Page 15 of Savage Blood (Den of Shadows #6)
“He’s right, Tate.” Alicia smeared blood from her hands onto her already stained shirt. “We have to take the chance to escape while we can.”
A lump rose in my throat, knowing they were right, and I was stupid for arguing. The smart thing to do would be to get the hell out of Dodge ASAP.
“I’m not leaving without?—”
Roman slapped an antique gold key, two inches long, into my palm. “I enchanted this to open every door on the way to the dungeon and unlock the cells. Do you remember how to get there?”
I nodded and took the key.
“This is for the Malbraxis manacles.” He reached into his pocket, pulled out a small copper key, and fit it into one of the circlets on my wrist.
After he opened the second manacle, a moan spilled out of my mouth, and I pressed my hand against the wall to steady my legs as the connection to my shifter and demon sides flooded through my bloodstream. My head swam while familiar warmth unfurled in my center, and my wolf stretched within.
Could Fane feel this?
“Thanks,” Alicia murmured as he removed her cuffs.
Roman returned and passed me the key. “You'd better hurry. There isn’t much time left, and you’ll have to make your way back up here to get out.”
“What about you?” Another lump lodged in my throat. I knew what would happen if Barric found out Roman had helped us.
He gave one of his crooked smiles, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Unfortunately, I’m stuck here. But Barric won’t kill me. He needs me too much.”
When the former head alpha’s roar resounded from the ritual room, my pulse shot through the coffered roof. We’d wasted enough time arguing. It was now or never.
“Thanks, Roman. I won’t forget this.” I turned and jogged down the hall, Alicia on my heels. As I peered over my shoulder, my stomach clenched at his somber expression.
If I ever stole the amulet from Barric, I’d make sure Roman got out of this safely.
We crept through the maze of corridors toward the dungeon, peering around corners to check for Collective members before continuing. As the sleek, opulent décor transformed into dull stone and brick the closer we got to the dungeon, our steps quickened .
“I really want to shift.” Alicia sprinted beside me, her curls bouncing against her shoulders.
“We’re almost free,” I said. “When we’re out of here, you can shift all you want. We’ll probably be faster in animal form once we get out of the forsaken mansion.”
My inner wolf purred, longing to stretch her legs and feel the soil beneath her paws.
We turned another corner and halted dead in our tracks, my boots skidding on the stone floor as a shifter emerged from a door on the left. His dark eyes, nearly sunken into his face, widened in our direction.
Sharp, invisible claws raked against my chest and squeezed my heart in a vise grip.
“You two shouldn’t be down here.” Ben, the lanky shifter in charge of ritual supplies, shook his head, throwing around dishwater-brown locks.
My demon side wanted to lash out and rip him apart, but I calmed those violent urges and tried to think rationally. “Oh, well, Barric sent us to fetch Ruin.”
His head snapped back. “Why would he do that?”
I gave a noncommittal shrug. “He knows I can’t do anything, or he’ll hurt Enid.”
Ben crossed his arms as he studied the blood covering Alicia. “Aren’t you supposed to be getting sacrificed right now?”
A string of curses raced through my mind.
Alicia and I traded glances, and we slowly advanced on Ben. Without the Malbraxis manacles hindering our abilities, we could handle this little waif of a guy. A strong gust of wind could blow him over.
A low snarl slithered between Ben’s teeth. “You can’t do shit. You have those cuffs?— ”
His words sheared off as he scrutinized our wrists and noticed the absence of power-suppressing devices.
“Shit.”
We lunged toward him, and he let out a high-pitched wail as Alicia grabbed him around the middle. As talons burst from my fingers, it took all my control not to rip his throat out.
Instead, I slammed my fist into his jaw. His head whipped back, and then he crumpled into a heap on the ground.
“What a wimp,” Alicia muttered, bending down to clutch his arms. “Let’s put him back where he came from.”
After Alicia and I stuffed an unconscious Ben into a supply closet of candles, candelabras, and other random junk, we hightailed it to the dungeon. Enid bolted from the ground when she saw us.
“Oh my god. I thought you were dead, Alicia.” She hurried toward the bars, wrapping her hands around them. “And I was worried they’d done something awful to you, Tate.”
They had, but it was pointless to describe Barric’s new torture tactic. Erica’s dead stare flashed through my mind, haunting me. She’d become a new specter in my nightmares.
“Roman helped us escape the ritual room.” My hands trembled as I fit the gold key into Enid’s cell and jerked the door open. “Thanks to him, we’re getting the hell out of here.”
Enid hugged me, and I tensed, not familiar enough with her to be comfortable in her embrace. “I’m so glad you’re okay, sweetie.”
“You guys can hug it out later.” Alicia waved us on. “We’re running out of time. Roman won’t be able to hold that magic forever.”
I unlocked the mystical cuffs around Enid’s wrists, and her eyelids fluttered as her connection to her animal side rushed forward.
“What about me?” Ruin ambled toward the bars, his complexion paler and the shadows deeper beneath his electric blue eyes. “Can I tag along?”
“Absolutely not,” Enid snapped. “You’re part of the reason we’re in here. And you murdered plenty of shifters before Barric became this monster.”
Ruin rolled his head, navy hair falling across his sharp cheekbone. “That’s fair. I deserve punishment for that. But you should be the ones to give it. Not Barric.”
Pangs sliced through my chest, and my heart thumped erratically. I was torn between Enid and Ruin. The former demon lord deserved to be locked up for what he did to shifters and the demons he experimented on.
Because of him, Warin drank the unbalanced Soulvation and then slaughtered Jayla and my friends. And I killed him.
“Tate, don’t leave me here.” Ruin’s voice cracked, and his bottom lip quivered, anguish washing over his features. “ Please .”
He’d been here for months, tortured, starved, and used. They treated him like a pet and then drained his power time and again.
He deserved punishment, but not like this.
The high demon’s long, tattooed fingers curled around the bars as he leaned his forehead against them, his gaze searing into mine. “If you leave me in here, Barric will continue to siphon my power. They’ll use me for countless rituals.”
“You can’t seriously be thinking of bringing him, Tate.” Enid stood beside me, her hand resting on my shoulder, pouring tension through my muscles. “We can’t trust him.”
“But we can’t let The Collective Nosterium keep him.” I shrugged her hand off, marched toward Ruin’s cell, and unlocked the door. “If you do anything stupid, Ruin, I’ll kill you myself.”
He lifted his hands, the chains rattling across the ground. “Cross my heart, hope to die, stick a needle in my eye. I’ll be a good little soldier and eat all my vegetables.”
The Collective had been at it again, taking his power and leaving him unstable.
He definitely couldn’t stay here. Fane might attempt to kill Ruin, but that was better than leaving him.
As I grabbed the heavy cuffs, I swallowed back a sob at the scars they left behind. They looked like the ones marring my wrists, courtesy of my foster mother Rena.
“The Malbraxis manacles stay on,” I murmured, brushing my thumb over the raised strips of flesh.
Ruin nodded as he gave a soft smile, one I’d rarely seen. “No problem, sergeant.”
Before I unchained him, my nape prickled, and a familiar scent hit the air moments before Roxie’s shapely form materialized in the dungeon corridor.
“No one’s going anywhere.”
She skimmed her thumb over the rune on her dagger’s hilt, extending the blade into a lethal sword that could cut bone like butter.