The red eye flickered. Consciousness remained. His torn lips twitched as he drew them back.
“Maybe there’s enough left.”
It was possible. I studied the bulge at the bottom, the remaining blood. Angel held Antoine’s head while I held the bag to the vampire’s lips. He was too weak to do more than open his mouth. I rubbed blood on his lips, his broken fangs, the way I’d helped Julien when he’d been wounded.
The vampire struggled to swallow.
“Do we take him down from the wall?” I asked Angel.
“The restraints hold him upright. If he collapses…”
Dribbling more blood into the gaping mouth was like feeding a baby bird. His mouth kept opening, begging for more.
“I’m sorry,” I told the vampire. “But those assholes shot it, and the rest leaked out.” And now I was babbling, discussing the blood supply with an ancient monster as if every Monday ended like this one. “Get strong enough, please. Strong enough to call them, reach them however you guys talk to each other, because I’m sure they’ll come and help you more than I can.”
“Noa,” Angel cautioned. “You want more bastards like Barend to come?”
“Call for Set, too,” I said, and studied the wreck on the wall. His pallor had… lessened? “She’s an ally. And a sire.”
The vampire—Antoine—opened his mouth. I dribbled the last of the blood onto his tongue. My hands were sticky against the bag that crinkled beneath my grip, as if I was wringing it dry. “Do you know where she took the Alpha of Sentinel Falls?” I asked. “Was he ever here, in this hall?”
A guttural sigh croaked from Antoine’s throat.
When a similar sound echoed from the wounded conscript who hadn’t yet died, Angel straightened, returning a minute later, dragging a man by the arm and letting him flop.
“Help me,” she said, working on the iron manacles. I supported Antoine’s head while she lowered the vampire until he was sitting upright. But when she kicked the conscript to rouse him, I watched and did not comment.
“Feed him,” she ordered, a knife not at the conscript’s throat but flipping over and under her fingers like a magician’s trick. He got her message enough to cringe back.
Angel dropped to one knee. Sliced through the zip tie around the prisoner’s wrists as she said, “Put your wrist in his fucking mouth and don’t take it out until I tell you.”
“B-b-but…”
Her grin was feral. “I won’t let him kill you. I give my word.”
Antoine’s ruined hands clawed as he held the offered wrist and I needed to look away, searching the wall for any lingering sign of Grayson. Had he been here?
I closed my eyes, centered my mind in the faille void, and found the tether that would always remain between us. Visualized a glowing white thread between his heart and mine. Grayson… please… hear me. Answer me. Tell me how to find you.
I rocked back and forth, holding out, clawing at the answering silence.
Please, please, please…
And I heard Amal laugh.
CHAPTER 37
Grayson
Agony, as I forced my eyes open and allowed daylight to splinter the gloom. My cracked lips stung when I moistened them. During the night, my shoulders had gone blessedly numb. I dangled from shackles fastened to a stone wall. No support other than the chains wrapped around my wrists. No way for my feet to touch the ground. To halt the useless twitch in my legs. The flopping of my feet. But if my feet touched the floor, the torture in hanging would not be sufficient. And if Amal placed me too high on the wall, she couldn’t reach me with her ceremonial knife.
I doubted there was much left of the tattoo to cut.
Fortunately, each cut healed overnight. Unfortunately, the fresh pink skin, inked with the alpha mark, enraged her.
I looked around, barely moving my head. Mace had whispered through the pack bond when he’d first arrived. Whispered again moments ago, waking me with a brief confirmation: Noa was here. Angel and Levi were with her, along with several Blackfish wolves.
My pulse had throbbed in that secret mental space, the sacred space where I always found Noa. But I refused to reach out to her, mind-to-mind, in case Amal had a way to use those thoughts. I forced up a barrier, thicker than obsidian. Unwilling to give my mate’s presence away.
