Chapter 30 Saskia #2
“Now we’re one down, eleven to go,” Merrick says with a grim twist of his lips.
In his werewolf form, Ashe whines toward the tunnel leading to the Blood Moon Palace, but Lucan already seems to know the thoughts spinning through my head. “We can’t.” He shakes his head. “Not yet. The vampire mentioned that she’s been with Diggory, which means…”
I’m already sprinting, no time to contemplate it, taking the tunnel that the Seventh Guardian came out of. If I remember correctly, this one leads to a locked door that I always thought of as a dead-end. In my human form, I was never able to open it, but now that I’m a vampire?
I smash through the wood as if it’s nothing more than paper, splinters exploding all around me as I burst into what looks like an underground chamber made of a single, narrow stone passageway bordered by iron cells.
There aren’t any torches to light this place, but my vision uses what little light still bleeds from the cavern behind me to take in my surroundings.
Prisoners by the handful are crammed in every cell, their space containing nothing but a bloodstained stone floor and a pile of rags in the corner.
The smell of piss and vomit permeates the air even thicker than the blood.
Moans and coughs fill every inch of the space, and heads turn to look at me with reactions ranging from panicked to sluggish—some of them near death.
All of them covered in too many bruises and seeping wounds to count.
These are where the rioters were taken. These are all the people who tried to fight after Claudia revealed the truth… and failed. Now they’re suffering for taking a stand.
But when I rush toward the first cell to try to help, the man gripping the rusted bars backs away, his eyes flying open in fear.
“No,” he stutters with a hoarse voice. “Please don’t.”
My throat closes like a vise, and the only thing I can feel is the sadness wrapping around my heart.
He’s afraid of me—of my marble skin and crimson eyes and darting movements.
“I’m here to help,” I reassure him, but he cowers in the corner. So do all the others as I walk past each cell in a daze, until a groan rises from one of the last ones in the back.
The heap of fabric in the corner of the cell moves shakily as a bruised arm appears out of the folds to lift itself and then flop back down. I catch a glimpse of a swollen face covered in fresh, oozing cuts.
“Diggory!” I gasp, grabbing the bars and rattling them with all my strength.
They creak, the sound straining through the stone dungeon, but they’re just as locked as the Wall once was.
No veins of venom writhe within the iron bars, but I’m still not strong enough to get to him.
And once again, I don’t have a damn key to open it.
Diggory peers up at me through the bars. His face is likely unrecognizable to anyone who knows him, but to me he looks the same as his one night in the Healing Center… only worse.
Both eyes are swollen slits, brownish purple skin hangs off his cheek in strips, and dried blood mixed with fresh blood has stained his lips in various shades of red.
I wonder if he can see me, if he even remembers who I am.
He’s been at the forefront of my mind with every step I’ve taken, but to him, I might just be the healer that took care of him for less than a day.
“I’m trying!” I promise him, my voice cracking. Panic shoots down my limbs, causing my entire body to tremble. He’s right there, within an inch of death, but I can’t get to him. I don’t know what to do, and after all of this he’s going to die on my watch. “I’m trying!”
“Saskia,” Lucan says from behind me, and I jump, not realizing he followed me in here.
But he just anchors his hands around my waist, lifts my shaking body off my feet, and sets me down two feet to the right.
Then he places his massive hands where mine just were, gripping the bars so tightly that his tan skin turns white. His forearms tense, lines running along the ridges of each muscle, and with a grating screech, the entire cell door pops off its hinges.
Lucan tosses it to the side like it weighs nothing, leaving a gaping hole for me to step through.
“Diggory!” I cry, rushing inside, all of my anxiety melting away as it brings back every ounce of the healer in me.
Cradling the elderly man against my chest when I fall to my knees, I keep the tears at bay.
“He needs to go to the Healing Center. Right now,” I tell Lucan, throwing a wild gaze over my shoulder to find that the rest of the pack has filtered in, looking more than confused about this change of events. “I’ll go while you—”
“No.” Lucan steps forward and fills the doorway completely with his enormous frame.
“You need to stay with your pack,” I start to argue.
Lucan shakes his head. “You were alone within these Walls for far too long, little nightmare. Now that we’re in here together, we do it together.
Every step.” And he gives me no time to counter.
Wheeling around to face them, his commanding tone is like the swish of a knife.
“Work on getting all of the prisoners free. Saskia and I will be right behind you as soon as we get back.”
At his words, all of the other prisoners begin to limp or crawl to their iron bars, jaws dropping as they take in their potential rescuers.
I see blackened, swollen eyes widen when they land on those still in their werewolf forms, and some immediately retreat into their shadowy corners once again.
Others begin whispering to each other with hopeful tones, and my heart twists as I clutch Diggory to my chest.
They all risked their lives to protest the Guardians. And now, maybe, just maybe, they’ll get to keep their lives despite it.
Vivian, Merrick, Soren, and the others nod and get to work.
Gabriel and Kyra, however, exchange glances with curling lips and sneering expressions that I understand immediately.
Just like he promised he would, Lucan is choosing me and my wishes over the pack and their mission. I’m already rotting his position as alpha and king. Already compromising everyone else’s safety.
But Diggory…
After another snarl from Lucan, Gabriel and Kyra jolt into action, closing their jaws around the bars nearest them and yanking the cell doors off their hinges.
As the prisoners stumble out, Lucan whispers, “Let’s go.”
With Diggory still in my arms, we move through the catacombs, trying to find an exit. I follow Lucan blindly with each turn, knowing he memorized this maze like the back of his hand.
Two rights and a left. Then a hollow cave that splits into five additional tunnels. Lucan doesn’t hesitate when he takes the second to the right. And within a minute, we’re ascending up to an alleyway lined with identical doors and eaves blocking the moonlight above.
Long abandoning the idea of being quiet, I sprint past Lucan, down the alleyway, toward the main street with Diggory groaning against my chest. In the back of my mind, the Cardinal Rules are clanging together, and I can’t help but hear echoes of that stupid female voice spouting out the curfew warning every night.
“Citizens of Xantera, please return to your individual housing units. Recreational time is over. Citizens of Xantera, please return to your individual housing units.”
If my patient wasn’t two steps away from death right now, I’d laugh at the absurdity of this. We’re definitely out past curfew.
But my vampire speed is too fast for anyone to catch me, so when I burst out onto the main street, I don’t pause even when a line of sentries crank their heads in my direction.
“Halt!” one shouts, twisting from his lookout on the balcony of the Sentries Station half a block up toward the palace.
The others surge toward me, five sets of footsteps pounding pavement as if they actually have a chance at getting to me when Lucan emerges from the alleyway, a warning growl rumbling off his chest.
“I wouldn’t go after her if I were you. Just a little advice if you want to live.”
At that, I can’t stop myself from twisting my head to watch over my shoulder as the sentries skid to a halt and turn to face this new threat.
I can practically smell their bewilderment when he steps out into the moonlight, not in his werewolf form, but larger and stronger than any human in Xantera could ever get, the muscles cording on his neck as he clenches his jaw.
“Y-you are not allowed to be out this late,” one of them stammers, as if trying to convince himself that Lucan is merely a citizen when everything about him screams otherwise—strapped with weapons, with no cloak or badge in sight.
“Oh?” Lucan cocks an eyebrow. “Then come put me back to bed.”
His ruse works. The sentries change directions, charging him with their rapiers instead of me. Lucan barrels into them as if they’re nothing, sweeping them off their feet in one fluid movement of his arm that makes me suck in a breath—knocking them out before their heads even hit the ground.
Which is why I don’t see the sentry leap out of a darkened alleyway to my left, his rapier slicing through the air.
Every millisecond seems to tick by slowly as the blade comes crashing down toward Diggory in my arms.
Instinctively, I raise one of my hands to meet it before it does, catching it by its sharp edge. The metal doesn’t completely slice through, but it imbeds between my fingers like a blade cracking into marble, sending a bolt of pain up my arm. “Saskia!” Lucan cries from behind me.
He’s there at my side before the sentry can even blink or process what just happened, and I rip the rapier out of his grip by the blade. Lucan takes it from me, his amber eyes darkening as they zero in on the new, spiderwebbing gash in my hand.
It’s already healing, my skin stitching itself back together, but Lucan gives an icy laugh.
“That was a colossal mistake.”
And he uses the rapier to slice off the sentry’s hand by the wrist.