I rose silently and moved to the door. I didn’t want to do anything to attract attention. The problem was that even though the prince was engaged with Cordelia, Cadmael had a vampire’s acute hearing and awareness of nearby warm, blood-filled bodies.
Reaching for the doorknob, I heard a yelp. Prince Cadmael had picked up Cordelia-Léna and thrown her at the fireplace before barreling across the room at me. Cordelia-Léna’s gown caught fire and she howled in pain, but I was already tearing open the door and flying down the hall.
Vampires were silent, but I knew he was right behind me. I raced through the pitch-black, digging my mental claws into his blip in my head, trying to slow him down or throw him off. I knew I wasn’t strong enough to kill him, but I tried.
I couldn’t see, but I felt the air change. I wasn’t in the hall. Sliding, I turned to the left and ran for stairs I’d never find. Screaming, Clive! in my head, I hoped for a rescue.
Instead, a large hand palmed the back of my skull and spiked it into the tile floor.
Twenty-Six
A Portrait in Pain
A soft woman’s voice whispered urgently in my ear. I had no idea what she was saying, but I got it. I had to go now. Lifting my head, I felt the world swim and I retched, causing even more pain to roll through me.
The whispering was louder and sped up. Okay, okay. I got it. I lurched to my hands and knees and then tipped over, falling onto my side. My stomach tensed, but there was nothing left to come out.
I’d had enough concussions to know what a bad one felt like. The pain had tears running down my face, but I tried again. Cadmael was too powerful to be wandering around this joint with a homicidal maniac in charge. Clive and Vlad were down there and last I’d seen, they’d been frozen.
Blowing out a breath, I got to my hands and knees again, listing hard to the right. Fighting through it, I pushed to my feet and felt a cold hand steadying me. When I seemed to be standing on my own, she took my hand and led me through the dark to the stairs. Yes, I had good night vision, but that wasn’t too helpful in absolute darkness.
She stopped me and then put my hand on a railing. Using that, I made my way slowly and painfully down the stairs. I leaned on the wall as I went, scraping off filth and spiderwebs, but I couldn’t let myself care. Showers existed. I’d be clean eventually. For now, I needed to stay alive and make sure Clive remained only partially deadish.
“Hey,” I whispered, “did I tell you I’m pretty sure I met your daughter?”
The hand on my arm went ice cold. Wait. Did she understand me?
“You have the same eyes. Same color. Same shape. Hair’s the same too, though hers is short. Her name’s Viktoria. She’s a werewolf and a total badass. You’d like her. We can talk later. Kinda busy now.”
When I finally hit the bottom, my knees gave out but I caught myself and leaned against the wall before trudging toward the slice of light that meant door. Unsheathing a claw, I slipped it into the narrow gap and popped the door open.
Light after absolute darkness was like adding heavy metal spikes to my already pounding head. I heard crashing somewhere in the Guild. It wasn’t here though, so, squinting, I held onto the wall and made my way back to the sparring room.
It was even worse than I’d remembered. Dust and blood had mixed to form a thick red sludge on the mats. Gore sprayed across the white walls. In the middle stood Clive and Vlad, seemingly frozen.
Clive?
No response.
Shoving off, I took one unsteady step and then two. Trying to tip my body to the left to compensate for my leaning so hard to the right. I was moving faster—panic will do that to you—but it still seemed to take forever to get to them.
Vlad was facing away from me, my axe still hanging from his bloody, gloved hand. Clive, though, was facing my direction. His eyes were blank and that alone had me moving faster.
Clive! I screamed in our heads.
Nothing. His eyes were still vamp black, his fangs glistening on his lips, but he wasn’t here with me anymore. What had Cadmael done to them?
There were more crashes, and they sounded closer. The sparring room was a few doors down from the gathering room. The crashing seemed to be coming from the Guild offices, but my sense of direction was screwed up, so I couldn’t be sure.
Gripping Clive’s shoulder, I lifted up and kissed him, hoping true love’s kiss would break the spell. It didn’t. Stupid fairy tales.
Looking around the room for inspiration, I thought again of fairy tales. The fae. I turned my head, still holding on to Clive so I didn’t fall, and stared at the axe in Vlad’s gloved hand. Fae blade. Vampires couldn’t touch the metal. It blistered and burned their skin. The blade had been spelled to kill any fae who attacked me without provocation. I was pretty sure the queen would agree that everything happening here was provocation enough.
Fuck. I knew what I had to do.
Leaning against Vlad, I yanked on the axe handle until I got it out of his grip. Moving it to my left hand to counter the list to the right, I made my way back to the door and listened hard. It wasn’t easy with the pounding in my head, but I tried to keep track of the sounds of destruction. They were closer. I was pretty sure they were closer and louder.
Hanging on to the door, I leaned out into the hall. Nothing. I counted doorways. It looked like I had to get past two rooms before I made it to the gathering room, which was where I needed to be, assuming I was correct in how to fix this mess.
