Tugging my shirt over my head, I gritted my teeth and braced for the coming pain. I raked the shard across my ribs, and blood slid down my side. I tugged my hair free of its elastic band, and my makeshift brush tumbled into my lap.
I’d been deliberating on what sigils to pull from my arsenal for days. Most of the combinations I could draw from memory pertained to house wards. Sadly, I didn’t know any for flight or invisibility, not that I was sure either existed, but they would have come in handy.
With bold strokes, I warded my body against attack. I wasn’t sure the design would stand against a touch from Volkov, but it would be enough to ensure any bullets fired at me would miss, that kind of thing. Obfuscation made it harder to focus on me. Strength bolstered the power of the defensive wards and gave me a much-needed energy boost. Healing got inked down each thigh in bold strokes to help burn the drugs from my system.
Ten minutes later, I was covered in symbols, as many as I could wear without them overlapping. My side ached, but the wound had already closed thanks to the magic whispering over my skin.
Feeling more like myself than I had since the night I was taken, I rushed inside and dressed for my escape. I put the shard and brush in my pocket in case I needed them again then twisted my hair up on top of my head.
I blasted out an exhale and walked outside, across the rolling lawn, until I reached the wall. The infusion of strength made it possible for me to dig my fingers into the mortar between the stones and haul myself up despite how much I’d wasted away in captivity. I reached the top and straddled the wall, trusting in my obfuscation sigil to shield me while I studied the landscape and gained my bearings.
I had no idea what would happen when my feet hit the ground on the other side. The master might allow me my private garden, but security outside my room was tight, and it must be around the property as well. But how far could I get before—?
“Miss?”
I swung my head toward the open French doors leading into my room. Lena stood there in her pajamas, her hair a mess, her lips parted as she sucked in the night air over her tongue, pure terror in her eyes.
“Hold still.” She rushed forward. “I’ll help you down.”
So much for my obfuscation sigil. Her keen sense of smell had fed her my exact location thanks to the freshly spilled blood.
Without looking back, I swung my leg over the wall and dropped. I hit and rolled the way Boaz had taught me when were kids and didn’t have the sense to realize that his daredevil stunts—the ones I practiced alone to impress him with later—could break our ankles or our necks. I sprang to my feet and ran.
“There she is,” one voice boomed.
“Stop her,” another shouted.
“Miss.”
Blocking out their pleas, the barked orders, and the clomp of boots as the guards mobilized, I pushed my legs until my thigh muscles screamed. The mental snapshot I’d taken from high up on the wall guided me through two neighboring gardens and around the side of the palatial house. The front gardens were in sight when a magical charge rippled through the air and washed over my skin in a heated wave.
“Grier,” Volkov bellowed.
Adrenaline dumped in my veins, and my heart threw itself against its cage.
Please, Hecate. Please.
I skidded to a stop in front of the house and whirled in a circle, searching for the gardeners, for the roses, for any sign of what Dr. Heath had hinted waited for me here. I saw no one and nothing. I was alone, defeated. This was the extent of my plan, and it had blown up in my face.
Between the sweat and the friction, the sigils were rubbing off at record speed. Exhaustion dropped like a curtain before my eyes, and I fell to my knees.
A strange peacefulness swept over me as I tipped back my head, basking in the moonlight for the last time. I would not go back to that room, to that prison, and rot. I would not be sold into marriage, my body given over to a male for his use. Atramentous had broken a great many things in me, but I hadn’t been violated in that way, and I had no illusions my luck would hold after Volkov wed me.
Bringing the ceramic shard to my wrist, I pressed down, breaking skin and freeing all the precious blood that had landed me here in the first place.
“Grier,” Volkov panted, eyes wild until they locked with mine. “What are you doing?”
The row of ornamental trees rustled on my left. No, they were roses. Hedge roses. Without blooms, I hadn’t identified them. A figure clad in black tactical gear strolled forward wearing a grin that chilled me to the bone.
“Oh, I don’t know,” he drawled. “My guess is she’s so tired of playing house with a kidnapping son of a bitch she’d rather die than spend another second with you.”
“Boaz?”
“Hey, Squirt.” He winked. “Took you long enough. I’ve been lurking out here in the bushes for weeks.”
“Grier, come to me.” Volkov extended his hand toward me. “I will take you inside where it’s safe.”
Boaz snorted in his general direction. “I don’t think so.”
Wringing every drop of magic out of my sigils, I drew the strength to rise and bolted toward rescue. Volkov tackled me halfway, cranking up his lure until my eyes crossed, and I melted into a puddle beneath him.
“You are mine,” he growled. “I will not let you go.”
Blackness descended around me in a whisper of cool night air.
No, no, no.
I had to beat his lure. I had to keep my eyes open. I had to fight him off or lose myself forever.
I’m not going back. I’m not going back. I’m not—
Gunfire erupted in staccato bursts that made my legs quiver with the urge to run. Volkov jerked once then collapsed on top of me, crushing the oxygen from my lungs. Gasping for air, I shoved at his shoulders to roll him off me.
Screams and grunts erupted as bullets peppered the night. A few voices I recognized before they were silenced. The guards who had laughed at me about the spider. The males who’d trundled the racks of clothing in and out of my room only hours earlier. And lastly, a high-pitched shriek that raked nails down the chalkboard of my mind. I tried not to think too hard about that one.
Lena had followed me.
She wasn’t following me anymore.
The dead weight on top of me vanished, and grasping hands lifted me onto my feet. I struggled against their hold until warm lips pressed against my ear and yelled over the commotion.
“It’s me, Squirt. Relax. I got you.”
I collapsed against Boaz, breathing in his familiar scent, and almost dissolved in his arms.
“I’m going to carry you,” he called. “Just hold on to me.”
“No.” I trembled in his grasp. “I can’t—” I swallowed my panic, the remembered feel of Lena’s arms under my legs and her arm hooked around my back. Carrying me, always carrying me, keeping me weak, helpless. I would never be helpless again. “I can walk.”
“Okay, Squirt.” He looped his arm around my waist, holding me steady while he examined my wrist where a deep gouge ought to be. He grunted when he found the wound clotted, a final gift from my failing sigils, then helped me limp a dozen yards away from where Volkov had fallen. “We’ve got a chopper on the way, and reinforcements are just over that hill. Can you make it?”
At the rendezvous point, five men dressed identical to Boaz bled from the darkened forest out into the open field and surrounded us. With a nod to him, they waited with us, watching our backs.
The whomp-whomp-whomp of helicopter blades slicing through the air kicked my heart into overdrive. Boaz shoved me into a seat before the landing skids touched down and strapped me in tight. He joined me, and the others filed in behind him.
Boaz flung his arm around me as the doors shut, tucking me against his side as much as the harness allowed. The chopper lifted into the sky, and my former prison shrank until only a speck remained. Not until the night was thick and black around me, a blanket of safety, did I let my eyes slip closed.
Seventeen