My skin prickled as I walked through the room, step by careful step. Dust clung to the corners, yet the desk was clear of it, clean in a way that implied frequent use. A few black orbs looked like paperweights, but when I glanced closer, electricity flickered in their depths. Magic? In a place like this, I could believe it. The hum of the electronics filtered underneath my skin.
How was this supposed to help me escape? Why would Cillian keep this room under such fierce protection? It only seemed to multiply the secrets rather than offer any clarifications. The tick of the numbers made my bones hum, as if something significant lay on the screen, a truth in plain sight.
“What the HELL are you doing in here?”
Cillian’s voice boomed through the room, with a deep and feral fury I’d never heard before.
I whipped in the direction of the door. He stood there, shoulders heaving, his golden eyes half crazed and his fangs on full display, sharp and deadly.
Oh, fuck.
Fear rushed through me in a dizzying sweep. I’d been discovered.
There was no explaining this. He’d kill me.
The crazed look in his eyes, the ragged breaths, the growl pouring from his lips confirmed that. If I stayed, I was dead.
My gaze snagged on the blackened doorway. He blocked the other one, so the only shot was this one—in the dark.
Cillian took the first booming footstep forward.
I ran.
Chapter 11
Another growl burst out of him, but I didn’t dare turn around.
I plunged through the doorway into liquid darkness, expecting a door, a room, to have to bar myself in and buy seconds before my imminent demise.
Instead, I stepped onto the landing of a staircase.
It coiled down into pure shadow.
Except it traveleddown.
My heart swooped. I didn’t hesitate, bolting down the steps. The shadows swirled around me, like living entities. The sound multiplied as I flew as fast as possible, the winding staircase turning in dizzying circles as if I descended a private tower. I couldn’t stop, though. Not now. Cillian’s growl sounded from above, echoing all the way here, and loud stomping gave a warning signal of his descent.
If he caught up to me, I was dead.
I’d been intruding in the one area I’d been told to avoid. It was dangerous, yet I’d done it anyway.
My heart lodged in my throat as I flew down the unending staircase, sweat bursting out on my temple. My breaths sawed out of me, and my legs burned, but I moved on borrowed energy. Once the adrenaline died, I’d falter, but until then, I raced down the staircase at faster speeds than I believed possible. The clatter sent reverberations up my shins, but I didn’t stop. Couldn’t stop.
How many floors did this descend? His casino was twenty floors up, the upper tiers all part of his expansive castle. I couldn’t manage twenty flights of steps. He’d catch up to me well before then.
I reached out for the wall and ran my fingertips along it, as if it might hold some secrets I could miss—if a doorframe, an emergency exit, cropped into view, I didn’t want to pass by it. Not with the rapid way I raced down the steps. My feet ached from the pounding pressure, my chest burning from the heaving breaths that escaped me with every passing second, every step onward.
But I couldn’t stop now.
Not if I wanted to live.
While he was clearly intimidating, clearly dangerous, I’d somehow along the way begun to view Cillian differently—maybe the conversations, working alongside him day by day. Another roar resounded throughout the stairwell, booming loud enough to make the stone walls tremble. Any illusions of safety were dispelled.
As I wound around the stairwell again, a landing came into sight, even though the stairs continued down past it. If I remained on the steps, I’d lose steam far before he did, but this way, maybe I could find a place to hide.
I skidded to a halt, slamming into the wall as I tumbled forward to the door. I fumbled with the knob, my palms slick,but it didn’t turn. Those booming footsteps grew louder and louder. I tugged on the handle again, and this time it opened.
Yes!
