survives the encounter. And if she doesn’t, Josie, Van Gast’s last moments will be spent on the floor of this corridor.”
Rough hands yanked Van Gast’s fingers from Josie’s and pulled him from the cell. Ilsa stepped past him, making sure she didn’t catch his eye. If Ilsa was here, if she was helping Rillen, had told him about Van Gast and Josie and Skrymir, what about Holden? Was he involved too? Had the pair of them turned Van Gast over for the money? No, no it couldn’t be. Holden might bear him no especial fondness, but he wouldn’t turn Josie over, or Skrymir. Would he?
“So, Van Gast, who is it going to be? You or her?”
Rillen’s soft words just for him made the thoughts fly from his head. It didn’t matter now who it had been, only how they were going to get out of this. Or, if that wasn’t possible, get Josie out, alive, unbonded, and free like she was supposed to be.
The bond lay, silver and deadly, in its pouch. The end of it snuffled at him, looking always for flesh to bond, souls to steal, minds to blank. He stared around, looking, hoping for some little thing, anything, to help, but there was nothing. Only him, and a pair of eyes glittering with avarice in crystal caves.
“Me,” he said. “You can bond me, if you let her and Skrymir go. And Haban.”
Rillen’s laugh was jagged, as though he was barely controlling himself. “You don’t want much, do you? You’ll do what I ask, play your part. Then, perhaps, I’ll let her go and hang you. It’s that or I hang you both now. And I mean right now.”
One of the guards brought out a rope and swung it over a rafter. It dangled there menacingly, but not half as threatening as Rillen’s eyes. All Van Gast had left was the stupid, and not at all thrilling. Stupid, but right. Possibly even sensible. Certainly desperate.
Van Gast held out his wrists. “Do it.”
“I knew you’d see sense.”
Rillen opened the pouch further and the bond squirmed out onto Van Gast’s skin, sinking in around the previous scar, settling into his bones, his mind. He dropped to his knees as the pain started, the seemingly endless stretching of his muscles, warping him like a bow as he thrashed against it. He thought he screamed, but couldn’t be sure, couldn’t be sure either that he heard an answering scream, of Josie shouting his name.
His vision dimmed, became gray and pearled like fog. The hold of it sank into his mind, tried to roll up his memories, impose its own order on him. He fought that the hardest, fought not to forget. Josie’s wicked grin, always meaning trouble for someone, the way she laughed up at him. The feel of her against him, all soft curves and hard muscles, light and dark, furious love and passionate hate. He forgot everything else, who he was, who he had been, things he’d done, but he didn’t forget her. He could never forget her, no matter if he was bonded a thousand times. The sheer, glorious blast of her in his life couldn’t fade. He wouldn’t let it, would kill any man who tried to take it.
The pain drained away, never quite leaving, lurking in the scar, ready to twist him to its will. He lay shuddering on the flagstones of the corridor, staring up at a rope. He had to fight it, had to, or lose himself. A fragment of memory wafted through his head, of the one time he’d seen Josie cry. Fight it, Andor, you hear me? You fucking well fight it. She’d fought it, almost to the bitterest of ends. She always did and so he would too.
“Get up,” the mage said behind him.
The words echoed through the bond, sent silver shivers of pain along his arm, dragged a groan from clenched lips, but he stayed where he was. When he looked at his wrist, black lines snaked away from the bond. Bonded unwilling—the more he fought, the sooner it would kill him. If he gave in, stopped fighting and let the bond make mist of his thoughts, the black poison would fade, along with him and his mind. Somewhere, deep inside, he remembered something of himself. Rules were for idiots.
“Get up!”
His muscles twitched to obey, but he forced them still. “Screw you,” he managed to rasp out, and was rewarded with another twist of agony.