Esther stayed with Aiden while we carried the two Guardians back to the cells.
“They’re going to be so pissed,” Alanii said with a grin.
We left them together in one cell.
“Come on,” I said. “We really need to get Aiden out of here before that meeting ends.”
When we got back to Esther, Aiden was beginning to wake up.
He glanced around groggily. “What’s going on?” he mumbled.
“We’re saving your hole,” I said sharply. “Now shut up before you get your sister killed.”
“Sister?” His gaze found Esther, and he smiled lovingly. “Essie,” he murmured. “You’re here.”
“Hush, Aiden.” Esther cupped his cheek with her hand. “I’m getting you home, okay? But you need to be quiet. If you make a sound, we’re all dead.”
He seemed to understand a little after that, and Esther and Lorcan helped him walk. We got closer to the meeting room. Esther was busy making sure Aiden was okay, Lorcan couldn’t be seen when his doppelganger was already in the room, and the others were terrified. They had become more nervous with each knocked-out guard, so I knew it was down to me to try to get Elathan’s attention. I crept up to the entrance. Nobody was guarding the door, but I knew everyone inside had a personal guard protecting them. I glanced back at my friends then opened the door a crack.
I tried to catch Elathan’s eye. Finally, he looked right at me and nodded.
Then, Phoenix jumped to his feet. “You!”
I froze to the spot, seeing that same cold fury I had found on Fionnuala’s face many a time. Behind the door, I gestured for the others to run. Lorcan tried to make his way over to me, but Quinn yanked him back, covering his mouth with her palm. She shook her head aggressively. I waved at them to leave as I entered the room.
Fionnuala looked proud as Phoenix strode over to me. “What are you doing?” he spat. “Spying, are you?”
I shrugged with a sheepish smile. “What can I say? I thought my invite got lost in the post.”
Phoenix took his whip from his belt. My smile faltered. What was he going to do? Elathan slipped out of the room, unnoticed by everyone but me. I hoped he was going to help Aiden.
Phoenix cracked the whip with a sadistic smile. I had seen that smile before—Maximus and Gideon had both smiled at me like that back when they had tortured me.
“I personally invite you to stay, tainted one,” Phoenix said in a cold, cruel voice. He snapped the whip in my direction. Stunned, I froze as the leather wrapped around my torso. For a second, I was too shocked to react.
Then, I found why the werewolves hated the whip so much. It was alive with electricity, shooting continuous bolts into my body. I let out an endless scream and my body seized as the unrelenting pain kept slamming through me.
Nobody moved to help me, and I couldn’t do a thing to help myself. I was trapped in a world of pain and agony. The wound in my side burned as if flaming stakes had been thrust into my skin. I saw Gabe and Eddie sitting there watching as my body jerked of its own accord. I collapsed to the floor, defenceless and unable to stop convulsing, yet the movement only increased the torture.
The last thing I saw was the interested gaze of Marina raking over my body. The last thing I heard was a pleased little laugh from Fionnuala.
The last thing I felt was the endless pain from Phoenix’s betrayal. He was exactly like Fionnuala, after all.
***
Someone was carrying me—two someones, actually. The awful shooting electric seizures were over, but my body was still racked with pain, and the bandage on my side felt wet. I had probably busted my stitches.
One of my carriers laughed gruffly. “Looks like it’s waking up.”
I opened my eyes to see a white floor speeding past me. I was face down and moving fast—to the cells, if I was lucky. I prayed the others had gotten away.
As the echoes from the pain diminished, I realised there were more than two people walking with me. I managed to lift my aching head to see two figures a couple of metres behind us: Fionnuala and Phoenix. Her arm was hooked through his, and she was speaking quickly into his ear. He gazed at me, and I hoped he saw and felt every fibre of hatred I threw at him with my eyes.
I wanted to kill him. Such pain was unimaginable for most people. Not for me. And yet I could hardly bear the memory of it. Every time I closed my eyes, I felt the lick of the whip against my skin, the constant convulsions of my body as the magic manipulated me. I wanted to pass out again, just to forget, but I felt sure I would see that whip in my dreams and feel every seizing limb being electrocuted. Luckily, I didn’t have long to live.
We came to the door that hid the cells, and one of the Guardians swore.
“Where the hell are they?” he muttered.
“Something wrong?” Phoenix called.
“Unlikely,” the other Guardian whispered.
They dropped me to the floor. I barely had a chance to protect my face from smacking against the hard surface, but my limbs didn’t seem to work anymore, so I ended up smacking my cheek against the stone anyway. I tried to sit up, to stand, to do anything, but my body felt like jelly, and it was terrifying. Little tics twitched throughout my body, and I couldn’t imagine feeling normal again. I couldn’t remember what it felt like. I had no control, and that was my worst nightmare.
A door was opened and then closed.
“Aiden’s gone!” one said. “There are four Guardians locked in the cells.”
“What?” Fionnuala asked in a tone that made me want to curl up and die. She stepped over me to get into the cell area. “Well,” she said, her voice turning ugly, “it seems she wasn’t our only visitor today.” She kicked me in the side. “Where is he?”
I bit down on my lip, drawing blood in an attempt to hold in my scream. “Who?” I spat blood all over their lovely clean floor.
She kicked me again. “The shifter. Where is he?”
I grunted. “Oh, you mean your little bitch? I dunno. Maybe he went on holiday. He deserved one after taking down Koda’s murderer.”
“Lies,” she spat. “He’s the murderer.”
“We both know that’s not true,” I said.
She bent and grabbed me by the throat. Whatever was in that whip came through her hands, and I screamed long and loud as my body bucked under her touch. My head felt as though it were about to explode, and I almost cried with happiness when the blackness crept into the edges of my sight.
“I’ll find out,” Phoenix said. He searched me and took my dagger away. “Give me time with her, and I’ll find out everything she knows.”
Fionnuala removed her hand, and although the surges of electricity stopped, my body seized up until I could barely catch a breath.
“Fine,” she said. “I have more pressing concerns in any case. I need to go back and convince them. Deal with this creature after you’ve let her rot for a few days. The hunger and thirst will make her far more pliable. Until then, keep her asleep. And you two, make sure those guards stay in the cells for a fortnight as punishment. If my mood improves, I may even let them live to be stupid another day.”
She strode away, closely followed by Phoenix.
One of the Guardians pulled me inside by the hair. “Bad enough you knocked them out without embarrassing them as well,” he spat, dragging me into a cell. He found the remote in my pocket, and he smiled as he used it to lock me away. He didn’t bother to tag me with the bracelet, and I was glad for that one thing.
A hissing sound signalled sleep, and my eyes closed of their own accord. But my body kept twitching and bucking, no matter what I did.
***
“Ava, wake up.”
A bottle was brought to my lips, and cool water poured into my mouth. I tried to drink, but my lips kept twitching, and the water spilled down my front.
Something small was pressed into my mouth, and a hand squeezed over my mouth. “Swallow.”
I obeyed, opening and closing my eyes a couple of ti
mes. Water came again, and most of it found its way down my aching throat.
The lights were stark and bright, and when my eyes adjusted, I realised I was still in the cells. Phoenix knelt over me, his forehead lined with stress, and his hand pressed against my side.
“Get away from me,” I managed to croak out, still stinging from the betrayal and feeling the pain of that whip. “You sly fucker.”
“Don’t talk,” he said. “It’ll just hurt. I’m here to get you out. This will burn a little, but it’ll keep the wound closed until you can get new stitches. Hold still, Ava.”
I held my breath as he layered some kind of paste over the wound. When he said it would burn a little, I wasn’t aware that he meant the kind of little burn that might come from a volcano in hell.
“Is this a new torture tactic you’ve come up with? Because I kind of prefer the whip.”
He stopped and stared at me, his eyebrows rising.
I thumped his shoulder. “I’m kidding! That was the worst experience of my life.” I hit him again, a little harder, but he didn’t seem to notice.
He sighed. “I needed her to trust me. To confide in me some more. She wants me to take the empty seat on the Council. It will give her more power, and she’s willing to do anything to get it, including use those children. We can’t let that happen. The knife that fell in your house. It made everything clear. This is bigger than either of us thought.”
I blinked a couple of times, trying to get his face into clear focus to see if I could tell if he was lying or not. I wasn’t convinced I was even awake. “What?”
“I’m sorry I hurt you. I realised you weren’t alone by the way you were glancing to your left at the door. And when my mother saw you, I knew I had to act first. The only way to get your friends out was to distract everyone with you and get my mother fully on my side.”
“You… Lorcan was there.”
“And he probably heard you scream.” He closed his eyes, a pang of regret in his expression. “This was the only way I could stop her from killing you. You don’t understand what she’s like. She thrives on the pain. She’s courted darkness, and she’s greedy when it comes to causing harm. I did what I had to do to save you.” He adjusted my shirt carefully before helping me to my feet.
I realised the cells had an extra couple of guards. “You didn’t,” I whispered, glancing around.
“I borrowed your idea,” he said.
“It was Lorcan’s idea.”
His grin was sudden. “Come on. We have to get out of here while she’s busy. Gabe is trying his best to persuade Erossi it would be a mistake to allow me a seat on the Council. In fact, all of the remaining consultants are giving her an exceptionally hard time. We’ll use it to our advantage.” He wrapped his arm around my waist, careful not to lean against my wound.
I stared up at him. “Who the hell are you, Phoenix?”
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”
He helped me out of the cell and toward the door.
“What about all of these people?” I asked. “They shouldn’t be here. Not all of them.”
“No time now,” he said. “We have to be quick. There’s something happening tonight. We can slip out unnoticed while everyone’s distracted.”
“Wait, what’s happening tonight?”
“I’ll tell you everything I know when we get out of here.”
We took a couple of steps, then Phoenix stopped. Numerous footsteps echoed in the halls. Running fast. Coming our way.
“Run,” I whispered. “Nobody knows you’re here yet.”
He glanced at me, squeezed his eyes shut, and shook his head. “I might not get another chance.” He pushed me behind him, taking out that whip again.
A group of people ran around the corner, and I choked out a sound. Rebels and neighbours, people I had been hard on so they would respect me. They were friends, no matter where I went wrong.
The twins, Val, Carl, Esther, even Ry. Fifteen people stood there, staring at us in surprise, until Lorcan recovered. He took a couple of steps toward us, shaking with anger.
“You,” he spat at his father. “You did this.”
“It’s not what you think,” Phoenix said.
“We heard you,” Lorcan hissed. “We heard her scream. She saved our lives, and you tortured her. You made us think you cared, but you’re just another enemy.” He raised his sword, the glyphs turning green. “I’m more than ready to say goodbye to you.”
I willed Phoenix to move, to run, to say something, but he put his hands behind his back and stood there, right in the path of his own lost sword.
Chapter Sixteen
I pulled Phoenix backward right as the sword sliced down. Then I screamed with pain and fell over ever so inelegantly.
“Oh, holy fuck,” I hissed, rolling over so I wasn’t leaning on my wound anymore. “Mother of…” I blinked away tears. “Lorcan, put the goddamn sword away. He’s got me out of the cell. He’s helping.”
Lorcan dropped the sword and helped Carl get me to my feet.
“Trust you,” Carl said. “Always getting into trouble.”
Lorcan looked so confused that I laughed.
“Stop looking at me like that,” I said. “What are you all doing here?”
“Gabe, Elathan, and Eddie are distracting Fionnuala while we get you out of here,” Esther said, eyeing Phoenix warily. “What’s going on with him?”
“He was trying to fool Fionnuala.” I felt ill. Dizzy. “And you’re all idiots for coming here. What if you get caught?”
“We couldn’t leave you here,” Ry said.
I couldn’t hide my smile.
“We can’t trust him,” Lorcan said. The others gathered around us, closing in as if to prevent a physical fight.
“I won’t do anything to cause you harm,” Phoenix said. “I made a deal to protect you, and I will.”
I added, “He said Fionnuala wants to take over, that she’ll use the children’s power to do it if anyone goes against her.”
“Yeah, we know,” Carl said, wincing as he looked at my bloody shirt. “We found somebody who knew Raven, confirmed she was working for some fae. Shay found some paperwork that points back at the fae. We knew Fionnuala had to be involved, and we didn’t think you would last the night in here, so…”
“So here you are. We need to get out of here. She’s… strong.” I glanced at Phoenix. “Are you coming with us?”
He nodded, but he was looking at Lorcan. “I had to hurt her to give you all time to get away,” he said. “It was the only way to save her life and yours.”
Lorcan huffed and picked up the sword, refusing to look at his father. We had no time for reconciliations. We needed to get out of the Council’s Headquarters before Fionnuala copped on and brought on the pain.
We fled the corridor, turning and weaving and not stopping for a second. A shudder ran through the building, and I bumped into Carl, losing my balance. He supported my weight, but his face had paled.
“What the hell was that?” he asked.
“I don’t like it,” Val said. “Keep moving.”
I glanced around to ask Phoenix, but he was gone. I squeezed my eyes shut. Why had I trusted him? Why did I keep trusting people and then being surprised when they let me down? “Hurry,” I urged.
We ran, no longer caring about being quiet. The walls shuddered again, as if an earthquake was underfoot, and we all fell to the floor, colliding into one another. Cracks ran down the walls, and fear gripped me all over again.
“We need to get out of here. Now!”
We got up and ran again. I listened out for footsteps coming our way. Thunder rumbled so loudly outside that I heard it underground. We were running out of time. Somebody had pissed off the weather warden, and I really didn’t want my friends to face Fionnuala when she was in that kind of mood.
The scent of fear filled the hallway. I tried to count to calm myself, but the constant twitching of my body made it impossible to concentra
te. My lungs burned as we ran, but I kept experiencing flashbacks. The way the whip felt, what it did to my body, I would never forget it.
We turned a corner and bumped into each other trying to come to a stop. A group of ten hooded assassins, all carrying bloody weapons, blocked our path.
My friends charged. I tried to follow, but Ry got in my way.
“Sit still,” he said, gripping his bow and arrow fiercely. “You’re in no state to fight. They’ll deal with it, and if anyone breaks through, they’ll die.” Sweat trickled down his temples.
I leaned against the wall, feeling completely defenceless without my dagger. I was forced to watch as my friends took on Guardians dressed as assassins, trained fighters determined to kill. I almost freaked when Carl was knocked to the floor. He barely managed to stab his attacker in the gut. Val crushed skulls, and the others fought just the way Esther had taught them—as a team.
Ry shot an arrow at an assassin who shoved Lorcan aside to rush at us. The arrow caught him in the eye, and the assassin fell.
Ry wiped his forehead with his sleeve. “Close,” he said in a shaky voice.
“It was perfect,” I said. “You know what you’re doing.”
He gave me a grateful smile and let another arrow loose, freeing Val of the assassin on her back. She roared, and it was as if the sound gave the group strength. We could win. I again moved to join them, but Ry gripped me by the collar and yanked me back.
“Don’t even think about it,” he said. “They’ll kill me if I don’t keep you here, and Val is far scarier than you. Sorry.”
I leaned against the wall, watching my friends work together as if they had been training together all their lives. They slaughtered with no mercy until the last of the assassins fell.
We didn’t have time to check injuries. We had to keep running. When we grew closer to the main hall, we heard shouts and screams.
“We can cut around them or join in,” Esther said. “We don’t know who’s fighting or whose side they’re on. I think we should try to avoid the battles.”