Evermine: Daughters of Askara, Book 2 (23 page)

“She’s been sealed into the room.” Aldrich hung his head and scrubbed his cheeks with his bony palms. “Song failed to find an alternate route even through you—her blood relative.”

He answered a question I hadn’t got around to asking. Song possessed me so fast I hadn’t wondered why it homed in on me. Now I understood its attraction.
Blood of my blood
, indeed.

“Wouldn’t her captors need a way to get food and water to her?” I asked.

“Not necessarily. They could have left her tins of water and enough dried food to last her for the duration.” He opened his mouth, then shut it. I got the message, though.

Another alternative left Nesvia in a room with no food or water. Dehydration, starvation, both smacked of torture. Ending her life, then entombing her, would have been kinder. I said neither of those to Aldrich, whose grief-stricken magic could collapse walls as easily as I almost had.

I rubbed my temples. “Can you tell how close we are to the colony’s active tunnels?”

“We’re near.” Aldrich glanced at the ceiling. “The crafting here is strong.”

I wondered if he meant he sensed the colony overhead. If so, we were closer than I’d dared hope. “Either way, we have to get through this wall in order to reach the main tunnel.”

“Step back, Aldrich.” Harper circled around me and inspected the wall. “It’s solid rock here.” He checked another spot farther down the wall. “This is loose stone. What have you got?”

“It’s packed tight here.” Even the section I’d attacked appeared solid. My claw marks had gouged finger holes, but the wall seemed steady behind them. I did as he had and took several steps, testing for weak spots. Three feet over, I hit a patch of crumbling rock. “I think this is it.”

He spoke to empty air. “I don’t suppose you have any more tricks up your sleeves?”

Aldrich answered. “Illusion won’t help. Nothing else I can call would leave us alive.”

I choked on my tongue. “All right then.” I didn’t want to know what else shared this stretch of darkened tunnel or why calling it would result in our bones being used for toothpicks. Song was bad enough. If there were other things, living things, in here, the less I knew the better. “I don’t mind heavy lifting.” I sank my fingers into rock and pried a careful slab free. “I like it.”

Harper arched an eyebrow in my direction but threw his back into the work.

While we shifted and stacked, the quiet distress on the opposite side of the wall ceased. For some reason, the quiet fueled my urgency to reach Nesvia. Already I imagined her condition and found it appalling. She was a fragile female, used to muted light and pleasing sounds. This place had neither. Her demands, so quickly met at First Court, would have gone unheeded here.

Harper tossed aside a stone. “I think we’re in.” Foul air seeped from the hole he’d made. He choked, averting his face and covering his nose with his shirt. He staggered back, coughing.

I sniffed the air. It smelled of several days’ worth of confinement, nothing more.

“No.” Aldrich’s anguished tone brought my head around. He inhaled in sharp gulps, and his eyes dilated, blue and full. Red slashed his cheeks. “It can’t be. Her season…it’s begun.”

Fresh shock jolted me. Roland had done it. My stomach roiled at the thought of how I responded to him while under his influence. Had Rideal used the same tricks on Nesvia? Had he needed to? Part of me had resisted the idea even as I embraced the possibility. I couldn’t fathom this level of betrayal. I’d clung to an ideal of humanity, forgetting those involved weren’t human.

“Harper?” I waited, expecting his eyes to expand, go blind with desire. Askaran females in heat emitted a pheromone designed to entice males. Nausea rocked me back on my heels. Even aware Nesvia’s season might have begun, I’d brought a virile male,
my
male, right to her.

When he finally met my gaze, his eyes were full black. Silver rimmed his irises, but I had no doubt, even for a second, his sudden desire was triggered by her but directed at me. He was on me a heartbeat later, pressing kisses down the column of my throat and biting the space where my neck met shoulder. His hips pinned me to the wall. He was hard, and I was ready. If Aldrich hadn’t yanked my elbow, I might have let Harper take me where we stood.

I might be immune to Nesvia’s appeal, but I was far from inured against his. I shoved against Harper’s shoulder. “Now’s not the time.”

He growled and rocked his hips in the cradle where they belonged.

Bliss rolled my eyes back before Aldrich pinched my arm.

“Now is not the time,” he said gruffly, which made me certain that Nesvia’s pheromones affected the Sereian male’s libido as well. “That wall doesn’t come down until his eyes clear.”

Staring up into Harper’s face, I caught my breath. He was beautiful like this, uninhibited and raw, but without him in complete control, I couldn’t appreciate how his sterling eyes rolled closed on a husky groan. I stroked where his lashes brushed his cheek. “Can you open these?”

His feral smile melted my core. He gripped my thighs and asked, “Can you open these?”

I cleared my throat. “You first.”

He ignored me, seeking my mouth with his.

For once, I was grateful I’d weathered Maddie’s first heat cycle. Those five miserable days had given me a crash course in Askaran pheromones, and I applied those lessons ruthlessly.

Shuddering, I knew what I had to do. I gave in to his kiss, luring his tongue past my teeth. Then I bit down hard enough I got his full attention. His growl of annoyance vibrated my jaw, but his eyes popped open and gaze met mine, clearer than they had been.

Pheromones were suggestive. One whiff convinced males that sex was imperative, whether they wanted it, and the female in question, or not. The key to breaking the thrall was awareness. Now that Harper was in control again, I knew he’d be all right. The male was nothing if not stubborn.

When his cheek crushed mine, my head thumped against the rock wall, and I grunted as my skull rang from the impact. His harsh curse expelled hot breath across my ear.

“Sorry,” he muttered, and pulled me close to kiss where the bump would rise. He met my gaze, and his eyes retained their silvery glint. I entertained the odd thought that if I saw his wings, right now, they would be crimson-flushed, and I would be pushed beyond my ability to say no.

“No problem,” I said, sounding breathless.

“Look.” Aldrich leaned against the wall, sagging with obvious relief.

In the gap Harper had created, a small hand appeared. I stumbled free of him, shoved past Aldrich, and took it. Ice-cold skin chilled mine. Nesvia’s fingernails were bloodied or missing, her knuckles and palms scabbed and crusted, but her grip was strong. She squeezed my fingers.

Aldrich ripped her hand from me and took my place.

“Hurry.” He encased her hands with his and pressed his dried lips to her skin. “Please.”

“You’ll have to let go of her first.” Harper waited for Aldrich to move or him to relinquish his hold on Nesvia. “The wall’s unstable. If it falls now, her arm will be crushed.”

It was all the warning he required.

Chapter Twenty-One

Nesvia swallowed a sob when Aldrich commanded her to withdraw her arm. She drifted away without another sound, leaving a pall hung over our now-silent rescue mission.

Minutes or hours later, my back muscles sighed in relief when I pried the last stone free.

I stuck my head inside the room. Nesvia had opted to return to her cot and wait until we deemed the room safe to enter. Whatever I’d expected her cell to look like, it hadn’t been this. The space was fully furnished. Barrels lined the walls. I bet they were filled with food and other supplies. In the far corner, several tins of water were interlocked and stacked higher than my head.

She had no guard. She hadn’t needed one. They’d sealed her in here, as Song had said.

Her legs dangled from the end of the bed. Heavy metal bands encircled her ankles, joined by a heavier chain that looped around one leg of her bed. Beneath that, I saw brackets bolted to the floor. Her captors hadn’t taken any chances, but I still failed to understand the logic. I’d assumed Roland and his cohorts had induced Nesvia’s heat so Rideal could sire his heir. Yet they had sealed her alone in a location where conjugal visits would have been impossible.

It made no sense.
I must be missing something
.

I stepped through the opening. “Are you…all right?”

Nesvia turned her head my way. Drained by her earlier efforts, she lay in a limp sprawl.

I exchanged a look with Harper.

“Nesvia, it’s me—Emma. We’ve come for you.”

Her vacant expression made my chest ache. When she blinked, tears spilled over her cheeks and cut trails through thick, gray dust. Aldrich hustled to her side and wiped her face with his shirttail. He touched her with such reverence, I glanced away, disturbed by their intimacy.

I walked over and knelt by her bed. Afraid of hurting her, I snapped the chain running from her ankles to the floor, but left the others in place. Harper no doubt had a locksmith capable of much more delicate removal than I could manage here and now. “Would you like me to…?”

She stared right through me.

When I reached for her, she made no move to stop me.

“Aldrich?” I asked him, which set my teeth on edge. I should know her better than he did.

He nodded his agreement I should be the one to carry her out of here.

“Wait.” Harper stopped me. “We’ll need to clear a path first.”

I spun then, searching for an exit, dreading what I already knew, that we’d have to make our own. “Look at this.” Rocks were mounded in the farthest corner, covering supplies and spilling across the floor. Maybe they hadn’t meant to lock her in after all. “Do you think Nesvia—?”

He shook his head. “Her chain wasn’t long enough.” He tripped over something, then lowered his torch to illuminate the area. He grimaced. “Well that answers a few questions.”

“What is it?” I inched closer and saw a pale arm extending from beneath the rubble, its hand facing palm up in a silent request for help come too late. More of the male, definitely Askaran, lay crushed in what might have once been the entrance leading into Nesvia’s room. “There must have been a cave-in.” I touched the wall. “Do you think it’s safe for us to shift?”

“We don’t have much choice unless you want to go back the way we came.”

We split up and checked the rest of the perimeter, but found only the lone guard.

“If there were more guards, they’re either buried or trapped on the other side.” He scanned the wall. “This is our way out.”

When his torch swept past, light glinted on the guard’s hand. “What is that?” I asked.

He squatted, then bent the stiff arm. “It’s a ring.” Swearing, he dropped it and stood.

“What?” Curiosity dropped me to my haunches. I inspected the silver ring on the male’s finger and recognized the insignia from a metalsmith’s shop in Feriana. “This is the Markey family crest.” They’d incorporated the leafy design into a sign hung over their shop’s door.

“It’s the same crest.” He sounded disgusted. “When the caravan was attacked, one of the raiders lost an expensive pair of goggles. The same design was stamped into the frame’s back.”

“I’ve bought some pots from them.” I stood and dusted my hands on my pants. “They stamp the same logo on all their wares. Without it, they won’t honor exchanges or repairs.”

He nudged the hand. “I don’t see him wearing a ring with a family crest not his own.”

“Well, no.” I glanced at him. “I agree with you that whoever is under this rock is a Markey, but—”

“A Markey made those goggles.” He jabbed the air with his finger. “A Markey died guarding Nesvia. And I’d be willing to step out on a limb and say a Markey—” He ran a frustrated hand through his hair. “Oh, hell. I thought this whole time the explosion was a distraction so the raiders could ambush the caravan.” He glanced over my shoulder, toward Nesvia. “But what if I was wrong? What if the explosion was meant to seal off an unused portion of the mine where she could be held while Roland tested his theory? The ambush was the distraction.” He cursed. “I was so focused on the colonists, on justice, that I failed to consider there might be more to the explosion. All Roland had to do was waltz through this back entrance and gain direct access to Nesvia.”

“Why would Roland hide her below the Feriana colony?” I asked.

“He’s courting treason.” Harper’s voice lowered. “And he found a perfect way to deflect the blame. What are the nobility more likely to believe? That a pair of Sereian princes, one of which is her consort, abducted Askara’s queen to perform a fertility experiment? They would argue the queen’s word is absolute. That Rideal wouldn’t press his suit, regardless of the proof.” He turned on me. “Or would they believe the son of Marcus Delaney had turned on her? That the freeborn legion was as they’d always feared—not an outreach effort but a rabid militant group.”

My heart skipped at the thought.

“I had the motive and opportunity. Consider their argument.” His expression shifted. “I have a criminal record filed with First Court.” His lips curved in a sarcastic smile. “I’ve proven myself willing and able to abduct and murder royals. Isn’t that evidence enough to damn me?”

Fear wicked moisture from my mouth. Nesvia had forgiven Harper for Archer’s death. I doubted his loss had saddened anyone. And Harper’s diplomatic immunity encouraged trust between Nesvia and the earthen colony, because she wanted to reconnect with her missing sister.

Rideal had no such fondness for my family. He would show no such mercy to Harper.

I massaged my throbbing temples. “Whatever Roland had planned, we’ve bungled it now. Let’s not play the what-if game. It’s too late for that now.” Images of what might have happened if we hadn’t found her rolled through my mind with sickening clarity. “Nesvia is safe.”

“She’s in shock,” he pointed out.

“She has Aldrich. She’ll recover.”

Aldrich’s medicinal jars scattered across the floor. He labored over her with the same unnerving focus usually attributed to her consort. Through all the years of Nesvia’s mating, I’d assumed Rideal’s undivided attention equaled adoration, as Aldrich claimed. Now I saw his obsession with the female behind the Askaran throne in a new light, and my heart hurt for her.