He’d been drugged as well as tortured. So much for his pride.
“What in the name of the gods were you thinking?” I snapped. “Did you expose our position?”
“They didn’t get anything out of me,” Finlay protested. “I’m made of stronger stuff.”
“They almost did,” Alexei stated calmly. “Griffin empathy magic is difficult to resist, much stronger than mere physical pain. That shifter would’ve had you begging for mercy by the time he got done clawing around in your head, and then they would’ve had us.”
Finlay mumbled something indistinct under his breath, which all but admitted his guilt.
“Stand up.” I wrenched him to his feet. “We have no time to linger here.”
Finlay shoved me off. “Do not dare to give me orders. You are no longer my king!”
“Am I not?!” I whirled on him. “Thank your gods that I no longer sit on the throne, because if I did, your head would be severed from your shoulders for your selfish actions. If Emma or any of our friends had suffered for this I would’ve never forgiven you, gods curse you to the Underworld for it.”
“You’d have us sit and do nothing while Droga claims the whole world,” Finlay growled.
“Sometimes, the greater courage is to sit and wait for a better opportunity,” I seethed through my teeth.
Finlay scoffed, and spat out a globule of blood. “You’d have us wait till kingdom come.”
“We can argue about this later,” Theo insisted. “We must go now.”
Theo snapped his fingers, trying to make a portal. His expression became alarmed as nothing happened.
“Where’s the portal?” Stefan demanded.
“Can’t conjure one,” Theo said. “There must be a ward around the city preventing them.”
“Then we have to get outside Pruska’s walls. Come on.” I turned toward the door.
“He’ll need a ride. This fucker can barely walk,” Stefan said as he held Finlay up.
“Throw him on my back.” Alexei had already changed. Stefan slung Finlay onto his back, and we proceeded out of the torture room and back into the hallway without another word out of him.
We got out of the prison undisturbed, but I could hear the faint echo of footsteps on the street ahead. The light off a torch caused me to throw my arm out, so the others held back. We remained concealed in an alleyway as two enforcers walked by.
The darkness concealed us. Even so, we were barely twelve feet away. If the enforcers turned around, we’d certainly be caught.
The gods blessed us this night, because the oppressors kept their eyes forward.
“Do you think we’ll get anything out of the prisoner?” one asked.
“We always do. Empathy magic is ruthless,” the other responded.
“How’s it work?”
“He just opens up your mind and rambles around in there, until he finds what he wants,” the other guard replies.
“Didn’t know griffins can read minds.”
“It’s more like emotions, hearsay. He’ll root around until he finds what makes you anxious, then press on it. You’ll worry yourself to death until you tell him what he wants to know. Nothing but fear and an endless panic attack until you’re mush.”
“Sounds like a nightmare.”
“For the unlucky fuck in there, maybe.”
I would’ve felt sorry for Finlay if I wasn’t so angry at him. The oppressors marched on ahead, and one said, “The alarm went off— I heard it. Someone’s here, they have to be. It has to be another attack, like the one they had this afternoon.”
