I would die and not come back.
I suppose Finn was being honest when he’d told me he was going to make me watch the world burn. I’d seen Darin throw the fire. There were others with him. I wondered if Finn had been there too.
Orange dots, like tiny flames, danced in my vision. I was dizzy, and my head hurt.
If this was my last moment, I wanted to make it real. No lies. No hiding. No Jagger.
“Griff.” I reached over my shoulder and put my hand to his cheek. His skin was molten-hot, and his breath was like Rou’s kitchen fire. “I’m sorry.”
He made a noise, and I could hear his words—“don’t say that”—even though he didn’t speak.
I smiled. “I am. I’m sorry. When you’re a mine, promise me you won’t hate yourself? Okay?”
Instead of answering, Griff jerked, tightening his arms around me. He cocked his head.
“What—?”
He growled.
I listened. Then I heard the noise that had made Griff stiffen.
It was a scratching noise. It sounded like a dog clawing at a concrete floor, or a mole tunneling through gravel. It was an animal sound.
“What is that?”
The scratching stopped. Then it started again even faster.
Was it Jagger? He’d survived unharmed. If he hadn’t, I’d be dead or experiencing his injuries.
But no, it couldn’t be Jagger. It went against everything he was to rescue another being.
Was it another survivor? One of the conjurers? Primus? Last? Luvic?
Light pierced the dark, shining through Griff’s wings. It hit us in laser-thin streams.
Griff winced when a weight was shoved off him. He grunted and then stretched his wings, allowing a burst of warm, fresh air to flow around us. Full morning light flooded over us.
Slowly, he pulled back his wings, and I sat up, blinking at our rescuer.
“Jack . . . jackal . . .” Jackaltooth.
Griff snarled and launched from the hole. His claws extended, and he lunged for the jackaltooth’s throat.
The jackaltooth snarled and swiped his paw at Griff, punching him to the side. Then, with his orange eyes blazing, he leaped into the smoking hole where we’d been trapped. I scrambled upright, and the jackaltooth lunged at me. He caught my pajama shirt in his teeth and dragged me from the hole.
Griff let out a bloodcurdling scream. He beat his wings and charged. The jackaltooth snarled and raked his claws down Griff’s bare torso.
I twisted and punched, and then the jackaltooth sprinted away from the smoking wreckage of Hell Gate, with me hanging from its mouth. A block away, there was an open grate leading down to the sewers, as if it’d been left open just for our quick escape. The jackaltooth dove in.
It was dark. Hot. The tunnel was filled with the stench of sewage.
My teeth clattered, and I was jarred as the jackaltooth ran. It was big. Bigger than any jackaltooth I’d ever seen. Gray, mottled, with dark stripes. Orange-eyed. And . . .
“Luvic?”
He snarled and shook my shirt. I flopped in his mouth. At a second snarl, I held still.
Okay.
