrow crevice.
It was Malefic.
We were trapped.