through the thick foliage.
Chapter Twenty-Four
My heart thundered, beating painfully against my ribs while approaching the front gate. Blood rushed through my veins, filling them with the high octane that had been within the tonic. I could feel my body responding to it and wasn’t so sure it wasn’t an aphrodisiac or something close to one. At our approach, the guards turned, checking out the delicate forms on display.
“About time they sent us some entertainment,” one guard muttered to the other.
“Hopefully, they’re not as hideous as the last batch,” his companion complained.
Amo unwrapped her headdress, smiling at the look of lust that entered their gazes while they took in her delicate, ethereal perfection. She was lust in the rawest form, perfectly curved while being fierce and all toned muscles. Her robe dropped to the ground, and she swayed her hips while moving toward them.
Her baton came up as they lurched forward in a rush to claim her. One pulled back at the last moment, but not before she spun, clapping both over the head with her short club.
After they went down, we retrieved the guards, placing them against the immense columns that would conceal their drooping bodies. Tabitha bound their hands while I ripped part of my robe to gag them. Once Amo was redressed, and we secured the men, we entered the gates, quietly closing them behind us.
“You know where to go to take down your assigned guard. No bloodshed. Keep it clean unless you have no other choice but to defend yourself. We’ve already drawn blood; let’s not add to it,” I ordered as we separated to take down the guards in our way.
“Listen,” Amo whispered, stopping me. “You’re still wounded, Lexia. If you find Landon and he’s—changed, you must be careful.”
I exhaled slowly, jerking my head in reply since words failed me at the idea of finding Landon turned or mindless with the need to kill. I had known he was sick because he’d been rambling things off that made little sense. I’d argued his coming out to find the library’s location with the clan members, but it had fallen on deaf ears.
The Sacred Library could hide from anyone it thought or found unworthy. My brother had spouted on and on about what I thought was nonsense, which no longer sounded so crazy. He’d spoken of the nightwalkers as coherent beings, and now I knew they were. He’d told me the legends pertaining to our family, which I’d laughed in his face about, but I wasn’t confident he’d been off about those either.
It was of paramount importance now that I find Landon and ask him what he knew of our bloodline. What if the legends were true, and the reason why I hadn’t been born male was because the true mate of the King of Night was within me? Aragon was a man-whore. He wasn’t a warrior worth mating. According to the legends, only a true mating of dark and light could remove the plague of darkness.
My hand moved to my belly as I slowly pushed further into the darkness of the massive prison. All around me, silence prevailed, and my skin pebbled with the feeling of being watched as a foreboding sensation slithered over me, sending my hackles up in warning.
Easing open the first door, I found the guard missing. Moving in deeper yet, I slipped into the shadows, palming my blades while strolling into what looked like bare walls covered in smears of something written on them. Unfortunately, the lettering changed to appear like smear marks.
It looked almost as if someone had dragged bloody fingers over the wall, trailing them further into the darkness. Entering the next room, I shivered. The little light from the torches wafted with the breeze, and my eyes slowly took in the layers of cells that stretched up the walls.
The entire place was a network of cells, accessed by little weight-driven elevators attached to a pulley system. Gazing up, I frowned at just how many cells were within the place. It would take hours to explore them all. We didn’t have that much time since there was an armed warlord on my heels, nipping at them.
Struggling past the nervousness that filled me within the looming silence, I peeked into the first cell, finding it empty. It was the same story for the next and the next. I moved across the aisle and came face to face with moon-touched warriors, caged.
“Landon Helios? Is he with you?” I asked in a