An unlikely keening rose that sounded like my name.
“Go, go, go!” Angel’s order hissed between her teeth, but was no less powerful than if she’d screamed. The first creature she met lost its head without breaking its stride. As the body flopped to the side, the Blackfish swarmed as they had before, fighting with cruel efficiency and a silent, lethal speed.
Levi charged in front of me, clearing a path. I pulled energy from the air and through my feet as I ran, readied the building pressure, let it run down my arms, tingle in my fingertips.
The tusked pigs were ponderous, running with heads angled down, exposing the hump at the base of the skull. I counted less than a dozen, guessed this was a patrol stumbling on the unexpected and not an organized attack.
A three-legged gray monstrosity ran behind, legs pumping in a disorienting, drunken stride until Angel took its head, her body pivoting with the momentum of her sword.
Behind the monstrosity, a girl ran, her dark hair confined but not enough…
Levi took a fighting stance, drew back the spear.
Brin screamed. She pushed her hands out, fingers clawed. Light jolted from her fingertips and I met it head on with a wave of what I’d summoned in the vampire dungeon. The shield I’d struggled to build, never realizing how she struggled to tear it down.
Her body flew backward, hitting the stones hard, but not enough to stop her. She regained her feet, threw one hateful glance at me, then ducked as Levi’s spear barely missed her head. As it clattered to the floor, she turned and ran.
Levi turned to me.
“Go,” I shouted. “Find me when you’re done.”
He dashed off, followed by the wolves, while Angel grabbed my arm. “This way.”
“They know we’re here.”
“Always a matter of time,” she said. “Focus on your goal.”
We branched off, running down another echoing hallway, this one with high windows in one wall. The light made everything look drab, with details lost in a lifeless gray. The squares of light falling across the floor grew monotonous and disorienting with the flickering light-to-dark-to-light. My eyes hurt with each change, the struggle to notice movement hiding in the shadows.
Angel took another turn. “The great hall is just ahead, where she performs her rituals. Where she pinned the vampire to the wall.”
And Grayson? Would he also be on the wall? Shackled like the other alphas the Cariboo refugees described? I reached out for him again and swallowed back the disappointment.
Refused to attach meaning to his continued silence when it would only be speculation.
“If Grayson isn’t there,” Angel added, “I have another place to look.”
“How do you know?” How long had her popping in exploration been? Hours? Days?
Angel laughed, as if she’d guessed what I was thinking. “I bribed a tavern girl in the settlement. One of Amal’s conscripts smuggled her in for sex in a storeroom. She paid attention, and I asked her to draw me a map.”
“I’m guessing it was accurate.”
“As accurate as that dead patrol cluttering the hall.”
I’d forgotten the assassin part in the Blackfish story—which might be mere rumor—but their rise to fame came from selling intelligence others kept secret, and making things happen in ways that were never explained.
“Your silence is telling.” Angel paused in an alcove, still scanning, tense and ready. “Bron wouldn’t want me entering this fortress blind. He wouldn’t send you after an enemy uninformed. And he wouldn’t give a shit if you were upset if he had to spill a little blood to keep us safe.”
“Did he tell my mother the truth about who he was?”
“You know what she was like. A dreamer. She hid in trees, reading her books. She believed in a life he’d never have—but one he cherished. He told me he refused to ruin the fantasy she spun by revealing the truth. What they shared had to last a… lifetime for him.”
I closed my eyes, listened to my heart beating. “I think she knew exactly who Bron was and loved him anyway.”
Angel looked away, pushing a hand at her hair. “I’d like to think you’re right.”
CHAPTER 36
