Wicked (Eternal Guardians #9) - Elisabeth Naughton Page 0,50

get a healer to fix whatever was wrong with him, and find a way to resecure the border. Otherwise, everyone in Ehrendia would still be in danger.

Because she was certain more satyrs were coming. Soon.

Her gaze lifted to Zagreus, leaning against her. His eyes were still closed, his head hanging at an odd angle. He couldn’t seem to support his own weight. Yes, she was strong, but even she had limits. In her current state of exhaustion, there was no way she could get him up that cliff and back to the castle without help.

Her pulse raced. She knew of only one way to get his ass moving. The same way she’d gotten him moving in that fight.

“Okay, listen to me.” She reached for his battered face, cupped his scraped jaw, and lifted his head from her shoulder where it was slumped. “I’m not leaving you out here. We’re going back to the castle together. You can either help me get there, or you can continue to slow me down. If you choose to slow me down, those satyrs are going to come back and probably kill me. Is that what you want? Do you want me to die? Because that’s exactly what’s going to happen if you don’t get your ass in gear right this second.”

His eyelids fluttered. His gaze was glossy, unfocused, but something in the way he looked down at her told her he’d heard what she’d said.

His weight shifted. He stumbled.

Tightening her arm around his waist so he wouldn’t fall, she stepped with him. He grasped her shoulder and held on, moving toward the archway.

Relief pulsed inside her. She gripped his forearm at her shoulder where it was draped and kept her other arm tight around his waist to hold him up as they moved beneath the arch and along the moonlit pool, trying not to dig her fingers into any of his wounds, but it was difficult. He was scraped and cut and bloody just about everywhere.

Their movements were slow. Their steps, small. But every inch closer to the castle was an inch away from those satyrs.

They made it to the path behind the waterfall. Several times they had to stop so he could lean against the rocks and catch his breath. So she could catch hers as well. They didn’t have a torch, so after they left the moonlight behind and turned into the tunnel, Talisa had to rely on her memory and touch as a guide.

“Watch your head,” she said as they walked. “The ceiling is low in places.”

He grumbled something about not caring about his head. And several times she heard a thwack that told her he’d hit it on the rocks. But whenever she asked if he was all right, he muttered she should just leave him. That she should go on alone. Even though he never stopped helping her make it up the path.

He was sweating profusely by the time they finally came to a stop in front of the steel door. She helped him lean carefully back against the rocks then slowly lower to the floor so he could sit. Once his breaths evened out in the small dark space and she knew he wasn’t going to fall over, she swiped her sweaty palms on her ripped skirt and reached for the handle.

Locked. Dammit, she’d forgotten that.

She shoved her shoulder into the door and tried to use her strength to muscle it open, but it didn’t even budge.

Shit. Ana had the key.

Panic pressed down on her chest. There had been no one in the lower level when she and Ana had come through earlier. It was still the middle of the night. For all she knew, it had been years since anyone had been down in that dungeon.

She turned toward Zagreus, his slow breaths echoing at her feet. “I need a spell to open this door.”

He didn’t respond.

“Zagreus?” She lowered to her knees and reached for his face, feeling in the dark until her hands connected with his scruffy jaw.

She tipped his head upright. Her fingers moved over his skin to find his eyes closed again. “We’re almost there. I need you to focus. You can sleep when we get upstairs.”

He still didn’t answer.

Keeping one hand cupped around his jaw to hold his head up, she used the other to grasp his shoulder so she could shake him awake. “Zagreus?”

Nothing. He didn’t move a single muscle.

That panic inched up her chest, tightening her throat. Still holding his face, she