My hand is still resting in hers when I see an idea flash in her dark eyes. She moves to a cabinet pushed against the far wall and returns with a set of tarot cards. She starts flipping them on the table in front of me. I don’t know anything about tarot, but I recoil when the death card is the last to flop.
Her dark eyes meet mine, and her lips draw into a wide grin. “You hold a secret in your blood.”
My dragon blood. “Yes.”
She lifts her chin and places her hands on her hips. “I will tell you my name if you swear to bring Damien back here after you’ve freed him. This world needs him as much as you do.”
I stand from the chair. “I swear it.” I’ve always planned to eventually return here with Damien anyway, when we’re both ready.
She leans forward and whispers the name in my ear.
I bolt for the door and see the arch rise in the central space. I race for it, my back throbbing with the movement, and leap across the threshold. I have a second to register that Valeska is already there. Her mouth forms the word before I can part my lips.
“Aurora,” she says, so fast I can hardly understand it. But the vampires can. I’m too late. I’ve missed winning by a fraction of a second. I grab my pounding head as Valeska’s name flashes across the mirror. The crowd goes wild, exchanging money among the sound of curses and howls of excitement. I catch Marabella’s eye, and she turns away with a shake of her head like she can’t even look at me. George is at her side. He doesn’t look at me either.
Someone touches my shoulder, and I jump back.
“Little bird?” Damien’s voice sounds like it was conjured from cinders. I throw myself into his arms and weep. He picks me up and carries me back to Marabella’s through a crowd of hissing vampires.
39
Ricochet
DAMIEN
“Back so soon?” Dr. Everline asks as I sit Eloise on the examination table. I haven’t inspected her wounds, but her clothes are soaked in blood… again. I’d do anything to save her from this, anything to protect her from the next challenge. Truly, I must have offended the gods. This helplessness is my worst nightmare. It’s like having a slowly tightening noose around my mortal neck.
“Believe me, if I had a choice, I wouldn’t be bothering you again,” Eloise says with her usual cheerfulness. Even covered in blood, she’s concerned with putting the people around her at ease.
But there is no comfort for the two of us. She’s right that she doesn’t have a choice. I’ve tried everything. I’ve had Lazarus scour every manuscript in the stacks and turn over every magical stone. We’re not getting out of this until she faces that last trial. The trial that will either free me or doom us both.
“Hmm,” Everline says from behind her. She’s spread the pieces of her bloody shirt. “Can you explain how your clothes are bloody and shredded but your back is completely healed?”
My mate looks over her shoulder at the doctor. “Aurora—the witch we had to find—healed me with some salve while I was inside the challenge.”
One of Everline’s eyebrows lifts into her hairline. “Magical salve inside the challenge? Stars above, that’s some damn powerful magic.” She does a quick assessment. “You’ve lost a lot of blood. We’ll give you an infusion along with a potion to speed healing and watch you overnight. You should be good as new by morning.”
The good doctor vacates the room, leaving me alone with Eloise.
“Are you well, truly?”
She takes my face in her hands. “Truly.”
“By the gods, I’m not sure I can endure seeing you walk out of that archway bloody again.”
She sighs and touches her forehead to mine. “Sad. I’m really enjoying myself.”
I give a low chuckle. “Little bird, if you weren’t in need of medical care, I’d show you what to do with that smart mouth.”
She puts her hands on my shoulders and pushes gently. I give her some space. “Damien, there’s something I have to tell you. Something happened during my challenge. Something I think you should know.”
“Tell me.”
“Aurora asked me to promise I’d bring you back to Tenebris if I won the challenge. She said bad things have happened since you’ve been gone and that Stygarde needs you.”
My inner shadows churn, going cold within my torso. “Did she give you any specifics?”
She shakes her head.
