“I’m sorry.” She took his hand in hers and squeezed tight. “I know it’s probably not what you want to do.”
“Not really, but do we have any other choice?”
She couldn’t think of one. They could still try to lure the demons into Otherworld during the daytime, but there was no guarantee that would work. They could fight them from behind the castle walls and hope the fortress would hold. Neither one of those gave them great odds of victory.
“Maybe you’ll like the sun,” she said.
“Maybe I will.”
“At least we’ll all be alive.”
“What about you, Bree?” He tugged her closer, and her body pressed against the hard planes of his chest. His gaze swept across her face, questioning. “If we join Underworld and Otherworld together, and then close all the gates, what will you do? You can never go home again.”
Her heart thumped. She would have to choose,permanently. There would be no hope of ever returning home if she stayed here. The human realm would be so far away that it would be as if it didn’t exist. She’d never see New York again.
Her chest ached at the thought. “Before we get into all of that, we need to find a way to do this thing first.”
His brows slammed down. That clearly wasn’t the answer he was hoping for.
“You would return to the humans?” he asked. “You would want to be there when we close the gates?”
“No.” An anchor weighed on her shoulders, dragging her down. “I don’t know. All right? I don’t know. It’s not something I want to think about right now. All this time, there’s been hope. I could return if I really wanted to. It was always accessible to me. It wasn’t goodbye forever.”
He brushed his thumb across her chin and nodded. “I understand. I just…I just want you to stay with me, Bree. With us. We’re all here. Me, Eurig, Taveon. Your friend Norah. You would never see any of us again.”
The idea of that hurt far worse. Every single person he’d named she loved. They were her family, even if not by blood. The buildings of New York called to her, but they did not own her heart.
She sighed. “This is something to—”
A door creaked open and the sound of footsteps followed. Bree pulled out of Rafe’s embrace and stiffened. The Worm was back. Wonderful. What did he want now? Hadn’t he done enough? So much for being a hermit, hidden away from the rest of the world.
But one set of footsteps became two. A large figure strode through the darkness, a smaller one by his side. The light of a nearby torch flashed across their faces, illuminating their features. Eurig grinned at her, and Norah rushed forward, relief plastered on her face. Both of them were covered in squelching mud.
“Thank god,” Norah whispered. “You’re not dead.”
Bree grinned back as Eurig slid a key into the lock and released them from the cell. He swept her up in a hug, crushing her to his chest. He smelled like musk and dirt, and her heart swelled. She had no idea how they were here, but it didn’t matter. He’d found her.
When he lowered her back to the ground, she looked back and forth between him and Norah. “Where’s the Worm? How did you know we were here?”
“The Worm is dead,” Eurig said.
Bree’s mouth dropped open. “You killed him?”
“He tried to kill me first,” Norah said, brushing her hands against her trousers, but it did little good. Her palms just got even more dirt on them. “Eurig morphed into his lion thing and took care of it. Unfortunately, I think that demon army now knows we’re here.”
Bree nodded. “Lord Worm planned on giving us to them in the morning. We need to get out of here before they realize that’s not going to happen.”
19
BREE
They crept out of the tower to find two dead guards beside the open doors. Eurig nodded when Bree shot him a look of question. He’d taken care of them, too, apparently. He’d come all this way, leaving his army back at the castle, to save her. He’d chosen her, knowing that Lord Dagen might try something while he was gone.
She would never be able to repay him for this, and any residual anger she had at him for leaving her before was gone.
Bree took his hand in hers and then took Rafe’s with her other. On either side of her, the fae males stood tall and proud, shoulders thrown back. Her heart pounded in time with theirs. She did not know how she could feel it, but she could.
Her mates.
