Turning, I take in the three bodies hanging from the wall and curse. I need to go, to use whatever energy remains in me to get out of here and straight to Kai. Instead, I step towards them and reach my trembling hand out to check the pulse of the shifter closest to me. The tips of my fingers find cold skin, but I still wait for the flutter of a heartbeat. Finding none, I move to the shifter in the middle as I sway, dizziness hounding me. It’s faint—the beat so light that I fear I might be imagining it. Gasping, I quickly check the final shifter, only to find that they have passed as well. I eye the shackles holding the shifter in the middle, the male’s head lolled down so that his chin is resting against his chest and long black hair shades his face from view.
“Key,” I mutter to myself, turning back to stare at the bloody figures lying prone on the floor. Limping to them, I kneel, blood soaking into my pants as I begin to search Niko’s headless corpse, and a smile tugs at the corners of my lips
“It’s unsettling that you’re smiling right now.”
“I’m going to leave you here,” I respond, earning a guffaw of protest from him. Digging around in Niko’s trouser pockets proves fruitless, so I crawl my way over to the other body. Against all odds, I find a small key in her back pocket, and in seconds that pass like hours, I make my way over to Kane. After unlocking his restraints, I gesture to the middle shifter hanging on the wall. “You need to help me get him down. He’s alive.”
Kane’s eyes widen, but he swallows down whatever retort he has and nods instead. I let him help me cross the room until we are standing in front of the shifter.
“Wake up,” I shout, the words sounding far away, as I watch Kane unlock the shackles holding the shifter up.
He falls to the ground, the thud of his body against the stone waking him from unconsciousness and making him groan out in pain. “Go to hell,” he mumbles, his deep voice slurring the words.
“I would love to. It’s probably better than this, but we need to go.” I reach out to grab his arm and help Kane hoist him up, but I stop midway when I take in the state of his skin. “Fuck,” I whisper, studying the way his black tattoo is practically flayed off in places, some pieces hanging away from the muscle as new blood oozes from the wounds.
The shifter lifts his head, broad chin and strong brow defined in the single flame gem’s light. We stare at each other, recognition slow to dawn for us both. “Haloa?” I ask at the same time he says, “Bahira?” He was the first shifter Kai took me to see in Molsi. The one whose wife is stuck shifted as a snake. “How long have you been down here?” I ask, wrapping my arm around his waist and helping him up to stand while Kane takes his other side.
“I’m not sure. Days, at least. Perhaps longer. My daughter—” he rasps, stumbling a step that nearly takes us all down.
“We’ll get her,” I promise. “We need to get to the king.” I take one last glance around the dim chamber, just in case my spear is here. Finding only disappointment, Kane and I lead Haloa in the direction Tua left. Hidden in the dark is a rickety door that leads to a dank hallway encased in stone. Following that leads to a small staircase barely wide enough for the three of us to stay side by side.
Haloa recounts what he can remember of his abduction and subsequent torture as we climb, abuse perpetrated by Niko and a few other shifters that weren’t prominent enough for him to know their names. He had been ambushed while sleeping in his home, and though they treated him like a traitor, they asked no questions. Demanded nothing other than the pleasure theyreceived by causing him pain. “I don’t know what they wanted. Or whyIwas targeted.”
Swallowing, I lean my weight against the slimy stone wall, grateful when Kane pulls Haloa towards him. “I think it’s because you talked with King Kai and me. About getting help. That you trusted us.” At Haloa’s confused expression, I launch into what I learned of Tua and his involvement with the rebels. I leave out the information pertaining to Kai’s father and the complicated insinuations Tua made regarding his mother and magic. I finish right as we finally clear the long set of steps, all of us huffing for breath. Light filters around the edges of a square wooden door in front of us. I look over at Kane as I ask, “Any chance you know where we are? Or where this door leads to?”
His lips form a grim line as he shakes his head. “Afraid not.”
“Well, let’s hope it doesn’t open into the rebels secret lair, or we’re totally fucked.”
Chapter Seventy-One: Bahira
It isn’t a secretlair that we stumble into but, even more surprisingly, a bedroom. A grand bedroom. The kind of sleeping quarters that would be relegated to a king. Haloa whistles, the sound oddly merry considering what we’ve just escaped.
“I think this room is larger than my entire home,” he muses, letting go of Kane and I to lean against a tall wooden dresser.
“I think you may be right.” I take in the four-poster bed centered on the wall sharing the door we came through, gossamer cloth in black and red hanging in sweeping archesfrom corner to corner. On the adjacent wall is the dresser that Haloa leans against and a large balcony, two sets of glass double doors leading out to it. The sun is beginning to rise on the horizon, orange light filtering in and setting a pair of emerald-green tufted armchairs aglow. I limp towards a wide, tall bookcase stuffed to the brim with books of all thicknesses that is situated between two doors on the wall across from the bed. In the streaming light coming in through the glass, dust motes float in the air, and I note the thick layer of dirt on the shelves. “No one has used this room in a long time.”
“I think this was Kai’s father’s room,” Kane says. I look at him as he walks around the space, his nakedness more obvious now than it was in the darkness of the dungeon.
“You might want to find something to cover up with,” I tell him, holding my side and wincing from the blossoming bruises where the female rebel kicked me. Doing so also irritates one of my dislocated thumbs, and I have to bite down on my tongue to stop the scream that crawls up my throat. Pain radiates down my leg and back, my head still throbbing in a way that makes my steps uneven.
“You okay there, Bahira?” Haloa asks as Kane goes into what I assume to be the bathroom, a towel wrapped around his waist when he returns.
“Never better,” I grit out.
Despite being covered in his own blood and gods know what else, he sends a wry smile my way.
Kane reaches for the handle of another door, but I stop him by calling out his name. “Did you truly not know that your father was leading the rebels?”
He takes a deep breath, a bloody hand massaging the back of his neck. “You heard how my father spoke to me down there. I hadnoidea—”
Though it makes white spots flare in my vision, I grip his arm and spin him around to face me, pushing him until his back hits the door. Haloa comes to stand next to me, folding his arms over his chest and causing the mangled one to ooze fresh blood. I doubt we look very menacing, but Kane doesn’t try to fight back. My forearm presses against his neck, everything in me begging to justrest. I push even harder.
“If you’re lying, I will kill you myself. Do you understand?”
He holds his hands out, palms facing me, as he solemnly nods. “I may be an asshole, and I’ll admit to loathing Kai and that dimwit—” I let my forearm slide up higher until the pressure causes him to stop talking, his garbled “sorry” barely audible. When it’s clear he gets the message, I lower my arm but keep the pressure there. “Gods,” he rasps, panting through his teeth. “I swear, I didn’t know. I didn’t have any involvement with the rebels at all.”
I can’t tell if he is lying or not, the pounding of my heart rattling my skull too much for me to think clearly. Haloa gently places his hand on my shoulder, giving me a curt nod when I look at him. I release Kane, stepping back with wobbly legs. “Open the door, then. If anyone is waiting for us, you’ll be the first one they attack.”
