Austin grabbed her, yanking her roughly to him. “She stays here. The tunnel is too unstable.” He motioned to a guard to stay with her and another to guard Noah.
Skye ripped her arm from his grasp. “There’s no negotiation on this!” Her voice sliced through the cramped space with an authority that surprised even her. “The bargain has been sealed. If I don’t see them walk into the portal, I will spend my life making sure you regret it. As will my father, after I reveal everything to him.”
“The tunnel is collapsing as we speak. It’s a death trap! For once, use your head instead of your emotions.”
“Stay if you want. I’m going.”
“We’ve nae time for this!” Taran barked from the archway. “We must go! Now!”
Austin seized Skye’s arm, his fingers biting into her flesh. “You will stay beside me the entire time.”
She wrenched her arm but couldn’t pull free. “Then move.”
They hurried through the abandoned kitchen, through the darkened corridors, silent at this hour. The only sounds they heard were their own footsteps and the labored breathing of exhausted men.
Skye glanced over her shoulder at Noah, followed by his appointed guard. She noted the rigid set of his jaw. The fury in every stride. The way his empty hands kept flexing at hissides as if reaching for a weapon that was no longer there. She understood the battle he fought. Knew what it cost him. Had calculated it with merciless precision in those wretched moments outside her cell, knowing the only answer left was the one that would break them both.
Emily’s life overrode it all. Seeing the people she loved walk through a doorway that would offer healing and a new life was worth the sacrifice.
She had to believe that, knowing she could never follow them. Never see them again.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The air in the tunnel seemed even more suffocating, the walls more oppressive than just an hour ago. Noah kept his gaze locked on Skye’s back, on the rigid set of her shoulders as she stumbled over loose stones. Austin still gripped her arm, proprietary and unyielding.
Noah fought the need to free her from Austin’s control and himself from the constraints of the two guards flanking him.
Behind them, Keir followed with the other two guards at his back. Their formation negated any rash moves. Noah had calculated the odds a dozen times already. Four armed men and Austin, in a space barely wide enough for two abreast. Sometimes, not even that. Any attempt to reach Skye would end in bloodshed before he’d taken three steps. He couldn’t afford to risk her being caught in the melee.
Nor could he risk his family. Getting Emily safely to the portal had to be the top priority. For now, at least.
A tremor shuddered through the tunnel, triggering a fine sifting of dust from the ceiling along with a fist-sized chunk of stone that struck Noah’s shoulder. He winced, stumbling slightly, but it was Skye’s gasp that twisted his stomach as a spray of gravel peppered her head and back.
Austin pulled her to him, shielding her with his body in a show of protection that curled Noah’s hands into fists.
He should be the one shielding her, steadying her, protecting her, instead of following powerlessly behind.
Ahead, Paige struggled over a series of boulders that had not been there earlier. She had a fierce grip on Brody, trying to haul him upward, but the boy’s short legs couldn’t find purchase on the jagged surface, and she lacked the strength to lift him while struggling to keep her own balance.
Noah pushed past Austin and Skye, not waiting for permission. “I need to help my mother.”
Austin’s eyes narrowed, but he said nothing, simply gesturing to his guards to continue as they were.
Noah picked Brody up and swung him into his arms. The boy locked his arms around Noah’s neck with desperate strength and a faint whimper.
“I’ve got you,” Noah told him, shifting his weight to extend a hand to Paige. She gripped it and he steadied her over the boulder, feeling the slight tremor in her fingers. Her face was ghostly in the torchlight, streaked with dust and damp with perspiration, but her eyes still held that fierce maternal fire he’d admired since the day she’d taken him and Emily into her family.
“Hold on to me,” he told her quietly. “Stay as close as you can.”
She nodded, too breathless for words as they hurried forward.
Brody, coughing from the dust and trembling with each new rumble and rock fall, buried his face against Noah’s neck. “I’m okay, Noah, but I’m afraid the rocks are going to hurt Emily. Mamma too.”
The words tugged at Noah’s heart. “I know. But it will be over soon.”
“And we can all go to our new house?” Brody lifted his head, his eyes wide and trusting in his dirt-streaked face. “And Emily will be better? Mamma says when we get to our new place, they can make her better.”
Noah’s throat tightened. He wanted to promise. Wanted to give the boy the certainty he needed and deserved. But he’d made too many promises already that were likely to shatter against the truth, and he could not bring himself to add another.
