Page 41 of The Inheritance (Breach Wars #1)

Adaline turned back to him. “The dog is mine. It’s non-negotiable.

I cleared the cave-in London caused. The adamantite is marked.

The way to the anchor is open, and resistance should be minimal.

Give me the dog, and you can be mining all that adamantite in half an hour while I sing your praises to the DDC.

Or I will make sure you lose the gate and three days from now you will be testifying before a congressional committee.

You might keep the guild, you might not. Your choice.”

Elias stared at her. “Are you threatening me?”

“Yes. That’s exactly what I’m doing.”

“Hmm.”

He looked into her eyes and saw steel-hard resolve staring back. She wasn’t bluffing. He knew that if he tried to contain her, she and that so-called dog would explode with violence. A part of him wanted to do it just to see how strong she was.

He hadn’t felt so alive in years.

“But will Mellow be okay with it?” He couldn’t resist baiting her.

“What happens in my family is none of your business, Guildmaster. Do we have a deal?”

“We do,” he said. “The guild record will reflect that K9 47 died in the breach with her handler.”

Her posture eased slightly.

“We’re going to give you everything you want,” Elias said. “As a gesture of goodwill, would you tell us more about what we can expect from this breach?”

“Stay away from the flowers with mauve petals. The pollen goes airborne quickly and will kill you. Stay away from red coral growth. Their thorns secrete poison. It will kill you. Any water source larger than a small pond might have dragons in it. They wait under the surface, ambush you, and will kill you.”

What the hell happened to her in that breach?

“Malcolm marked his route in white. Stick to it, don’t deviate. You won’t encounter resistance.”

“Even at the anchor chamber?” he asked. Did you reach the anchor?

“Even at the anchor.” Yes I did. Don’t worry about it.

He almost asked her to go back in the breach with him.

“If you see the spider herders, you’re going the wrong way. Leave them alone and backtrack…”

What in the world was a spider herder? “Or they will kill us?”

“Not unless you piss them off. They keep to themselves, but I have seen their war spiders, and it will be a hard fight even for you.”

The doors of the library opened, and Tia and Noah ran inside.

Adaline spun off her chair, so fast, he barely registered the movement. The hard mask on her face broke. Her eyes shone, and she smiled a beautiful, glowing smile, as she threw her arms around her children.

* * *

Twelve hours later

Elias stood on a stone bridge. Below him the recovery crew bagged the last of the assault team’s bodies and loaded them onto a mining cart.

Adaline’s prediction proved correct. Less than an hour after she exited the gate, the DDC arrived and whisked her away.

He led the new assault team into the breach five minutes later, right after he’d informed London that he was fired with a Sontag code.

Alex Wright didn’t even argue. He seemed shellshocked, as if the world had suddenly kicked him in the face.

True to Adaline’s word, they encountered no resistance in the breach. The way to the anchor chamber was well marked and deserted. They reached the anchor in three hours.

Considering the chamber’s proximity to the gate, he made the decision to shatter the anchor.

They had three days before the gate collapsed, more than enough time to remove all of the bodies and mine the rest of the adamantite.

The miners were already working, under much heavier guard this time and with all three northern tunnels collapsed to ensure their safety.

While the mining and recovery crew worked, he scoured the area around the anchor.

Something had happened to Adaline in this breach, something that turned her from a regular person into a dangerous, calculating…

he didn’t even know what to call it. Survivor seemed inadequate.

Combatant didn’t do her justice. He wanted to know what she went through.

They’d found a cavern filled with dead monsters and some sort of weird device.

He tried to detach it, and it disintegrated into dust. They found a pile of ash in the anchor chamber and the body of a massive feline-looking monster.

He had seen hundreds of creatures in his time in the breaches, but nothing quite like that one.

Jackson informed him that it died from being repeatedly stabbed, and that the puncture wounds all over its body came from canine teeth.

He glanced at the darkness at the other end of the bridge. She had come this way. Just her and the dog. Without weapons, without food or water. How did she manage it?

“We found something,” Samantha said at his side.

He almost fell off the damn bridge. There were twenty yards between him and the side passage she came from, and he neither heard her nor saw her approach.

The phantom ranger tilted her head to look at his face. “Are you alright?”

“Yes.” Make some damn noise next time. “What did you find?”

“A doohicky. Leo wants you to see it.”

Elias followed her through the tunnels to a narrow side passage. A strange disk hung in the center of it. A dial of some sort made of concentric circles carved from bone or ivory with circles gouged in the rims. Leo stood next to it, pondering the dial.

Elias stopped next to him. “What is this?”

“It’s a forcefield,” Samantha told him.

Leo raised his hand. A thin tendril of lightning snaked from his fingertips and licked the space around the dial. A wall of light flashed, sealing off the tunnel, and vanished.

“Carver touched it,” Leo said. “It zapped him. Stopped his heart.”

“Is he okay?” Elias asked.

“He’s fine,” Leo said. “Jackson was right there, so he brought him back. Carver said it was the worst pain he ever felt. I tried overloading it, but it eats energy like it’s nothing.”

There were only two reasons to have a forcefield block the tunnel: to keep something from getting out or to keep them from getting in.

Elias pulled his sword off his back. Leo and Samantha backed away.

He concentrated on the blade. A pale red glow slicked the adamant sword, and vanished, sucked into it.

The weapon turned translucent. A familiar feedback hummed against his hand, as if he was holding onto the rail of a rope bridge while people marched across it and the impact of their footsteps reverberated into his fingers.

Elias swung. The massive blade sliced through the barrier. The two halves of the dial clattered onto the rock, split in half.

Elias walked into the passageway. It opened into a roughly rectangular cavern about twenty-five yards long and roughly half as wide.

Veins of jubar stone crisscrossed the ceiling and the walls, illuminating the rocky walls and floor.

At the far wall, a creature sprawled on the ground.

It raised its head, and he realized he was looking at a smaller version of the dead cat they found in the anchor chamber.

The feline beast stared at him with big green eyes. It was sturdy, with a broad squarish frame that reminded him of a jaguar or maybe a lynx, except it was the size of a cow. Dense fur sheathed it, rippling with black and red.

The two of them looked at each other from across the chamber.

The imbued energy in his sword would dissipate soon. If he was going to strike, now would be the time.

The cat made a noise. It sounded almost plaintive. It didn’t move.

“It’s tame,” Samantha said by his left ear.

Damn it. “Samantha, stop sneaking up on me.”

“The cat is tame.”

“What makes you say that?” Leo came up on his right.

“It has a collar.”

He saw it now, a metal collar wrapping around the cat’s neck. Something hung from it, some kind of metal device. Someone had locked this creature in the chamber. He didn’t see any food or water. It was probably thirsty and starving.

Elias sheathed his sword, pulled a canteen off his belt, opened it, and let a little water run out.

The cat rose jerkily, stumbled, and sat, holding its front paw off the ground. A deep cut split the flesh. Something with a very sharp blade had nearly sliced through the limb.

“Awww, it’s hurt,” Samantha said. “It’s very weak, Elias, and very, very thirsty. It’s been locked here for a while.”

The cat whined softly. It wanted water. Elias could practically feel the desperation rolling from it.

“A tiger’s paw swipe is estimated to generate over ten thousand pounds of force,” Leo said.

“So?” Samantha asked.

“This thing is three times larger. It’s dangerous.”

“One of us is a phantom ranger with a feral discernment skill that lets her evaluate breach monsters, and the other one is you. Elias, that cat is at the end of its rope.”

Elias crossed the cavern. Both Samantha and Leo followed, keeping a bit of distance. The ranger’s tactical crossbow was in her hands and Leo’s eyes had gone white.

The cat watched them come, its big green eyes sad.

Elias pulled off his helmet, poured the water into it, and offered it to the cat. The big beast crouched and lapped the water out of the helmet with a wide pink tongue. Its fangs were the size of Elias’ fingers.

“What a nice kitty,” Samantha said.

“This is a terrible idea,” Leo said.

“We should get Jackson to heal it,” Samantha said.

“No need,” Elias said. “I’ve been meaning to try this.”

He concentrated. A faint golden glow slid from him and clutched the cat’s injured limb.

The bleeding stopped. The severed muscle began to knit itself closed.

It wasn’t instant the way Jackson’s heals were.

It was slow and Elias could feel his reserves draining from the strain of it, but it was healing.

“You can heal?” Leo’s jaw hung open. “Since when?”

“Since this morning."