TWISTED (Eternal Guardians Book 7) (15 page)

“Cynna, watch out!”

Nick’s voice dragged Cynna’s gaze back to the fight.

Nick slammed his fist into Lykos’s jaw, shoving the satyr into the rocks. He gripped the satyr’s wrist and smashed it against the wall, knocking the blade free from his gnarled fingers. “Behind you!”

Cynna grasped the blade from her back and whipped around. Two more satyrs were barreling down on them. Bracing her feet against the uneven ground, she slashed out with her blade, catching the first across the chest just as he reached her.

The satyr dropped back and howled. Growls echoed at her back. Followed by more footsteps, smacks, bone hitting bone and cracking against rock. Sweat slicked her skin as she kicked the first satyr away and stabbed at the second. Her blade sank deep into soft flesh, and he grunted, then fell back on his ass. She yanked her weapon free and ducked, just missing the blade of the first who’d lurched back to his feet and swung his blade like a major league slugger.

Metal clanged against metal in the corridor as Cynna’s blade collided with the satyr’s. She ducked another blow and looked for Nick in the chaos. He was covered in sweat and blood, holding his own against all three now with both the blade and the mace he’d picked up in the armory, but if any more showed up, they were going to—

The pounding of heavy footfalls sounded from the tunnels. Forget
if
. They were about to be overrun.

Cynna twisted, ducked, and struck out with her blade, catching the satyr at her front in the neck. His eyes flew wide; he gasped and then dropped to the ground. Breathing heavily, she brushed the hair out of her eyes and turned, ready to grab Nick and get the fuck out of there. But before she could make a move, something sharp stabbed into her side, just under her ribs.

She gasped. Jerked back. Her eyes flew wide. The satyr still on his ass, the one she’d caught in the chest, grinned up at her with an evil, twisted light flickering in his eyes.

Son of a bitch...

Pain, disbelief, and rage spiraled through Cynna. Pressing a hand against her side, she ground her teeth and swung out, slicing clean through the satyr’s throat. Blood gushed from his carotid artery, killing his victorious grin. He fell back, his head cracking hard against the rocks.

Wincing, she turned toward Nick and leaned into the rocks, drawing a deep breath. A glance down confirmed she was bleeding. Heavily. Dropping her weapon, she tugged off her jacket and bit her lip to keep from crying out at the pain. After tying the jacket around her torso, she picked up her blade again.

The footsteps grew louder. Voices ricocheted off the rocks. Holy Hades, they were out of time. “Nick!”

Nick had taken down one satyr, but Lykos and the other were coming at him from different angles. Blade in one hand, the mace in the other, he kicked out at Lykos, twisted away from the second satyr’s blade, and swung out with the mace.

Lykos ducked under Nick’s mace and twirled around behind him, trapping Nick between the two beasts. Nick whipped his blade toward the satyr on his other side, missed, and glanced over his shoulder at Lykos.

Lykos growled and advanced. The other satyr followed suit. Nick swung out at the first satyr and sliced through his arm. Grunting, Cynna pushed away from the wall and stumbled forward. Sweat slicked her skin, dripped down into her eyes but Lykos’s back was angled her way. And she knew if she didn’t help now, Nick might not get out of this alive.

Ignoring the pain in her side, she lunged forward, shoving her blade outward as hard as she could.

Metal pierced flesh, skewering Lykos in the back. The satyr howled. But before Cynna could grasp his shoulder and shove the blade deeper, a voice she knew almost as well as her own flooded the tunnel.

“Where is that shit-for-brains satyr?”

Zagreus. That was Zagreus’s voice. Cynna whirled toward the sound, every inch of her body surging with adrenaline.

 
Nick kicked the second satyr to the ground and pulled his blade free of the beast’s chest. He tried to see down the hall. Scowling, he muttered, “Fuck, we gotta go.”

Lykos stumbled back into the wall, one hand covering the wound clear through to his belly, blood oozing from the spot to stain his torn shirt. His chest rose and fell with his uneven breaths as he glared Cynna’s way. “You won’t get far, bitch. He’ll find you.”

Cynna’s vision turned red, and she gripped her blade to deliver the death blow, but Nick grabbed her by the sleeve. “There’s no time. Go.” He hauled her toward the open door and the steps that ran to freedom. “Fucking go.”

Cynna struggled to pull free of his grip so she could finally finish this, once and for all, but Nick held her too tightly. She shot him an infuriated look back, then realized his sudden urgency.

Zagreus stalked straight toward them. A firestorm of fury and vengeance and the promise of death rolled like thunder in his black as sin eyes.

Flashes of what had happened in her room, what had propelled her to run, echoed in Cynna’s mind. The blood. Being unable to move. Zagreus’s voice.

‘“My blood flows in your veins now. You will never be free of me. Not until I have what I want...”

Horror rocketed through her entire body, replacing every other thought and emotion and instinct.

 
She scrambled for the stairs. Nick pulled her into the stairwell and slammed the door shut behind them. Grasping her arm, he tugged her with him as he moved up the steps, and this time, she didn’t fight him. “Don’t stop moving. Keep going. We’re almost free.”

Free…

The word was a ghost. A fantasy. A dream.

A lie.

Reality chilled every inch of her skin. She was never going to be free. Lykos had been right. She might escape these walls, but she would always be Zagreus’s prisoner. She’d made a deal with the devil, and one way or another, it would haunt her, forever.

W
et palm fronds slapped Nick across the face. Swiping the rain out of his eyes, he drew a deep breath of humid air while he waited for Cynna to catch up, then paused to look around.

They’d been on the move for well over an hour. Closer to two, he guessed. As soon as they’d come up those stairs from Zagreus’s lair, they’d found themselves shrouded in darkness with only a scattering of light from above to illuminate their way. Tall palms rose to the sky. Thick underbrush made it virtually impossible to move fast. He’d been captured in summer, which meant it had to be January now, but you’d never know by their surroundings. Insects hummed in the darkness. Every now and then the brush rustled. And the sounds combined with the heat, the humidity, the tropical foliage… It all told him they were in some kind of jungle. Where, though, he wasn’t sure.

He didn’t have a clue where the prisoners they’d released had gone. He’d heard voices as they’d wrestled their way through the jungle, but hadn’t seen a single soul. He also hadn’t heard any of Zagreus’s satyrs on their trail. A fact that set the scars on his back tingling with suspicion.

Heavy breaths sounded at his back. He turned as Cynna stepped up to his side, lowered the blade in her hand to the ground, and leaned against a tree. “I’m slowing you down.” She braced her hand at her side and sucked in another breath. “You should go on without me.”

Nick looked down at her hand, pressing into her left side under her ribs. A sprinkling of moonlight shone down, just enough to illuminate the thick redness coating her fingers. “You’re injured?”

“It’s nothing.”

He moved closer, pushed her hand away, and tugged the jacket from around her waist so he could see the torn fabric beneath.

“I said it’s nothing.”
 

He lifted the hem of her shirt. A two-inch, bloody gash cut across her side. “That’s not nothing.”

Wincing, she pulled back. Warm, red blood pooled from the wound. “I’ll…be fine.”

No, she wouldn’t be. Not if she didn’t get that tended. Conflicting emotions rippled through Nick. Yes, she’d overseen some of his worst torture in Zagreus’s caves, but she’d also freed him, something she didn’t have to do. And, clearly, she’d paid the price.

He lowered her shirt. “Where are we?”

Cynna cinched the coat tight around her waist once more, grimacing with the movement, then leaned back against the trunk of the tree. “The Yucatan. Belize.”

Central America.
Motherfucker
. That didn’t give them a lot of options.

Wisps of that odd blonde hair stuck to her temple and cheek. Her face was pale. From this angle, he could now see blood had soaked clear through her jacket. In another hour, she’d be too weak to walk, which meant putting more space between them and Zagreus was only going to get tougher.

“They’re not following,” he said.

Her breathing slowed, and her muscles tensed, but she didn’t open her eyes. “Yeah. I…I noticed.”

“What’s your take on that?”

“I’m not sure.”

Not sure
. He didn’t believe that for a second. His internal alarms screamed she knew a hell of a lot more than she was saying.

He scanned the dark jungle. He had a choice. He could ditch her ass here, like she’d suggested, or keep her with him. The first made total sense, considering their history. He didn’t owe her a thing. But the second…

His scars tingled again, and something in his gut told him letting her go wasn’t the right choice. At least not yet.

He didn’t have time to argue with himself. He turned back to face her. “I need to get to a phone.”

“There’s a coastal highway that angles inland.” She drew another deep breath. “You’re bound to hit a village or two if you keep heading west.”

He grasped her weapon from the ground and slid it into the sheath at his back, took the extra knives she’d grabbed from the armory and left in her pockets and added them to his collection, then reached for her arm, pulling her away from the tree. “Come on.”

“What…?” Her dark eyes popped open, and surprise rippled over her features. “You’ll make better time without me.”

“I know.” Hooking her forearm over his shoulder, he wrapped his arm around her waist so she could lean on him, then started walking, forcing her along with him.
 

“If Zagreus did send his satyrs after us—”
 

“Then you won’t be able to tell them which way I went, now will you?” He slapped a palm frond out of his way, spraying water over both their faces.

She sputtered and shook the dew from her eyes. “You think I’d do that? I killed his guards. Trust me, at this point he probably wants me dead more than you.”

“I’m not so sure about that. And Zagreus never wanted me dead. That’s the point. Until I figure out your angle and how you’re involved in all this, you’re my prisoner.”

Her muscles tightened at his side.
 

“Don’t like that, do you?” he asked. “The tables being turned?”

“I’ve been a prisoner longer than you can imagine,” she said quietly, stumbling next to him. “And you can’t hold me. Not if you truly want to be free.”

He glanced down at her, but she didn’t meet his gaze. Her eyes were focused ahead, and her breaths lifted her chest rapidly, her body fighting, he knew, what had to be intense pain as they moved. But his scars vibrated once more as he looked at her profile in the moonlight—the high cheekbones, the elegant jawline, and the slope of her nose that was more familiar than he’d realized until just this moment—telling him she wasn’t at all what he’d pegged. The problem was, at this point, he didn’t know who she was. Or what she was really after.

He shook the cobwebs from his head, reminding himself not to lose his common sense where she was concerned. She might have rocked his world when she’d pleasured him in that cell, then surprised the shit out of him when she’d set him free, but she was a long way from being his ally. And the sooner he remembered that fact, the better off he’d be.

“At this point, female, you’re in no shape to fight me.”

She gave no response, and the fact she didn’t try to pull away told him she knew he was right and that she didn’t have the strength to argue.

They walked another twenty minutes before Nick noticed lights twinkling between palm fronds ahead. Cynna’s breaths grew slower, and with every step she leaned into him more rather than supporting her own weight.