Sana gasped and hands flew over her mouth.
“Flynn! Prince Halad’s cousin!”
I groaned. As great as having the additional aether-blessed fae on our side, I felt an extra responsibility to return those three to the prince.
Sam stepped forward. “I’ll find him.”
Her chin wobbled, and I recalled seeing her and Flynn the night of the feast, close together, flirting.
“No. I’ll do it,” Simone said. “You might find him, and even perhaps escape. But if he’s injured you’ll never be able to carry him while you run or scale that fence.” She nodded to the people she was carrying. “Someone take these spies in case I have to fight off the guards.”
The bear shifters who had been on the front line as we fought our way up the stairwell each took a trembling prisoner on their backs.
Simone approached the door. “Don’t wait for me. I’m fast. I’ll meet you at the cars.”
“What if you’re not fast enough?” Francis’ voice cracked.
“Then leave me. I’ll be fine.”
With that, Simone slipped through the facility door and disappeared.
“You heard her,” I said, trying to sound braver than I felt. “Let’s go.”
We started running over the dry, desert plain. Although I wasn’t carrying anyone so that I could remain alert and fight, my lungs burned after only a few minutes.
Next to me, Eva grabbed her scar and yelped.
I tensed. “Don’t even tell me . . .”
She shot me a look. “The royals know we’re here. What we did.”
I was afraid she’d say that.
CHAPTERTHIRTY-THREE
By the time we reached the cars, my breath was thin, and my legs burned so badly that I thought I might collapse. I leaned on the hood of the car I’d ridden in earlier and pulled air into my lungs. At my side, Eva was sucking wind too—but unlike me, she seemed more alert, her eyes scanning the air.
“What’s up?” I asked. “Do you feel something else?”
I hadn’t felt a thing, but Eva was proving to be more sensitive in the burning-scars department.
“No. That’s the problem. I think what I felt was Lucifer’s anger. He knows what we did, where we are, but then the burning . . . dimmed.” Her blue eyes caught mine, full of fear. “That’s never happened before. I think he’s masking our connection.”
Holy shit.I brought my hand to my mouth in a half-assed attempt to cover up the anxiety mounting within me.
Eva was right. She had to be. There was no way Lucifer was just going to let us traipse away with powerful magicals who could fight his army.
That my scar hadn’t burned now seemed less strange. Perhaps Lucifer was the first to learn of our break-in, and had only told Ishtar after warning her to keep her anger under control.
They’re hiding their emotions from us.
I hauled myself off the car and scanned the desert. The wolves and other shifters had transformed back into their human form. Everyone who had carried an injured and starved magical was helping settle them into the cars. Witches who weren’t catching their breath, like Andre and Hunter, were helping too.
Because the base was in the middle of nowhere, we’d driven in on one road; that meant we would drive out on one road. And if Eva was right, the royals knew what we’d done, and where we were.
We were sitting ducks.
Memories of the hundreds of demons swirling out of the Hellgate filled my mind. There’d been so many. Now they’d bring their army here and demolish us in the middle of the New Mexico desert.
