Quinn #2
A heartbeat spiked in a split-second warning.
I turned my head just as a blade whizzed past my face—so close I felt a whisper of it against my skin.
My magic moved before I did, my vision turning red as my focus narrowed to that throbbing pulse, the blood pumping through his heart.
I threw my dagger a heartbeat before Tobias dragged me behind him, sending the silver blade straight at my attacker.
The burly male bellowed as it stuck his shoulder and dropped the second dagger he had been about to throw.
Light swallowed my vision, blinding me. When it receded, bands of light pinned my attacker to the stone wall behind him.
One blistering loop sunk through his healer’s robes, the scent of burned flesh turning my stomach.
“Are you okay?”
The question was urgent, laced with panic. Tobias spun me around, gripping my shoulders as his gaze fixed on my face. I sensed the blood on my cheek before I felt the sting of pain. His thumb brushed against my cheekbone, and I grimaced.
“Your eyes,” he whispered.
Reflexively I looked down, knowing the red would fade quickly into innocuous amber.
“What the hell was that Sagray?”
The answer shriveled on my tongue even as something inside me told me it was past time to tell him. His thumb and forefinger gripped my chin, making me face him. “Don’t make me ask you again.”
I jerked my head back. “I told you. I can take care of myself.”
“Said the person who was nearly—” He sucked in a furious breath. “This is exactly why you can’t wander off alone.”
It was an effort not to roll my eyes. “Says who? I’m perfectly fine—”
“You were almost stabbed,” he growled.
The key word being almost.
I glared at him. “I grew up training just as hard as you did, Maris. You should know by now that I am my own protector.”
“I know that,” he insisted, “but—”
“Besides, now we have someone to question,” I said smugly, a smile rising to my lips at the success of my plan.
My attacker let out a pained gasp as he fought against his bonds.
Tobias had gone completely still. “You knew you were being followed.”
“All the way from the Enclave.” I shrugged indolently. “At least you didn’t scare him away.”
With a smirk, I stepped around Tobias and walked toward my still struggling assailant. He hissed as those bands of light cut through his sleeves, biting into his skin.
“Clever,” Tobias said, the admiration in his voice making my stomach flip concerningly. “Dangerous and idiotic. But clever.”
I placed my hands on my hips, glancing at him over my shoulder. “I told you. I have this handled.”
Tobias’s gaze moved from me to the blade still sticking out of our attacker’s shoulder. One corner of his mouth quirked. “I stand corrected, Sagray.”
I was starting to hate that one-sided dimple, even if I had missed its appearance.
Tobias stalked forward, every footfall echoing with ill intent.
I sucked in a breath as light curved from his right hand like a scythe.
It sliced the front of my attacker’s jacket open, and he let out a bloodcurdling scream…
but the small pack I hadn’t noticed hidden beneath his tunic fell to the ground.
Tobias knelt, his expression darkening as he opened it. His hand shook as he handed it to me.
Inside there were two carefully packed syringes. One was filled with a red-tinged liquid, the other empty. The shorter needle and its larger gauge left no doubt it was intended to draw my blood.
Tobias’s mouth curved into a ruthless smile.
It was one I had never seen on his face before, made even more sinister by the magic sparking in his irises like lightning in a storm.
He lifted his dagger slowly, turning it almost lazily in front of the male’s face.
Then he pressed it against my assailant’s throat.
I gasped as it drew a thin line of blood.
The male’s eyes bulged. “You won’t kill me.”
From the soft, rounded vowels of his accent, there was no doubt he was from here.
“Won’t I?” Tobias shrugged, sheathing his dagger. “Maybe you’re right. I won’t kill you…not yet at least.”
Tobias grabbed the blade still embedded in the male’s shoulder with his other hand and twisted. His cry echoed so loudly I was certain someone would come running.
My objection burst from me. “Tobias, stop!”
He looked back at me, his face utterly devoid of emotion, his eyes so cold I took a step back. The fear on my face must have gotten through to him because he let go. The male slumped forward as much at the bands of light holding him would allow.
Tobias tutted. “Let’s try this again. Starting with a name.”
“Thibault,” he wheezed, then cried out as a band of light moved under his chin, bringing his fearful face back up.
“See, that wasn’t so hard, Thibault.” Tobias’s tone was almost kind. It was the expression on his face that scared me—the frozen indifference was so much worse than before. “If you keep answering my questions, I’ll even consider letting you live.”
Thibault shrank back like he might escape through the solid stone wall. “He’ll kill me—”
“No, I’ll kill you.” Tobias’s voice was startlingly matter of fact. “But not before I make you wish you were dead.”
He brushed a finger against the diamond embedded into the pommel of my dagger, and Thibault yelped.
“Where is Silvius?” His voice was barely over a whisper, the demand in it deadly. “And who else is he working with?”
“I…I don’t know,” Thibault said pleadingly.
Tobias pressed my dagger downward, and Thibault let out a panicked cry.
“Tobias,” I protested as my stomach rolled. My healing magic flared at my fingertips.
My attacker’s eyes darted downward.
“You’re a healer,” Thibault gasped. “You…you won’t kill me.”
“She won’t need to,” Tobias said calmly. “Not when she has me.”
He pressed the blade in further. Thibault scream turned into a sob, just as I yelled, “That’s enough.”
A muscle in Tobias’s jaw flexed, the only sign he heard me.
“Where’s Silvius? What’s in that syringe?
” His voice was unrecognizable—more unfeeling than I had ever heard it and laced with cruelty.
“This is your last chance to tell me before I remove that dagger and let you slowly bleed to death. It would be such a shame if I were to nick an artery on the way out.”
“Please don’t let him do this,” Thibault said, still staring at me. “Please.”
“You’re smart to ask her,” Tobias said coldly. “Mercy isn’t a weakness I possess. Not anymore.”
He pushed the blade against Thibault’s neck in slightly, and I gasped as blood flowed from the wound.
I knew I could heal it, despite the rate at which Thibault’s blood spread down his shirt.
It was the calculating wrath in Tobias’s eyes that made my heart spasm.
This version of him was vengeance incarnate—the spawn of all those years in that dark dungeon finally unleashed.
“I don’t know where Silvius is.” Thibault nearly tripped over his tongue in his rush to save his own skin. “All I know is my priority was to retrieve her blood, if possible, and use the second syringe on you if I got the chance.”
My eyes widened. “To infect him?”
Thibault’s fearful eyes turned on me. Tobias shifted his grip on his blade.
“Don’t you dare look at her,” Tobias spat, and Thibault squeezed his eyes shut.
I didn’t need Thibault’s broken yes to confirm it. It was exactly as I had feared.
Tobias merely blinked at the confirmation, the detached look in his eyes so unsettling I suppressed a shudder.
Though if that was truly a syringe full of the live virus, then this might be a blessing in disguise—the very thing we needed to finish a viable cure.
Hope rose within me, despite my attempts to temper it.
Dolion and I could break down its components and reverse engineer them to be certain our treatment would be successful.
This was exactly the breakthrough we needed to reduce our margin of error and shorten the time required to test our cure before dispersing it.
“Please.” Thibault was trembling so much that Tobias had to move his dagger back slightly or risk decapitating him. “Please, that’s all I know.”
Tobias ignored him, almost sounding bored as he asked, “When and where are you supposed to report back to Silvius if you were successful?”
Thibault hesitated for a second too long. Those bands of light dug in, cauterizing Thibault’s wounds even as they cut into him. My stomach turned at the smell of charred flesh.
“I-I don’t know,” Thibault sobbed. “As a loyal follower of the True King, I simply offered my services. I received Silvius’s messages, but we never met face to face.”
“That’s not what I asked.” Tobias arched an eyebrow. “I asked—” Thibault’s scream cut him off as he reached for the knife in Thibault’s shoulder and twisted, a fresh gush a blood staining his shirt “—where you were supposed to bring her blood.”
It was a good question. And yet, all I could think about was that, while Silvius had failed to get my blood, the proof that he had Tobias’s was inside that first syringe.
“A bar near the Enclave,” Thibault whimpered. “I was supposed to meet someone tonight right before last call. The directions are in my back pocket. I don’t know anything else, I swear…”
He fell silent with a terrified sob. Tobias’s fingers twitched against his blade.
“That’s enough,” I demanded sharply.
He stared at me, his expression almost incredulous. The coldness on his face gave way to icy rage as he focused on my face…no, on the blood dripping down my cheek.
“He made you bleed,” Tobias said as if that was a reasonable explanation.
“This isn’t you.” I stepped closer, lifting my hand to his face. His eyes closed as my thumb grazed his cheek. “Let’s just bring him back to the castle and see what Queen Sariyah wants to do with him.”
Tobias’s eyes softened as they met mine, the light giving way to the hazel and gold I knew so well. To my utter relief, he lowered his dagger.
“No, no, no,” Thibault screeched, struggling anew. “If you do that, you sign my death sentence.”