The shifter stepped forward, pulling a gun free. “Yep.”
“Then let’s get the hell out of here.”
The hallway led directlyto two sets of stairs: one went up, and the other down.
My mind went back to the temple where Dante had strapped me down and done something to me. I’d been so in and out of consciousness, so desperate to find Orion in my dreams, that I hadn’t paid much attention to it. But there was one thing I was at least certain of.
We’d been above ground. Not in the compound, but somewhere else.
If we followed the first staircase, would we find ourselves in that temple? Could we be free?
But the others said we needed to go down. Xerxes claimed there were tunnels, and they could lead out of here.
“There was an escape once,” Sunniva said, aiming her gun upwards as she checked the stairs. “It was over twenty years ago. That was my in.”
I wrapped my arms around myself, skin prickling with how cold the tunnel was. We were alone, the door closing behind us. But it was a tight fit with Xerxes in his shifted form and Thor behind me. Not even the bear could keep me warm despite basically being a heater.
Once again, I wished I had my gear. Or magic. That would have been nice.
But shoes. They would help. Maybe I should have asked Hawk to steal Marion’s boots from her when he took her power.
Sunniva moved the gun down the stairs, taking one step, then another slowly. “One of the high-ranking generals, Cyrus Alderon, took out a dozen guards and stole something when he left. It’s why the underground tunnels were blocked. But the way out wasn’t completely hidden.”
I frowned.Cyrus. Why did that name sound so familiar?
“Because he’s a member of Phoenix,” Hawk said, reading my thoughts. “He mentored the orphaned agents. The ones left with the organisation and raised to become soldiers.”
“He mentored Elias,” I whispered, throat tightening withthe threat of tears. Maybe it was a coincidence, but Sable made believing those impossible. “What did he steal?”
Sunniva looked back at me and shrugged. “I don’t know. That was kept under wraps. I just know he was working with the children here.”
The children. Bile rose in my throat. “Are there…are there any children still here?”
Goddess, please tell me there weren’t. I couldn’t leave if there were. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself. Because I wasn’t the only one being forced into a pregnancy that wasn’t wanted.
The isolation cell we’d found Hawk in wasn’t used just for erasing memories.
They were used to artificially inseminate female shifters, too.
We were still in thebreedingwing, as Cato called it.
Sunniva took the stairs down without a word, forcing us to follow. But it was Cato who replied, looking almost ashamed as he met my stare. “Yeah, there are a few. There are at least three rooms that I know of, but I don’t have access to them.”
I swallowed past the lump in my throat. “And that was the king you wanted to follow? A king who forced women to breed? Who used children in this army? One of my babies was going to end up in those rooms, Cato.”
The male flinched, shame clear in his bright eyes. “I have no excuses there. I only pray for redemption now.”
I blinked hard against the tears welling in my eyes and shook my head. I wasn’t sure there was redemption for him, but that wasn’t up to me to decide. It wasn’t his, either. It would be what he did from now going forward that would determine if he could ever make up for siding with someone as horrifying as Dante. Maybe the Goddess would know, but even then, it wasn’t really something he’d done to her.
The choices he’d made affected individual creatures. Creatures Dante had taken choice away from.
Cato lowered his gaze and said nothing as he followed Sunniva down to the next level. Xerxes was directly behindhim, then Hawk and me, with Thor taking up the rear. I felt his nose against my free hand every so often. Like he wasn’t too sure about the stairs, though he took them well.
There was no door or hallway on this floor. For some reason that had my heart pounding.
“Where are we now?” I asked no one in particular.
“The other medical rooms, usually for incidents in training or battle,” Hawk replied, hand tightening around mine. “I’m not sure what else, though.”
