Fast as lightning, Walker wrapped one arm around Ember’s stomach and fired some kind of weapon with the other. The strike hit the creature in the chest. The impact slowed it, but didn’t stop it.
Ember screamed my name, her voice echoing as the portal collapsed in on itself.
What had just happened?
Recovering from its forward momentum, the demon spun and stomped back to me. It smiled, a hideous and frightful sight. I didn’t care. Ember was alive. I didn’t know how or why, but she was out of this hell hole. It didn’t matter what happened to me now.
The demon licked its lips. “The chamber,” it growled.
Several pairs of heavy combat boots came to a stop in front of me. Rough hands moved me. Pain shot from my injured neck and down my spine, my nerve endings on fire. I bit down a scream as I was yanked up and over someone’s broad shoulder. The warden had always revelled in pain and fear. I would not give him mine.
“You are working with someone who has great power.”
I could see nothing, just someone’s back, yet I knew he was talking to me. He must have shifted back into his human form.
“They have taken my key and I need it. You are going to tell me where she is.”
I chuckled, blood bubbling from my nose and dripping from my mouth. Darkness was taking my vision and I could barely breathe, which meant my injury was far worse than I’d hoped. “I’m...not telling...you...jack shit.” And that was the truth. I had no idea where Walker or Ember were. And what the hell was the key? A key to what?
The warden grabbed my hair and yanked my head up. “You think you won’t, but you will. I will heal you and break you. I will cause you such agony you will beg for death, only I won’t give it to you. You, Prime, are mine now, and even the strongest souls break under my persuasion.” He let go of my head.
Pressure filled my skull. My head was going to burst. Unable to hold back, I screamed.
The pain ebbed enough that I could think. I found myself back in the alleyway where Rawson had found me. I was skinny and young, just a boy, and my lower half was naked. My jeans had been ripped from my body by the dark haired fae who tried to coerce my mind with his magic and glamour. But the darkness in me sensed its presence and uncovered it. I freed my dark side, welcoming it as shadow licked along my bones. Dark and vile, the shadow consumed me and I happily used it to slam the fae into the ground.
He screamed as I took his knife, and even though my too thin limbs ached and shook, I stabbed the tall supernatural being, over and over, until blood covered me and him, dripping from my hair and chin, staining my bare thighs and hands.
A laugh echoed around me.
Breathless, I pulled back and stared at the fae. My heart stuttered, horror filling me. “No!” I yelled, dropping the knife and falling off the body.
Ember’s bloodied remains lay at my feet. Her emerald green eyes stared at me accusingly and she reached out a shaking hand. Her mouth opened, but no sound came out, she just coughed and coughed. Blood spurted from between her bloodless lips and fell from the wounds on her chest. I lurched forward. I had to stop the bleeding. I hadn’t killed her. I hadn’t... But my hands were too small and no matter how hard I tried, blood pumped between my fingers.
I’d failed again.
I always failed her…
Coldness enveloped me and a cruel laugh echoed in my head, right before pain exploded through my skull once again...
Chapter 27
Ember
* * *
In Faerie…
* * *
The world tilted. Energy burned against my skin. I screamed when pain pulled at my chest, horrified as I watched the large ethereal form of an obsidian wolf float in front of me. Connor’s wolf. My heart lurched, he looked frightened...and lost. Beside him, my own wolf spirit floated. She had lingered close when I died and when Walker pulled me into the portal, she had been pulled in with me. Relieved she hadn’t left me, I quickly tethered both wolf spirits. If they were let loose into the void of the portal I would lose them forever.