Chapter 20
KAI SAW THE INSTANTshift in Hollyn’s demeanor as the warlock came into sight. He wasn’t alone. One of his henchmen had a hand wrapped around Hollyn’s waist and another hand covering her mouth. He needed to die.
Two other goons stood behind the warlock, and a few more came breathing heavily up behind them. No doubt, they’d heard Kai’s shouts and came running.
“So, you’re the fool who thought you could keep my daughter from me.”
“Let her go. She just wants to live her life.”
The warlock chuckled with a low, gravelly laugh that came off more sinister than humorous. “Her life? She wouldn’t have a life if it weren’t for me.”
Kai couldn’t believe the arrogance of this prick. “She’s a fucking human being, you asshole.”
“Nice mouth you got on you. We might have to separate you from your tongue so that you can’t teach my impressionable daughter those kind of curse words. Her aunt and mother have already taught her more bad habits than I would have liked.”
Now, Kai was beginning to get angry. “Look! I’m only going to tell you one more time. Let her go and crawl your ugly ass back into the hole you slid out of.”
The warlock didn’t even blink. He put up his right hand and motioned the goon squad into the cavern. They approached slowly, hands raised, ready for a fight. Kai was ready, too. If it was a fight they wanted, they were going to get one.
They didn’t come at him one at a time, but Kai was ready for that. As three moved in to grab him, he dropped and swept their legs out from under them. Another three replaced them, and Kai kicked high in an arc and took two down. He swung his right hook at the other and followed with an uppercut from his left. By this time, though, the others were beginning to recover and coming at him hard.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Hollyn struggling to break free. She had managed to slip out of the henchman’s grip, but he grabbed her arms and pulled them behind her back. Kai ducked a thrown punch and charged hard at the goon standing between Hollyn and him. The fight followed them as the goon lost his footing and went down on his back, taking Kai with him.
All the other goons came down on top of Kai and began punching and kicking as one. Through the melee, Kai watched as the warlock slapped Hollyn’s face forcefully, collecting the tears that fell in a vial. He pulled out another and raised his hand to do it again.
Kai’s chest burned with a red, hot anger that awoke a beast in his mind. With the sudden strength of a hundred men, he threw off the goons, sending them crashing around the cavern. He released a roar that shook the cavern like the earthquake from earlier. Everyone stopped, including the warlock, staring at Kai in awe and horror.
A gurgling began all around them, coming from the walls of the cave. Like a dam breaking open, rocks popped free from the stone and water gushed out like firehoses all around them. A rumble sounded from high up the path and Kai saw the look of horror on the face of the warlock and his henchman long before the wall of water hit everyone. The entire cavern filled with gushing water, sending bodies spinning like clothes being tossed around a washing machine.
Kai looked for Hollyn, but he lost her in the chaos of the scene until he spotted her near the back wall of the cavern. He watched her wipe at the sediment, and it washed away beneath her hand, creating an opening in the wall. The water continued to fill the cavern, rising toward the ceiling, but now it washed through the hole she’d started, and he swam toward her as she kicked upward toward the remaining air, just inches-worth between the surface of the water and the ceiling of the cavern.
“We have to swim through.”
Kai nodded, and they took deep breaths before diving back under. The hole was still just the size of a soccer ball, but Kai kicked at it, opening it up more. Once it was big enough, they swam through to the other side and Hollyn pointed upward. They swam toward the ceiling, where the water had already reached. They followed the ceiling with their hands until it opened up into a shaft. With desperate motions, they propelled themselves upward until the water level stopped rising, and they were able to break the surface and suck in a needed breath.
With no hesitation at all, Kai reached for her and hugged Hollyn to his chest. He wanted to erase the pain he’d just witnessed from her mind, but she just clung to him and continued to sob. He’d had no idea just how miserable of an existence she’d had before she’d escaped. He couldn’t let her go back to that, even if it meant he never knew who he was. When they found the amulet, it was hers.
They pulled back, and he looked around the area above them. They’d lost the flashlight, but he could still see everything clearly. “There’s a cave up there.”
It was within reach, so Kai grabbed the ledge with both hands and pulled himself up. He turned back and grabbed Hollyn’s hands and lifted her until her upper body was over the ledge. She pulled herself the rest of the way up.
He was surprised when she grabbed him suddenly and wrapped her hands around his head to pull their mouths together. The kiss was wild and hard and full of everything that made his knees quake with need. He wrapped his arms around her and fit her body to his, relishing the energy slicing its way through his midsection and centering every throbbing heartbeat into a thickening erection.
But he couldn’t get in too deep, not with Hollyn’s life on the line. Instead, he pulled back as the song blasted into his head, louder than ever before. He stared down at her, wanting so badly to see where this kiss would lead, but he knew what they needed to do first. They needed to make sure her father couldn’t touch her ever again.
