Page 29

Damon

I went to grab Rana but Lemeraties beat me to it.

“Make sure Kitasa gets out,” she said, her gaze gone opaque and milky once more. “I’ll deal with the injured one.”

I wasn’t going to argue. Spinning around, I went for Kit.

She was fast. I was faster.

Neither of us was fast enough to outrun an earthquake.

Still, I’d have a better chance at getting us out of here. I swung her onto my back. To her credit, she didn’t argue. The weight of her weapons disappeared—she must have banished them—and then she clamped her arms around my shoulders while strong thighs gripped my hips.

Chunks of rock started falling from overhead.

I didn’t let myself think about Nene or what we’d just discovered, or the possibility that Frankie might be leading us into a trap—Kit had seen the weird expression flit over the other female’s face as surely as I had, but there was nothing to be done about it.

We could either follow the tall, long-legged female through the tunnels or try to make it back out the other way.

I’d much rather take the option that was closest to the fresh air source I scented.

So, we followed.

More rock fell and I swerved and leaped to avoid what I could.

Lemeraties spun into place next to me, like she’d formed out of a whirlwind.

“Faster,” she ordered. “The chasm has split the land in front of the Keep—we’re trapped on this side and the rest of the people are on the other. This structure is crumpling into it.”

“Where is my aunt?” Kit demanded.

“There’s a plateau. Up the face of the cliff. Go there.”

Lemeraties was gone again and I forced thoughts of Nene to the side.

Kit’s heart hammered against my back as I put on another burst of speed. We rounded a bend in the tunnel. There was light—

A huge stone crashed down, partially obstructing the exit. Only dim light filtered in but it wasn’t hard to see why. There was a curtain of vines and greenery, the leaves swaying in the air as the earth bucked and rolled under my feet.

Frankie leaped onto the boulder just as another came crashing down and she spun to look back at us, her expression pinched. She went to her knees and reached out a hand as I lunged, covering the last ten feet in one bound.

“Kit!” she shouted, her expression pained.

I boosted Kit onto the boulder and Frankie caught her, hauling her farther onto it and the two went rolling backward out of sight as I hurtled onto it. The earth rumbled ominously as I cleared the tunnel.

“Keep moving!” I bellowed.

They hadn’t needed the order.

Both of them ran full-out as the seconds ticked by agonizingly slow. The trembling of the earth slowed, but still we ran. A chasm split the ground up ahead and Kit veered north as the land beneath us rolled one more time. We ended up on a trail, moving higher and higher on a narrow path that wound its way vertically along a cliff face. They disappeared from my sight and icy panic blasted my veins. But not even five seconds passed before I came around the next jagged angle in the path and saw them slowing to a jog, then a walk.

A plateau stretched out in front of us and just a few feet off the path, Lemeraties knelt by Rana. A scream ripped through the silence, cut off abruptly as Rana’s spine arched.

Lemeraties had her hands on Rana’s amputated arm—one at the messy, putrid bandage, the other at her shoulder.

“What the fuck—”

“She’s helping,” Kit said softly, grabbing my elbow before I could move forward. “She did it with me once. Painful as fuck, but if it will help her survive…”

Cupping the back of her neck in my hand, I pulled her against me. “She’s strong. And now she’s worried about the kid. Don’t write her off just yet.”

Light exploded from between the two females and I heard the stutter of Rana’s failing heart go silent—and then it began to beat, steady, slow, almost regular.

Lemeraties straightened and turned to us, looking so close to alive, I’d never have believed otherwise if I hadn’t seen her other face.

“She will live,” she told Kit.

“That’s gotta be the most brutal way of healing I’ve ever seen in my life,” Frankie said.

The ground rumbled under us again but it was weaker, just an aftershock.

Lemeraties didn’t so much as look at Frankie. “She will be weak, but she’ll live.”

Kit went to Rana’s side and crouched there. Turning away from them, I eyed the water. “I sure as fuck hope this doesn’t cause a tsunami. That’s the last thing we need.”

“It won’t.” Frankie joined me, her voice sounding weary. “He likes to make his entrances but he doesn’t want to inconvenience himself.”

As the ground rumbled again, I looked at her.

She was studiously trying not to look at me, or anybody else.

“You’re certain this is him?”

She curled her lip. “It’s not the earthquakes that alert me to him. I just feel him.” As she spoke she moved her shoulders and squirmed, like the feel of her skin didn’t sit right on her. “And I don’t like it.”

Not even a bird called out. Save for the crashing of the turbulent sea in the distance and the heartbeats of those nearby, I heard nothing.

The five heartbeats—

Five ?

I spun around, sighting her as she faded into view, the same way Kit had done countless times. A slim blonde, arms wrapped around her middle, she hunkered on her heels on the far edge of the plateau with her face in profile.

She was young, maybe still a teenager.

I caught the hint of blood in the air.

Hurt, maybe.

Kit started forward and both Frankie and I moved to grab her.

The woman rose on stiff joints and turned to face us.

Hissing out a breath, I stared in shock.

Kit stiffened.

That vast, devastating magic Frankie kept hidden swelled, churning unseen in the air around us.

“She made me.”

The sound of her voice, thin, young and scared shattered the spell.

The face looked almost identical to Reshi’s—but that bitch was dead, cremated and her ashes spread in the ocean along with her sister’s at Kit’s request.

But as similar as they looked, that voice was nothing like the cold, brutal woman I’d held prisoner for weeks.

“Meti?”

The girl flinched at Kit’s gentle query, jerking as if she’d been slapped. Hunching her shoulders, she curled in on herself and whispered, “She made me do it. I couldn’t stop myself. I couldn’t. I couldn’t. I tried. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t stop myself.”

“You couldn’t stop what?” Kit took a step forward and this time, neither of us tried to stop her.

The girl lifted a shaky, bloody hand and brushed tangled hair back from her face. “From calling him.” Haunted eyes looked at us from her young face as she added, “She made me call him. She was my grandmother and I had to do what she said.”

“How did you call him?” Kit asked.

I didn’t need to know the answer.

But the girl held out her bloody hand anyway. “Blood calls to blood.”

Thunder cracked the air. Lightning split the sky.

I lunged for Kit and took her to the ground.

Frankie rushed for the girl and as I rolled to tuck Kit under me, I saw Frankie pin the girl under her, sheltering the young female with her body and Lemeraties crouched over Rana.

Another bolt of lightning pierced the sky—the endless, perfect bowl of cloudless blue overhead, spiraling down to strike the earth. I rolled away instinctively and smelled burnt, charred earth only seconds later.

“Now. Isn’t this a surprise?”

It was a male’s voice and with dread, I looked upward.

The smoke and dust hadn’t settled but I could see him.

And I knew exactly who he was.

His gaze slammed into mine and a wide, happy smile creased a face that was so damn beautiful, it didn’t seem real.

Rage blasted through me and I had to fight to stay where I was. I want to pounce, take him down and claw him to shreds. Not yet , I told myself. Not yet .

“I told you he’d come, Father.”

Malevolent glee lit his eyes and he reached out, stroking a possessive hand down the back of the person who emerged from the last of the fading smoke. “So you did, my pet. And look, he brought his toy with him. We can get you out of that body and into a proper one. Won’t that be nice, Arsay?”

“Yes, Father. It will.” And the creature smiled at us from Doyle’s face.