I gave him a disdainful look. “Funny how you would stand here trying to cast aspersions on me. Unlike you, I never indulged in cruelty and unnecessary torture in the name of a faith you don’t even believe in.”
“You dare!” Conrad shouted, his face red with anger.
“I dare and double dare,” I snarled. “Tread carefully,BrotherConrad. Everyone sees you for what you are. You can only get away with it for so long. Now either help or leave. Elliot will know the minute we start rescuing the women.”
“You do not command me!” he growled.
“ENOUGH!” Paulus shouted, showing more anger than I could ever recall him displaying towards anyone who wasn’t an enemy. “Like Eleni said, you can either help or leave. These women cannot wait for you to finish throwing your tantrum.”
Conrad clenched his teeth, visibly itching to argue some more. Instead, he cast a detection spell. He couldn’t be certain, as his powers didn’t rival mine and made it a lot harder for him to detect anything with great certainty. But it was enough for him to throw out his accusations.
“You did set up traps!” He exclaimed.
“Against Elliot, you imbecile! Not you. Stop wasting our time,” I said angrily before turning my attention back to the women.
He appeared to want to say something else, but Paulus and the others approaching me made it clear any further discussion was over.
“Why are they still alive after all this time?” Paulus asked pensively.
“Tonight is the full moon,” I mused aloud. “I suspect he was waiting for it to perform this ritual. After all, the day he intended to capture me in the crematorium was also on the full moon.”
“That makes sense,” Paulus said while assessing the situation of the women. “We can split our forces into two groups. Half of us can unravel the magic binding them, and the others can use levitation to take them away from the pit. I don’t trust the energy emanating from it. We should join forces to make sure the levitation doesn’t falter. We can’t lose them now.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Lyall interjected. “You can all focus your energy unraveling their bindings. I will go get them.”
“Get them how?” Conrad growled, making me seriously consider kicking his sorry ass into the pit.
Lyall didn’t bother answering and merely deployed his light wings. With the streaks under his skin glowing, alongside withhis bluish white hair, my man looked like a divine angel. A possessive pride swelled within me as I admired his beauty.
Conrad took a step back in shock, mouth agape.
“What in the Nine Hells are you?” he breathed out, flabbergasted.
Lyall gave him a contemptuous once over. “I’m the ‘demon’soulmate Eleni consorts with.”
As one, Paulus and I snorted. Conrad mumbled something unintelligible as my mate took flight. He headed straight for the women located higher up on the ropes, who happened to be the ones who had been kidnapped first and thus been held captive here the longest.
With our joint forces, we quickly freed the first woman from her magical bindings. Lyall took her in his arms with infinite care before flying her back down to us. One of the Templars I didn’t know took her from him and made his way up the stairs to take her out of the dungeon.
As soon as the first bindings were severed, the air shifted in the room, indicating a trap had been set off… or at least an alarm that would set some very unpleasant things in motion.
“Get ready!” I warned, even as we hastened to free more women.
To our collective surprise, nothing happened for a while. I was beginning to think maybe what I had detected wasn’t some sort of tripwire spell, although I couldn’t imagine what else they might be. And then a series of runes lit up around the edges of the pit.
“That’s no good,” Paulus said. “Hurry, everyone!”
He didn’t have to say it twice.
Instead of carrying one woman back at a time, Lyall had us free a second one so that he could fly down two of them at once. He handed them to the templars who ran back outside with them. One of the men whose name I didn’t know had just takenthe seventh woman out, with Martha running behind carrying the eighth one, when panicked shouts resonated from outside.
Lyall—who was bringing the next cleric down for Paulus—landed next to us instead, still holding her in his arms. Conrad ran back down the stairs, making a respectable job of controlling his fear. As much as I despised him, and for all his faults, he was a decent fighter and knew how to hold his composure during battle. He didn’t give into panic or abandoned his unit to save his own life.
“The exit is sealed!” Conrad exclaimed. “The word of power no longer works!”
Even as he spoke those words, the runes around the pit started glowing red. As one, we moved away from it.
“Looks like we’re about to have company,” I said, as clicking sounds rose from the depths of the pit. “Take the women upstairs and cast a protective wall in front of them.”
