Sacrifice of Darkness - Alexandra Ivy Page 0,21
led him through a narrow crack in the thick stone.
“Wait,” he commanded.
Sparkles glanced impatiently over her shoulder. “What’s wrong?”
“I smell…” He sniffed again, his wings quivering with sudden horror. “Slave pens.”
The fairy smiled. “We have to go through them to reach the maze.”
Levet narrowed his gaze. He didn’t trust that smile. “Now I smell bullshirts.”
“Bullshirts?”
“Tell me where you are leading me.”
The female paused as if concocting a plausible lie. Levet folded his arms over his chest, and she sighed.
“I’m leading you to the slave pens.”
“I knew it. This is a trap.”
Sparkle turned to face him, her face pale and tense. “No, I promise.”
“Then why are we down here?”
“My people are locked in cells in the slave pens.”
Levet’s anger faltered, his heart sinking. He’d spent enough time in various pens to sympathize with any creature stuck inside one.
“How many?”
“Ten.”
Levet frowned, sure he’d misheard. “Ten frost fairies?”
“We started with thirty.”
“Thirty.” Oh…goddess. Levet’s tender heart squeezed with profound grief. He didn’t know the fairies, but he was certain that they were rare and precious and irreplaceable.
“Sometimes, the hellhounds win,” Sparkle said in dull tones.
“Mon Dieu.”
The fairy reached out her hand in a pleading motion. “Please, please, please. I need your help.”
“What do you want from me?”
Sparkle pressed her hands together, her eyes filling with tears. “I managed to escape by hiding in the maze. The crowd assumed I had been eaten and eventually returned to the fights in the main cavern. I’ve been back down here time and time again, but I don’t have the strength to open the door to the cell.”
Levet’s wings drooped. He was a sucker for tears. “Even if I can release your people from their cells, what good will it do?” He tried to be sensible. There was no point in all of them wandering in circles. “We are still stuck in these caverns. Eventually, we will be discovered.”
Sparkle shook her head. “I was telling you the truth when I said there is a tunnel at the end of the maze.”
“Why should I believe you?” Levet asked, pretending his heart hadn’t already melted into a gloopy mess at the plight of the trapped frost fairies. “You have already proven yourself to be a liar liar pants on fire.”
“I didn’t lie,” the tiny female protested. “I just left out the bit about making a side journey to collect my people before we escape.”
Levet sniffed. “A rose that is named a cauliflower is still a rose.”
Sparkle blinked. Then blinked again. “What?”
“You lied.”
Without warning, the fairy dropped to her knees. “I beg you. Name any price, and I will pay it if you help my people,” she pleaded in husky tones. “If I don’t get them out, they will die.”
Levet heaved a sigh. He’d been a goner from the second the female appeared.
“You are fortunate that I am a knight in shining armor,” he muttered.
“You’ll release them?”
Levet shrugged. “It is what heroes do.”
With a cry of relief, Sparkle sprang to her feet and rushed to throw her arms around Levet.
“Thank you!” She planted soft kisses over his face.
Levet turned his head. He enjoyed kisses as much as the next male. Probably even more. But he no longer wanted them from every female who happened to find him irresistible—which, he had to admit, was most of them. He was, after all, a most magnificent gargoyle. But for the past few months, he had a singular preference for Inga’s lips. Or he would have if the stupid ogress would ever bother to kiss him.
“No need for that.” He gently untangled himself from the fairy’s clinging arms. “Lead the way to the slave pens.”
* * * *
Javad hissed as the silver net was roughly tugged off his body.
Grueling pain pulsed through him, sapping his strength as he struggled to heal from the deep burns. He had only a vague recollection of being hauled through the darkness. And then what seemed like an eternity of lying on a stone floor with the net covering him. The only thing he was certain of was that Terra was nowhere around.
“Terra.” Clenching his fangs, he forced himself to a seated position, glancing around the small cave. He ignored Vynom, who stood over him, and allowed his senses to flow outward. Immediately, he detected the guards just outside the opening, and above them, the choking smell of dozens of demons. Perhaps hundreds of them. That had to be where the cage match would be held. The huge crowd made it impossible for Javad to pinpoint Terra’s soft aloe vera