Page 30

Cat

I gasped as my brain finally caught up to what I was seeing, and then I grabbed the man’s shoulders, gasping an apology as I threw him into Cruelty’s path and broke into a sprint. It wouldn’t slow her for long, but I only needed a few seconds.

The dark sapphire hallway blurred, and I saw none of its lush fixtures or adornments, my gaze zeroing in on every pale statue.

They’d been there in the fucking masquerades the whole time—and there were people inside.

Alfie hadn’t been trapped in one before, but she must have cursed him to lifeless plaster sometime last night, after the wine shot knocked me out.

She must have. It was the only thing that made sense, the last fragment of hope I had to hold onto.

If he was bonded to me like Cruelty said, he had to be a death god like my husbands. He would have magic and dark, seething power. We could get out of here.

“Get out of my way!” Cruelty hissed behind me, followed by a masculine grunt of pain. Guilt twisted my heart but I couldn’t regret throwing the stranger at the goddess when it had bought me enough time to reach the next statue.

I threw all my weight into it until it fell to the polished wood floor and exploded on impact.

A stately, tanned woman crawled out of the shards and shook her head, dark curls tumbling from the elegant coif on her head, dust clinging to the swags of her velvet skirt.

I didn’t stop, veering around a corner and down the next hall, my feet pounding the floor as I sprinted to the next statue, knocking it over.

I waited only long enough to see that the person who crawled out wasn’t Alfie and then I ran on.

Cruelty was close behind me, every enraged hiss made my skin crawl.

I reached for the next statue, and cried out when magic collided with my shoulder, hitting hard enough to bruise. My feet faltered, sending me skidding into a lacquer-inlaid cabinet, and I threw a frantic stare over my shoulder. Cruelty tossed her head back with a bright laugh.

I clutched my shoulder and ran on, my breathing shallow now.

The next statue gave way to a portly man with three strands of hair and a twisted, annoyed expression.

I left Cruelty to deal with him and burst into the foyer, my head starting to spin even as the pain faded from my shoulder.

So the dark magic wasn’t permanent, even though I caught flashes of flickering shadows in the edge of my vision, each one making me flinch.

I grabbed the buxom statue’s shoulder and hauled her to the floor, racing upstairs.

I threw a quick look back and watched a woman with the statue’s likeness sit up from the floor, wiggling up the sweetheart hem of her corset with a huff.

Cruelty was right behind her, her eyes blazing like blue fire. Fear doused my blood stream with ice.

I whirled back to face the stairs and rushed on, panting, shaking too hard to grasp my jaguar.

I’d practised shifting with all her tests, but never when I was this afraid.

I tried to grab that vicious magic that allowed my subject form to burst free, but it slipped from my hands.

A dark thought formed … did Cruelty’s magic block me from accessing my beast?

Is that why she kept hitting me with painful pulses of it?

No time to think right now, I hissed at myself, rushing up the stairs on legs like jelly. At the top, another statue waited. My breath cut off when I paid attention to that gentle, rounded face, the wild curls rendered in plaster, the tall, rangy body, the golden mask of laurel leaves.

“Oh, no you don’t,” Cruelty spat, no bubbly tone or crazed friendliness in her voice anymore. I’d thoroughly killed any chance of convincing her we were still besties, but this was Alfie, and I was so close now. I stretched out my hand as I stumbled up the last five steps, hardly daring to breathe.

Another pulse of dark, shadowy magic slammed into me, hitting me square in the back, making me miss the next step. I caught myself on the polished banister with a cry as pain sank sharp hooks into my skin.

Come on, faster, I ruthlessly urged myself even if I was terrified and in pain and struggling to stay upright on my shaky legs.

I reached my soul out blindly for Madde, for any of my men.

You’re a vicious killing machine. You can rip Cruelty to shreds.

You killed Poppy and Nightmare; you can do this.

It wasn’t convincing. I craved the voice of my darkness so badly I wanted to cry, but I launched myself off the banister and up the next few steps, trembling when I felt Cruelty’s breath on the back of my neck.

Every single hair stood on end, warning fizzling through my skin and nerves until I had to choke back a whimper.

But I was close enough to touch the statue now. I grabbed his arm and wrenched with all my might, and the statue toppled at the same time Cruelty sank her fingers into my hair and yanked me back. Tears stung my eyes, but the crashing, shattering of plaster reached my ears, and I sobbed in relief.

I watched through a veil of tears as Alfie groaned and pushed off the floor, shaking dust from his mousy curls.

Faint shadows danced around his shoulders.

He took one look at me, at Cruelty dragging me back with her fist in my hair, another latching around my throat as she snarled in rage, and any bit of kindness and care that I’d glimpsed on his face vanished.

He’d always been flirty and friendly, but my heart galloped as he rose slowly, dangerously, to his feet, a lethal calm on his face. Not a bartender at all. A death god, like I suspected, hoped.

Cruelty snorted, pressing her spiked fingernails into my skin, not breaking the surface yet but holding them as a clear threat. Dark, icy magic burned into my skin, an extra level of intimidation, and a cool sweat gathered on my upper lip.

“Let her go,” Alfie said, but less like a plea and more like a steely command. I’d never seen this side of him. It was like watching Madde go from his upbeat, giggly self to the true darkness of insanity, and I couldn’t suppress a shudder.

“You have no power, sweetie,” Cruelty taunted, her voice grating my ears, making my whole body wind up with tension. The back of my neck crawled even as pain pricked the front where her sharp fingernails pressed five points of danger into my pulse. “What are you going to do?”

He had no power? My eyes flew to Alfie, but his attention was locked on Cruelty behind me, absolutely livid, two shadows writhing around his shoulders. Faint, weak shadows. I’d been relying on him having an arsenal of magic—how else were we supposed to get out of here?

Anger and frustration collided in my chest, burning out the fear, and I gritted my teeth at the sudden surge of my jaguar. Oh, she was pissed. Good, that made two of us. I sank into her power deep enough to give me strength, to let claws cut lengthen my fingernails. 1

I grabbed Cruelty’s wrist with renewed strength, taking immense pleasure in snapping it.

Two nails scratched red welts across my neck, but I had enough freedom to throw my head back.

And oh fuck, that hurt even more. Headbutting was definitely not in my skill set, but at least it got her to stumble down a step.

I threw myself up the last two stairs onto the landing as pain carved a place inside my skull, my head spinning.

“God,” I grunted, my blurry vision landing on Alfie as he reached for me, pulling me beside him. “That was a bad idea.”

“You okay?”

“More or less,” I agreed, blinking my vision clear in time to watch Cruelty—oh.

The assortment of people who’d been freed of the statues had followed her up the stairs, but not to help her chase me.

The buxom woman had a handful of Cruelty’s brunette hair, and the man with a sum total of three hairs had grabbed the goddess’s arm, wrestling with her.

“How the hell are we getting out of here, Alfie?”

“Pain.”

I whipped my head around to stare at his profile. “Pain?”

He nodded, that deadly calm expression on his face.

“Well,” I said, my attention jumping back to Cruelty as two others piled on, dragging her down two steps. “I thought you’d be scarier. Shall we run?”

“I want to fight her.”

“Tough,” I muttered and grabbed his wrist, dragging him into the corridor, following it around where I knew another staircase waited at the end. It came out near the conservatory. “I thought you didn’t have your magic?”

“I don’t,” he sighed, not fighting me as I pushed us faster, racing past doorways that had been all I’d seen for weeks, past the entrance to my own bedroom. “Just enough shadows to avoid walking into walls. She’s locked the rest somewhere inside me.”

“Well, that’s positive,” I rasped, my lungs burning as I ran faster, a sense of warning crawling down my back like insects’ legs. Cruelty would break away from the statue victims at some point, and when she did her rage would be unleashed upon the two of us.

“Positive?” Alfie—Pain—demanded, throwing a bewildered look in my direction.

“Better than her … ripping it out of you,” I panted, the staircase coming into view when we whipped around a bend in the hallway. “I’m going to shift the second we’re outside. I have a plan but—” I aimed a wince his way, even though he couldn’t see me. “It probably won’t work.”

“It’s better than my plan.”

“What’s your plan?” I tightened my grip on his wrist as we raced down the staircase, my heart beating so loud I heard it in my ears. His skin was warm under my fingertips, distracting me enough that I nearly missed a step.

“I don’t have one.”

“Shit,” I breathed. Yeah, my plan was better than no plan. “So,” I panted, “we’re going to smash our way out of the conservatory—”

“Destructive, I like it.”

“And then I’m going to shift, and you’re going to ride me.”

“A little kinky, and it’s probably not the time but—”

“Alfie!” I barked, too afraid, too wary of being caught to handle jokes right now. “Or Pain. Or whatever your name is.”

“Technically both,” he mused. “Who gave you these shadows?”

“Huh?” I skidded across the polished hardwood floor at the bottom, swinging my body towards the short hallway to our left. The conservatory was in sight. With any luck, the door there would be unlocked, but I doubted our luck lasted that long.

A shock went through me, deeper than my skin, deeper than muscle and bone, like an intimate stroke to my soul, and I gasped, startling.

For a moment, I thought it was Madde, and I flung myself at the place where my darkness used to live, screaming his name.

But that place was still deserted, still silent and hollow.

“It’s not a signature I recognise,” Pain mused, and I jerked around to give him a questioning look. My stomach dropped when I saw him running his tanned fingers through tendrils of darkness that clung to the air around me.

“Stop that,” I gasped, growing breathy as that sensation grew. Like he was caressing my soul. I shivered. Hard. “It feels…”

“I know,” he replied, and cleared his throat when it came out thick with an emotion I struggled to identify. His eyes had darkened behind the gold mask, the green in his hazel irises almost black. “Come on, we need to get out of here—”

“Does that music seem louder to you?” I asked as we broke into a run, sprinting faster towards the ornate conservatory doors ahead. The soaring notes of the string quartet were louder, a melody I didn’t recognise, both sweeping and haunting.

“Yes,” Pain replied grimly, pushing very confidently on a window beside the door. I opened the door without a word, and pretended not to see the flush that crawled across his cheeks beneath the mask. “Useless bloody shadows,” he muttered.

“Would it help to take the mask off?” I asked, trying to hide my curiosity. What did he look like unmasked? Was he handsome? Cute? Devastating?

“Nope, it—” His words cut off like a sword had severed them, and he darted forward with a snarl on his mouth, pushing me behind him.

“I wondered when you’d catch up,” Cruelty’s smug, delighted voice made me flinch into Pain’s back, the recoil travelling through my whole body.

She’d been here all along. Waiting for us. The conservatory wasn’t an escape route; it was a pretty cage, and we’d walked ourselves right into it.

“You’re dreadfully predictable, Kitty.”

The music was louder here, the string quartet hidden somewhere in the riot of dark blooms and deep burgundy leaves but close enough that I felt the vibrations of the cello’s cry on my skin.

“How do I use them?” I hissed to Pain, peering around him to see Cruelty standing under a frame of black, red-veined leaves, that pulsing shadow magic she’d hit me with earlier wrapped around her hands. “The shadows. How do I use them?”

I’d felt it when he touched them, which meant they were connected to me somehow. If I could use them to get out—

“You don’t,” Cruelty said before Pain could reply, her tone dismissing, as if I wasn’t capable of calling on a single shadow.

“You need to—” Pain began, but he fell back into me before he could finish.

I cried out, throwing out my arms to catch him before he dropped to the floor.

I didn’t know if Cruelty had been lying about us being bonded, but I knew he was my only ally in this place.

Orwell wouldn’t stand up to Cruelty, and without Pain I was on my own.

That made him my person, and I would fight like hell to protect my people.

I wouldn’t lose anyone else. Couldn’t. So I held onto him tightly, even as his weight threatened to drop us both, and gritted my teeth against the sensation of a dozen different points of contact on the shadows.

It was like a raw nerve being touched. Not necessarily pain, but overwhelming. Alarming and intense.

“What did you do to him?” I demanded, my heart kicking harder when my words slurred, my tongue heavy and unwieldy in my mouth.

I blinked as Cruelty seemed to rush closer, but my lashes stuck together, the blink sluggish, and I realised she’d moved at normal speed.

I was slower, weakening. I swore filthy when Pain dropped to the floor, my arms too heavy to hold onto him.

“I didn’t do anything,” Cruelty said with a soft, rustling laugh. “But I did hire a very talented string quartet. They were a project of my brother’s. Exceptional, aren’t they?”

My knees gave out, my legs folding under me. I landed like a sack of bricks, and even the pain that should have spiked through my hip was muted, like a blanket had been thrown over my senses.

“Ssstop,” I slurred, trying to lift my hand, to implore her, but Cruelty snorted as the sweeping cadence of the music rose higher, and the whole world went black around me.