The gray eyes blazed at him.
He’s asking me if I’ve seen anything,Nikolai sounded desperate.
Lucas glared at Galeran. “Like I’d tell thou if I had,” he said aloud.
For an instant, the Bellati glared back. Then with a swirl of long gray hair, he was gone.
Lucas sighed in relief.See? He believed what his eyes told him. Most do.
You’re lucky he didn’t reach for energy to check. He either doesn’t remember I had a Morph friend, or he didn’t pay attention to you.
I do rather fade into the background,Lucas agreed.
Not to me.And on the heels of that came a jolt of pure emotion that rocked Lucas’s world, followed by a promise.I will come for you.
It was fortunate Lucas was already lying down, because his legs would never have held him. Even his mindvoice was breathless.
I’m fine, Nikolai. Just make sure it’s you that comes. And not the Perditor.
* * *
Another rune vaporized. Beneath Aria’s fingers, the trembling had become an earthquake.
Aria gritted her teeth and turned to Nikolai, fastening one hand in his mane, and laying the other flat against his neck. His sweat-soaked body steamed in the cold air, and the glow from the Watchers’ lit it like clouds in a sunrise.
They should stop, but they couldn’t. Nikolai had no hope of controlling what seethed within him. They had to keep going. If he wasn’t free, Galeran would continue his rampage.
“Jacques.” Cara spoke without glancing at the Satyr. “Send Sparkle.”
His brown eyes widened. “Is he free?”
“We’ve got them all done now, except the lock rune.” Cara spoke through gritted teeth. The Watcher glanced toward Aria. “We won’t be able to stop him. No matter what, you have to stay with him.”
Stay with him? What was Cara talking about?
With a poof of ash, Sparkle vanished. When Nikolai flinched, Cara explained, “She’ll fetch the cavalry.”
“Lucas.” The single word escaped Nikolai’s lips.
Aria closed her eyes, and opened her senses. The crystal in her blood hummed in Nikolai’s presence, caught up in the energy soon to be freed. And suddenly, Aria sensed it—like the faintest of trails connecting Nikolai to something behind him. To Galeran? No. ToLucas.
It drew Nikolai like a magnet, and she knew that the moment he was free, he would bolt back there. To save Lucas.
Only if what she sensed roiling within him was true, what arrived at that cave wasn’t likely to listen to reason. All it knew was that Lucas might be in danger.
Cara wanted Aria to stop him from racing back there, and destroying the entire realm in his efforts to save Lucas? How was she going to do that?
The Watcher’s intense blue gaze sought her own. “You are his. He is yours. You will find a way.”
Aria turned to Nikolai. “Can you sense Lucas?”
“Yes.”
“Is he okay?”
His ears flattened into his mane. “For now.”
“If you go rushing in there consumed by anger, you will destroy us all.”
