but she couldn’t stop, and right then didn’t care if she looked like an idiot.
Gunner tugged her back to him, hugging her before kissing the top of her head. “I guess so. Come on, let’s go before I start kissing you again.”
“And who could blame you?”
He laughed again as he led her from the room, and Luna couldn’t take her eyes off him while he did.
“You need to change, maybe eat something before we go back out tonight. You like pancakes?”
“I don’t know.”
He kept her tucked in close to his body and led her down the hall. “Let’s find out.”
Chapter 19
Hell
Dread filled Scarlet as she rushed down the hall. Something was wrong. She didn’t know how she knew it, but an awful feeling, dark and hollow, had gripped her since she woke. And the closer she got to Tobias’s cell, the worse it got, as if a cold, shadowed claw was reaching up and squeezing the frantically beating muscle behind her ribs.
She paused when she reached the door. There was more than one leathren demon hanging around outside. The demons were feasting on pain, on Tobias’s pain.
Oh god, what had they done to him? She shoved the door open and rushed inside.
The sob that had already been climbing her throat burst from her at the sight of Tobias’s battered and bleeding body. Every day it got worse, every day they took him closer and closer to death.
She rushed to his side. He wasn’t chained to the wall today, no, they had him on a slab of curved stone. He was on his back, chained down so tight, his entire body was bowed brutally.
Falling to her knees, she cupped his face. “I’m here,” she whispered as tears streamed down her face. “I’m here.”
Another day, maybe two, and she wouldn’t be able to bring him back. There would be no repairing the damage his demon tormentors had done.
“Please, open your eyes, speak to me. I can’t lose you, my love, I can’t lose you, not again…”
The endearment slipped from her lips without thought, and the big male stirred. She stilled, blinking down at him in confusion. Again? Why had she said that?
Tobias coughed, and blood dripped from the corner of his mouth. Frantically, she dipped her rag in her little bowl and began moving it over the deep, gruesome cuts in his skin. God, she could see bone…organs.
It was too much. He’d been hurt too badly for her ministrations to help. But she had to try. There was no holding back her sobs as she dipped her rag in the bowl’s healing liquid and wrung it out over the worst of the wounds. With a fierce cry, she yanked at the unforgiving chain pinning down his arms, but it didn’t budge. His breathing was shallow and so slow she kept waiting for it to stop altogether.
Dragging the back of her hand over her eyes, she picked up the bowl and began to pour its contents, slowly and carefully, over his wounded body, something she’d never done before. And thankfully, every time she set it back down, it refilled on its own.
Tobias’s eyelids quivered but didn’t open. Her sobs became more desperate as she poured bowl after bowl of the healing liquid over his skin.
With wet hands, she leaned over him and touched his bloodless face. “Please, please, Tobias, open your eyes. Please, don’t leave me here alone. I don’t want to be alone again.” He remained completely still.
He was dying.
Scarlet pressed her forehead to his. His face was as cold as the rest of him. “Please,” she whispered again and pressed her trembling lips to his.
Sparks of light danced like fireflies behind her eyes, and zaps of sensation shot through her veins. Unsure what was happening, she clung to him, afraid to let him go. Something was happening, something important—
“Back away,” a rough voice said behind her.
Scarlet spun to face the demon standing at the door. His teeth were curled back cruelly, and his black soulless eyes, eyes that made her skin crawl, slid from her to Tobias. But even more frightening, he carried tools of torture. If this demon hurt Tobias again, he definitely wouldn’t survive.
She stood, trembling with fear. “No.” Her voice was so broken and quiet, she was surprised he heard her.
But going by the glee flashing in those terrible eyes, he most definitely had. “Did you say no, drudge?”
Scarlet moved from foot to foot. “You’re not hurting him, not again.” She would rather he turn his instruments of