Then, down at the far end of the hall, something moved.
I froze, breathing labored and Amaya screaming furiously in my head. The movement wasn’t repeated. My gaze darted through the shadows, but I couldn’t see the threat that every sense—and my sword—said was there.
And then I realized why.
The threat wasn’t in the hall.
It was behind me.
I swung, but it was already far too late.
A smothering blanket of darkness fell around me, and pain exploded. Then there was nothing, simply nothing.
Chapter 13
Waking was an exercise in agony. Every muscle, bone, and fiber ached with a fierceness that had my head spinning and my heart racing. Even my hair felt like it was on fire.
For a minute I wondered if I’d somehow ended up in the hands of the Aedh again, but this pain was different from the torture they’d put me through. This wasn’t the pain that came from a spirit being pulled apart. Rather, it was from something more mundane—like a body that had been beaten and abused to the nth degree.
But the blood that rode the air suggested I wasn’t any more hurt now than when the Rakshasa had captured me. She obviously hadn’t had me for dinner, and while I was naturally grateful for that, it was a fact that only ratcheted up the levels of fear. She was saving me for something, and I had a bad, bad feeling I really didn’t want to know what.
As my mind crawled toward greater awareness, I realized I was lying on something cold and uneven. Stone rather than concrete. My breathing was labored, suggesting there wasn’t quite enough oxygen, and the air itself tasted bitter and decayed.
There was also a strange buzzing in my head, and it seemed oddly—darkly—blanketing.
Frowning, I reached down inside and called to the Aedh. Power surged, but so did pain, a warning that I was still too close to my limits. I ignored it, and called to the change regardless. It surged through me, breaking down skin and muscle as it began the shift from human to Aedh. Then that strange buzzing sharpened, becoming so fierce it felt like nails were being slammed into my head, and the energy stumbled, then receded, leaving me bound by flesh rather than a being of energy.
Whatever that strange buzzing was, I couldn’t change while it was near.
Fuck, fuck, fuck!
I cracked open an eye. Darkness met my gaze, and it held an odd sense of heaviness, as if the weight of the world pressed down upon this place. And if that were true—if we were deep underground somewhere—then yet again Azriel wouldn’t find me.
Which meant I was alone.
Fear swarmed, so thick that for several minutes it threatened to choke me. I might have been trained to fight by the best of them, but I’d never been prepared for a situation like this.
Alone not, came the alien voice that was my sword. Am here.
The relief that hit was so strong it left me shaking. Though there was no guarantee Amaya could protect me from whatever it was that waited in this darkness, with her in my hand I at least had a chance. And no matter how small that chance might be, it was better than nothing.
I opened both eyes and looked around. Or tried to, because my head wouldn’t move. In fact, nothing would move. I was all but frozen, able to breathe but little else.
Panic swelled again, but I tried to ignore it, tried to think. There had to be a way out of this—had to be! I wasn’t going to just lie here and allow the Rakshasa to tear me apart at her leisure. I might be frozen, but the mere fact that I was breathing suggested that either the poison in the Rakshasa’s claws hadn’t affected me as completely as it had her vampire victims or it was wearing off quickly.
I prayed it was the latter rather than the former. It would give me more of a chance—as long as the Rakshasa didn’t decide to eat me immediately now that I was awake. After all, she did seem to prefer to consume her victims when they were aware.
As my eyes began to adjust, I realized the darkness wasn’t as complete as I’d thought, thanks in part to the huge weights of stone that hung high above me. The stalactites gleamed with an odd, ghostly glow, and their light filtered through the surrounding ink, alluding to other outcroppings and hinting at fissures in the rock walls. Moisture gleamed and dripped, splashing onto the stony floor close to where I lay. It ran along the cracks and underneath my body, the chill of it contrasting sharply with the warmer moisture saturating my back. One of my wounds had obviously opened, even if the scent of it didn’t sting the air.
But there was more than just stone and fissures here. There were shadows—shadows that were as still as the stone and humanoid in shape.
My heart began to beat a whole lot faster.
If those shapes were any indication, there wasn’t just one Rakshasa here, but at least another five.
Panic surged anew, but I shoved it back down brutally. Panicking wouldn’t achieve anything, and it certainly wouldn’t get me out of here.
Something stirred to my left, and my gaze darted that way. One of the shadows peeled away from the wall and came toward me, the movement languid and oddly sensual. Which was fitting, because the woman who approached was one of the most exotic women I’d ever seen. She had the stature of an Amazon, with skin like warm honey and eyes the color of a newly unfurled leaf. Her hair was a fierce red and glowed like fire. But despite her beauty, there was little in the way of humanity in her expression, and her striking eyes were as cold as any monster’s.