Wicked Waves: Solsti Prophecy #2 (15 page)

A small cry escaped her lips and she reached for Kai, only to see him dragged to the back of the cell. Four guards pushed him down to the stone floor. One of them spoke in a language she didn’t understand, and the magic rope untied itself.

What the
—? Before she could even process that oddity, the guards swiftly clamped his hands and feet into iron cuffs bolted to the stone.

When the guards appeared certain that Kai was adequately restrained, they turned to Brooke. One reached for her hands, while the first maintained his grip on her arm.
As if I’d run. Where would I go?
 
She wouldn’t abandon Kai. Their history didn’t matter now. They’d come this far together. They’d find a way out.
Together.

A burly demon produced a device that looked like a pair of handcuffs.
Oh no
. Her skin prickled with dread and she tried to yank her hands away, but the guards’ grip was strong. The large demon slid her hands through the black metal circles and she felt a cold flare of power as they instantly tightened to fit her wrists. Fighting her growing fear, she tensed as another guard crouched at her side.

Pressure surrounded one of her ankles as the guard snapped a metal band in place. A chain attached the ankle restraint to the stone wall behind her. The guard gave the chain a tug, let out a satisfied grunt, and filed out with the rest of the guards. The door closed with a solid boom, and seconds later Brooke heard a thud. She guessed that would be the wooden beam dropping into place. Kai let out a series of foul curses in English and Demonish.

Torchlight filtered through the small barred window in their cell door. Feet shuffled, and then quiet loomed. Without the special night vision that Lash demons had, she could only see Kai as a shadowy form. The manacles in the floor had short chains, allowing him to sit but not stand.

She backed up slowly, waiting for her heels to bump the wall behind her. When she reached it, she slid down to sit on the floor and rested her bound hands in her lap.
This is bad.
She was about to ask Kai what his grand plans for escape were, when his deep voice resonated within the cell.

“I’m sorry, Brooke.”
 
His tone radiated anger, frustration, and regret.

“This isn’t your fault.” She was scared, sure. But she wasn’t mad at him.

“It sure as hell isn’t yours.”

She let out a small sigh. “Kai, this isn’t the time to play the blame game. We need to get out of here.”

He snorted in the dim light. “That’s gonna be a problem.”

“But you did it once before. That’s what Cale said.”

“I had inside help.”

“There has to be a way you can do it again.”

“In case you forgot, I haven’t been here for one hundred seventy years.”

She glared at him, knowing he could see her expression clearly. “Well, aren’t you a grumpy old man.”

He huffed out an exasperated breath. “You want me to start calling you Baby Sprite?”

“No, I want you to tell me about when you were here before. Tell me how you got out.”

Silence filled the small space. Brooke leaned her head against the cool stone behind her and wished like mad that Kai would talk to her. She refused to believe they were going to die here. Faint clangs and scrapes drifted in through the tiny square window, and water dripped somewhere nearby.

Water!
 
Why had the sensation of her element disappeared?
 
“Kai!
 
There’s water in here!
 
I hear it dripping. I can do something to help.”
 
Excitement grew in her voice.

“Think again.”

“Huh?”

“I can’t call demonfire or bust these.”
 
He rattled his chains. “You can’t use your power. These cells have dampening spells.”

Brooke opened her mouth in surprise, then closed it. That’s why she hadn’t felt her element humming in her blood after they’d entered the cell. She took a deep breath, willing her rising panic to subside. She needed Kai to talk to her, to push away the fear in her mind. He was one of the strongest men she’d ever known, and she was putting her faith in him.

“Who helped you before?” she asked.

He snorted. “You’re a persistent thing.”
 
Chains scraped the floor as he shifted to a different position. “It was one of the guards. He was retuning a favor I did for him.”

“But you were a prisoner here.”
 
She couldn’t make her mouth utter the word
slave
in reference to Kai. “What could you do for him?”

“Drant didn’t allow his guards to rough up the slaves. He saved that for himself. One day a Neshi was brought in to fight. Turned out he had killed the sister of this guard, Garrod.”

Brooke sucked in a breath, guessing where the story was headed.

“Garrod couldn’t touch the bastard. When it came time to face the Neshi in the arena, he made me a deal. Kill the thing slowly and painfully, and he’d help me escape.”
 
Kai’s voice ended on a hollow note.

Faint outside sounds filled the cell as Kai fell silent. Sitting there, both of them in chains, Brooke’s stomach stirred uneasily. She hated to imagine this proud, lethal demon forced to bargain for his freedom. Forced to fight for his life for the entertainment of others.

Bitterness filled her heart at the thought of his torment. She guessed the memories had probably roared back to life as soon as they walked into the compound.
Are they ever far from his mind?
 
She wished she knew.

“So, did he just sneak you out the front gate?” she prompted gently.

He turned to her, his eyes glowing a soft honey color in the darkness. “No. He got me to Drant’s suite. I went in and killed him. Then I had to make my way out alone.”

“Where did you go?”

“I found a place to hide. I grew up around here, so I knew how to cover my tracks. The next day, I made my way to Arawn.”

“What did he think of you killing Drant?
 
By taking you in, he was effectively harboring a…” She stopped, unable to speak her thoughts.

“A murderer?” Kai finished for her. He snorted. “There was no love between Arawn and Drant. Arawn felt I’d done a service for the realm. I trained with him, then spent most of my time on Earth.”

“What happened to Garrod?”

“I never found out. He was probably killed for his treason. Several other guards saw him walking with me that night.”

Her limbs felt heavy with the weight of his ordeal. She leaned forward impulsively, wanting to touch him, but the tug of her chain brought her back.

“I’m sorry, Kai.”

“Don’t apologize. You wanted to know.”
 
His voice held a hard edge.

“And I’m glad you told me. I’m not sorry I know more about you. I’m sorry for what you had to go through.”
 
She had the feeling there was a lot more that he hadn’t told her, but she had pushed enough for now.

“I don’t want your pity.”

“I don’t pity you!
 
I’m angry that these things happened to you. No one should have to go throu—” She gasped as the loud scrape of wood echoed into the cell. Grunting voices rumbled, metal clanked against metal, and the door heaved open.

Four large guards filed in and moved toward Kai. Unlocking his restraints, they hauled him up and shoved him toward the door.

She surged to her feet. “Kai!” Her blood chilled.

He turned to look back at her, his eyes flashing amber, but one of the guards cuffed the back of his head and pushed him. Another guard took a step toward her, snarling something in a language she didn’t understand. She blinked but held her ground, trying to peer around him.
Maybe there’s water in the corridor.
 

He took another step closer, blocking her view. “Stay, female.”
 
His voice was rough with an accent she couldn’t place.

She clenched her fists in frustration. Shifting to her toes, she caught a glimpse of Kai’s blond hair disappearing through the doorway.
Shit, shit, shit.

With one final growl, the guard turned and stomped out, following the others. The heavy wood slammed shut. With a boom, the outer beam thudded into place.

Brooke ran as far as her chain would allow. Metal dug into her ankle as she strained for the door. Unable to get close, she went up on her tiptoes again and desperately peered into the space beyond the window. But it was no use. The square was too small to see anywhere but straight ahead. Her shoulders slumped and she wrapped her arms around her waist. Breathing in short gasps, she willed herself not to hyperventilate.

The stomps and shuffles of feet moved farther down the corridor, until she could only hear an occasional faint shout from the hall. The drip of water sounded nearby, infuriatingly out of her control. Fear for Kai coursed through her veins in a cold rush, but underlying it all was a pulse of anger and…protectiveness.

She gritted her teeth, hating Draven, his father, and their sick schemes. She wanted to whisk Kai away from this hellhole of painful memories. Lowering herself to the cold floor, she sat with her knees bent, bound hands wrapped around her ankles, and willed him to survive whatever he was about to endure.

C
HAPTER
11

M
USIC
AND
RAUCOUS
SHOUTS
ECHOED
off every wall in the dark tavern. The autumnal equinox had recently passed, and many residents of Torth who happened to be fertile at that time were out celebrating their lack of need for birth control. Raniero pushed his way through groups of demons, fairies, and other supernatural creatures hell-bent on having a good time.

Most took one glance at his warrior’s build and scarred face and gave him a wide berth. Spotting the blond elf he’d come for, he closed the distance between them. “Johanna?”

She leaned against the wood-paneled wall, absorbed in filing her pink and black zebra-patterned fingernails. She rotated her hand and tilted her head, inspecting her work. “Yeah?”

“Are you ready?”

Stunning purple eyes looked up at him. “You really wanna go to that shithole?”

“Yes.”
 
He drew upon the minute amount of patience he possessed. He was paying her to get him where he needed to go. Friendliness wasn’t part of the bargain.

She held his gaze while she blew a big pink bubble and popped it loudly. Cracking her gum twice in quick succession, she reached for his hands. “All right, Watcher.”

He raised his eyebrows.

“You ever travel with a porter before?” she asked.
Crack, crack
.

“No.”

“I need physical contact with you. It’s easiest to hold hands.”

He took her hands in his. Stars, she was tiny. She had to be two feet shorter than he was. Well, she was an elf, after all, and he was one of Arawn’s Lash Watchers. Hard to believe this little thing was about to whisk him to another realm, using only the power of her mind.

He glanced around the crowded room. “You want to do this right here?”

“If anyone has a problem with it, what are they gonna do?
 
Come after us?”
 
She smirked and blew another bubble.

He inclined his head. She had a point. Porters were so rare that the odds of another being in this room were about a million to one. In all the realms, only six were known to exist. And one of them worked exclusively for his employer, Cale.

Cale didn’t know anything about Raniero’s excursion today. This trip was strictly off the record. He’d called in every favor owed to him in order to secure Johanna’s services. Using a porter was the only way to get to the desolate realm of Evena.

“Here we go, demon,” Johanna said, squeezing his hands. Power vibrated from her fingers into his. The tavern dissolved around them, replaced by thick gray fog. Weightlessness wrapped his body in a gentle spin, his feet not touching the ground. Johanna clutched his hands, her eyes closed and her face tilted back in peaceful concentration.

After a minute the fog dissipated. Raniero glanced around to see rolling hills building to craggy mountains in the distance. A few green trees dotted the landscape, surrounded by small patches of scrubby grass. The majority of the terrain was brown and rocky, rendered barren centuries ago by a demon-induced environmental crisis.

He looked down at his companion and released her hands. “That was one smooth ride, elf.”
 
It was nothing like the jerky, tumbling sensation of traveling through a portal.

“I’ll take that comment in a purely professional context,” she said, grinning.

He raised his eyebrows. “Good.”
 
He felt nothing beyond a professional interest in Johanna. He gave his heart away a hundred years ago, and ever since then he’d searched for the female who held it. Here, in this tiny remote realm, he hoped to find her.

Johanna landed them on the outskirts of a town, rumored to be the only one in the realm. Any hardy souls who didn’t live in town resided in various outposts scattered throughout the hills.

They strode toward a cluster of clapboard and wood-frame buildings, hoping to find a gathering place. A bar, restaurant, hotel, or maybe all three in one. Johanna would wait there for him while he conducted his business. And he hoped against all hope she’d be bringing two people back to Torth.

It didn’t take long to find what he was looking for. The town had one main street, and businesses lined two blocks of it. Music emanated from a large establishment at the near end of the street. A Lash demon paced outside, talking on his gem phone.

As they neared the building, the demon spotted them and ended his call. He glanced at Johanna, then focused his attention on Raniero.

“You folks visiting?”
 
the demon asked. His eyes shifted up and down Raniero’s face, no doubt noticing the scar that ran from his eye to his chin.

“Yeah,” Raniero said. He nodded at the entrance. “Food any good here?”

“Tell you what, the more lager you drink with the food, the better it tastes,” the other demon drawled.