and pains. Remo came to my rescue. Soon, he was stretching the maddening fabric up my legs. Teeth gritted, I shoved one arm through, then the other. At least I no longer had sleeves to contend with.
“Can you try to run into another cave . . .?” I whispered as he zipped me up so fast most of my hair caught in the metal teeth.
“Remo?” Faith called out.
Although I didn’t have a built-in sonar, if I had to hazard a guess, I’d say she was standing in front of the coiled entrance of our little cave. I brought the zipper back down, freed my hair, then tugged it back up.
“A bit late for that, Trifecta.”
Here I’d thought all the blood had drained from my body, but nope . . . it had simply relocated into my cheeks. “What’ll they think?”
“That prison had its perks.” He waggled his brows.
I didn’t smile, but that might’ve been because his mother was standing right in front of me, blue eyes as wide as her mouth.
My horror-stricken expression supersized Remo’s grin. He swung around and crossed the very short distance toward his mother, whom he engulfed in a hug. She kept staring at me over his shoulder.
I dropped my gaze to a golden stripe in the rumpled fur pelts, ogled it so hard the gold blended with the purple.
“Amara?” my mother shouted.
“She’s in here, Cat,” Faith called out.
Cat? I glanced back over at Remo’s mother, unable to read much of anything in her guarded eyes, but she’d called my mother Cat. She’d never called my mother Cat.
“Oh, thank Gejaiwe.” Nima swung into the room and arrowed straight for me, then crushed me against her. “You’re alive! Oh, Amara . . . Oh, baby.” She shuddered. “My baby.” Another shudder. “You’re okay. You’re okay.”
“I am.”
She didn’t seem to have noticed Remo, but of course, my mother never missed a thing. Once she’d gotten her shuddering under control, she asked in a thankfully low voice, “Do I want to know why you’re sharing a cave with Remo and not Giya?”
I was too choked and shocked to answer. Not that I especially wanted to answer her. I buried my face in her neck and sobbed like a big baby. After a few more minutes of waterworks, I murmured, “I thought I’d never see you again.”
Nima smoothed my hair back. “Oh, abiwoojin . . .” she croaked. “I’m so sorry it took us so long to find you.”
I pulled away from her. “How did you . . . find us?”
Her lips were pressed into such a firm line they almost appeared thin. “Joshua Locklear finally came forward with the information.” Her eyes tracked over my face, snagging on my cheek. “How did you get that bruise?”
When another sob tripped out of my trembling lips, she hugged me back against her, chest heaving. Was my hard-as-nails mother crying? My mother never cried. At least, never in front of me. She pressed away and cradled my cheeks, her thumbs stroking away my tears while so many rolled down her face.
“Is Iba here, too?”
Her fingers stilled, and she sniffed. “No. He stayed with Gregor.” When I was a kid and did something naughty, Nima would pronounce my name the exact same way she’d just spoken Gregor’s, which told me the wariff was in big trouble.
“Is it just the two of you?” I asked.
“Lily came too. As well as a handful of guards.”
Had she seen Cruz, yet? Before I could ask, I said, “Sook! He’s not here.”
“We know. Kajika got him out a few minutes before we came in.” Her eyes became incendiary. “If your father doesn’t kill Gregor, I will. How could he have kept a place like this from us?”
I darted a worried glance toward Faith and Remo, whose hushed conversation had come to a standstill. I doubted either of them wanted to hear Nima discuss Gregor’s execution.
“Did he know we were in here?” Remo’s question made me suck in a breath.
I hadn’t even considered Gregor could know and leave us inside. Why would he? Or rather, why would he leave the apple in play if it could actually kill us off?
“No. Dad swore he didn’t know.” Faith stared up at her boy, then at me. “I’m sorry, Amara.”
I frowned.
“For what I said, and how I behaved the night the two of you—”
Remo draped an arm around her shaking shoulders, tucked her head under his chin before kissing the top of it. It was so darn sweet that if I hadn’t