The reality struck mercilessly, cleaving through his chest. There was no going back, no changing this path. He’d accepted his fate from the time he’d woken on that stone slab. He faced death with a cold glower and a mocking grin. He had naught to lose.
Until Rori.
Dragging a hand down his face, he released a trembling breath.
“’Tis for her.”
Pulling himself together, casting the beat of unease from his energy, he returned to the room, and slid into the bed without disturbing Rori. He draped an arm above her head, one over her waist, and rested his head on her shoulder.
These moments are true treasures I’ll carry with me in mydeath. You, my beautiful love, will be my light as darkness consumes me on the morrow.
A shock of unfamiliar energy spurred him from sleep. He stared straight ahead, the reflection of firelight and shadows dancing a sensual rhythm over the stone wall. Coldness prickled his spine, climbing toward his neck.
Tendrils of magic.
Thaddeus sprang to his feet as the chamber door clicked shut.
“Thad—”
He pressed a finger to his mouth. “Shh.”
Tilting his head, he listened for the telltale sounds of footsteps. A metallic essence peppered the air and left a sulfuric taste in his mouth. The unfamiliar energy remained close by, the low-frequency hum resounding along his muscles.
He rushed around the bed as Rori sat up, holding the sheet to her bare chest. He pressed his fingers to her lips when she opened them to speak.
Leaning close to her ear, he whispered, “Keep quiet and get dressed. Lock the door as soon as I leave and, dear Goddess,don’topenitforanyone.”
He stole a hasty kiss, then slipped into the corridor.
Whoosh.
He ducked and lunged forward, barely missing the edge of the blade as it cut through the air where he had stood a moment before. Twisting around, he pinned the black-clad Fae, skillfully turning the blade over in his hand before he lunged at Thaddeus, stabbing the sharp point straight for his chest.
Thaddeus bent back, the blade piercing the air above hisnose. He twisted again, dodging two more hacks of the sword with quick-succession arches, bows, and turns, before he landed the heel of his foot into the Fae’s sternum.
His adversary coughed, stumbling backward, but never dropping his weapon.
Thaddeus rushed the Fae, but grasped a handful of air when he swiped for his head.
He jerked around.
A blur of black barreled toward him, the glint of the sword his only clue as to how this unknown enemy moved. He dodged blow after blow, barely able to keep out from beneath the blade as the Fae backed him into the corridor’s dead end. He was at the disadvantage, his magic locked away and no weapon in sight.
A fraction of a second over-swing of the sword left a wide-open escape. He spun away from the wall, the Fae, but his enemy was on him before he made it a dozen feet down the corridor.
If he only had hisdagger.
The blade nicked his shoulder.
Thaddeus hissed, cutting his arm back, tangling his hand in the Fae’s sleeve. He used the leverage of the man thrusting that bloody fucking sword at him again to pull him close while twisting his weapon arm between his own and his side, and driving his knee into the Fae’s gut.
A clang echoed down the corridor. Thaddeus ripped the cloth from the Fae’s face and growled, “Grison’s puppets are not welcome here.”
He drove his knee deep into his ribs, relishing the crunch of bone as they cracked. The Fae gasped, eyes going wide. Relinquishing the Fae’s arm, he locked his hand at the man’s throat and punched him down to the ground.
An explosion of pain ripped through his torso as he flewbackward, slamming hard into solid stone. The gray barely began to clear from his vision when he spotted the Fae scrambling toward the sword. His gut on fire, the air stilled in his lungs, he lunged toward the weapon, snatching it up by the hilt, and cut the blade at the Fae.
He vanished, only to reappear a few feet away. The air sizzled. The Fae gaped at his hands, where magic tried to form but was snuffed out before it grew to any significant strength. Thaddeus chuckled, straightening his back as air filled his lungs again, and rolled out his shoulders, dispelling the soreness from back-slamming unyielding rock. He glanced at the reddened scorch mark beneath his ribs, a failed—albeit painful—attack. He didn’t doubt for a moment that blow was supposed to leave a gaping hole in his midsection.
