Even if I couldn’t hear him, I could feel him. I wasn’t alone. They were coming. I knew it.
I relaxed my body as much as I could to relieve the tension on my wrists and shoulders.
“Whatever shall we do to pass the time—” He cupped my breast through my nightdress and pinched my nipple painfully, while his other hand roughly cupped my sex.
An audible roar echoed through the air then.
Kingsolver. Blake.
And then another. Not just one—an entire chorus. It shook the walls, rattled the chains, and sent a jolt of lightning down my spine.
Ire’s hands dropped from me, his face ghostly white.
I reached out, not just to Kingsolver, but to every single tyger in the dominion.
I didn’t need to know them by name or face. Flame was connected to them, and through her, I was, too. It had worked. I sagged with relief.
The roar swelled, their cries rising in a symphony of fury and power. A tremor ran through the ground beneath me, like the earth itself was waking up. The air thickened with energy.
The tygers were coming.
And this time, they were answering tome.
In my mind, I sent Blake and Kingsolver everything. The image of Ire standing by my cage, his smug, leering face. His knife at Flame’s belly. Flame, trapped and unmoving, her great body shackled, helpless. Myself, feeling much the same. Ire’s hands on my skin, his mouth so close to mine. The threats, the prophecy, the dark magic around my throat.
Their rage was incandescent.
I felt it blazing through the Bond like molten steel, ready to be wielded. A snarl rippled through my mind, a promise of destruction.
The roar that followed wasn’t just sound. It was a war cry.
And the others answered.
One tyger. Then two. Then dozens.
From deep within the dominion, from the stables, from wherever they were caged or lurking in the shadows, every tyger under the sky heard me.
The ground trembled.
Ire spun toward the doors, panic flashing across his face. He rushed me and hit me hard across the face before grabbing my chin in a crushing hold.
“What did you do?” he spat. “What thefuckdid you do?”
I smiled.
Flame stirred. I could feel her as she woke.
The telepathic call of the tygers cut through the last bit ofwhatever drug or magic had held her captive, unraveling its grip thread by thread.
Flame’s roar split the air. We heard her crash against her stall, the creak of her chains as she fought against them. Ire ran to the door and bolted it just as we heard Flame’s restraints give way.
He fell upon me, hand to my throat, squeezing.
“You—dead—bitch—”
I fought to breathe, to keep my toes on the ground. As my lungs began to burn, I screamed for Flame.
In the keep. I’m here, Flame!
