Clover could feel Amos fading. He’d claimed not to be hurt when Roland asked, but she didn’t buy it. Something was depleting his energy at a rapid pace.
People turned to yell at her for pushing them, then yelled at the wrong person, not caring if they were admonishing the offender or an innocent bystander. As long as they were punishing, they felt better.
Rebels held the line between the crowd and Sasha. Clover could see her massive head and wings. She’d known the dragon long enough to know she was getting agitated.
Rainer and Ember were glamoured, flying overhead to watch for incoming attacks.
Clover elbowed past the last line of rebels separating her from Amos. The world dropped out from under her when she saw her husband enclosed in a torture device, blistered and bruised.
His head lifted to look around, and when their eyes met, he tried to smile. Clover ran across the space, forgetting about Sasha.
The dragon bristled and dropped her wing to block Clover from getting to him. She didn’t see Clover as a threat or she would have killed her, but she thought Clover might hurt him.
Clover held out her hands. “I’m not going to hurt him. I need to get him out of that cage and see what kind of help he needs.”
Sasha huffed and slowly moved her wing, never taking her eyes off Clover.
Dropping to her knees, Clover looked over the cage. “Where are the locks?”
“Hey, little viper,” Amos rasped.
His weak words worried her. How long had he been in the sun without food and water?
“I have to roll you over,” she told him. “I’ll go slow so you can turn your face.”
He mumbled something she took as a go ahead and slowly flipped him over. His handsome face pressed into the dirt, and she hated what Paul had reduced him to. She’d gut that fucker like a godsdamned pig.
“There’s no lock,” she whispered. “How the fuck is there no lock?”
Amos tried to look at her, but his head wouldn’t twist more. “Break them. You’re a royal.”
She stared at the cage. Sure, she’d just break iron with her bare hands.
“Do it,” Amos urged.
She rolled the cage back over, studied it. Searching the crowd, she spotted Sariah and waved her over. “Do we need to carry him out?” she asked Clover.
“There are no locks on it.” She flung a hand at the metal. “He told me to break it, but he’s delirious.”
“You can bend the iron easily,” Sariah said with a straight face. “I’ve seen him do it.”
“Where do I start?”
She and Sariah talked jail-break strategy, and by the end, Clover felt confident this would work if she could actually pry the bars apart.
Sariah helped her hold the cage enough to get a good grip. Her hands were going to scar after she ripped them to shreds on this iron, but if she could get him out, she would scar every inch of her body.
It wasn’t fast or easy, and the bars didn’t bend like a wet noodle. Clover’s hands were bleeding by the end, and Amos’s body had been forced through a space too small that left him riddled with bruises and cuts.
But they did it.
She didn’t have time to hold him like she wanted. He needed help.
Sariah wouldn’t be able to carry him through the crowd undetected, even glamoured. “Sasha,” Amos said, reaching out to touch her. She nudged his hand, and the punch of affection down the bond took Clover’s breath away.
“Sasha, can you take them somewhere safe?” she asked the dragon. Sasha nodded once. “Thank you.”
Amos reached for Clover with the arm not around Sariah’s shoulders. “I love you, little viper.”
