“Go,” he said against her mouth. The urge to tell her he loved her burned inside him, but he couldn’t do that to her. When he failed to come, she’d think he was dead or he had betrayed her. Eventually, she’d find another man who would love her the way he did—one who would help her raise their child to be better than the creature who had fathered him.
Before he could say the words that would spoil her chances for any semblance of a normal future, he pushed her away, cracked one of the small chemical glow lights he’d brought for her, and helped her step through the narrow opening.
She moved down the tunnel. Canaranth watched until the pale green light disappeared, feeling like his heart had just been ripped from his body.
Chapter 24
Torr was sweating by the time he made it to the suite. The door was open and he could hear a low, frantic voice coming from inside.
Torr leaned on his sword, hobbling across the living room toward the bedrooms. One of the Gerai came out, nearly running into him. He was a human who had grown up here, and now his aged face was white with panic.
He saw Torr and said, “Stay with her while I get help. Tynan is gone, so I’m going to go find one of the Sanguinar.”
Sanguinar? Grace must need healing, which made Torr’s chest squeeze tight in fear. “What happened? Is she hurt?”
“I . . . I don’t know.” And then he was gone.
Torr was shaking so badly he could barely stand, but he forced himself to cross the distance and go into the room the human had just left.
Grace was there, lying on a mattress on the floor. She was unmoving. Her eyes were open, staring at the ceiling.
Panic slammed into Torr, knocking him to his knees. He crawled over to her, reaching out with a trembling hand to feel for a pulse.
A faint fluttering beneath his fingertips told him she was still alive, but something was definitely wrong. She wasn’t even blinking.
Torr shut her eyelids so her eyes wouldn’t dry out and hurt. Her skin was so soft and delicate, so warm.
He gave her a small shake and patted her cheek. Maybe she was just asleep.
“Grace,” he said, hearing his voice break. “Wake up, honey.”
She didn’t respond.
Frantic to find the reason for her state, Torr looked around the room. What the hell had she been doing in here alone?
A case of bottled water and an unopened box of meal-replacement bars sat by her on the floor, as if she’d planned to stay here for a while. There were no books, no magazines, no TV to help her pass the time.
And she was shirtless, with only a sheet to cover her full breasts.
Torr looked over her body, searching for signs of injury. She still had on shoes and jeans, but there was no sign of blood.
He speared his fingers through her hair, feeling for any bumps or cuts. Maybe she’d fallen and hit her head. That could explain her bizarre behavior—why she’d slink off like an animal knowing it was going to die.
That image did not sit well with Torr, making him shiver at the thought of losing her. She’d been his lifeline. His whole world. She was the reason he still drew breath.
And he loved her so much.
“Don’t you dare leave me,” he told her. “You can’t leave me now—not when we can have a life together. Did you see I can move again? I’m healed. I need you to help me get strong—torture me with those massages of yours.”
She didn’t flutter an eyelash.
Torr’s heart broke, splitting into jagged little pieces that made him bleed inside.
“You can’t leave me. I love you, Grace.”
A fat tear slid out from the corner of her eye. She’d heard him. Somewhere inside her she was still in there.
Torr gently raised her eyelids, moving so he was right in front of her line of sight. “You can hear me, can’t you?”
He held his breath, waiting for some kind of sign, but none came.
“I know you can hear me. I need you to hold on. Help is on the way.”
He closed her eyes again and pulled her into his arms. Her limp weight was difficult for him to handle in his weakened state, but he didn’t care. He needed to hold her, feel her heat and the rise and fall of her chest as she breathed.
Torr slid his hands over her back, trying to comfort her. That was when he felt the hard bump on her back.
He rolled her over just as Logan came into the room. An intricately carved metal disk lay against her spine. A faint hum of vibration was coming off of it.
Torr didn’t know what it was, but he knew it didn’t belong there. He grabbed it, intending to pull it away, when Logan stopped him.
“Don’t,” he said. “Don’t move it.”
“Why not?” asked Torr, scowling at Logan for hesitating.
“Do you know what that is?”
“No. Do you?”
Logan nodded. His pale eyes gleamed with interest. “It’s a transference device.”
“Transferring what to where?” he demanded.
“Take off your shirt.”
“What?”
“Do it,” demanded Logan.
Fine. Whatever got the bloodsucker moving to fix her.
Torr stripped it off, feeling it drag against something on his back—a scar, maybe.
Logan pulled in a long breath. “I’ve heard of these devices, but never seen one. It worked so well. I had no idea.”
Torr grabbed Logan’s arm, pulling him down toward Grace. “Do you know how to fix her or not?”
“I’m sorry,” said Logan. “She made her choice.”
“What choice? Make some fucking sense, will you?” Grace’s life was at stake and he was talking in riddles. If he hadn’t been the only help around, Torr would have pounded him in that pretty face of his.
“This disk matches the one on your back.”
One on his . . . ?
Torr reached around awkwardly. Sure enough, there was something hard and warm sticking out of his spine in the same spot as Grace’s.
“I don’t know where she got them, but someone must have shown her what to do.”
A slow, insidious understanding began to rise up in Torr. “What has she done?” he asked, barely able to get the question out. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer.
“She’s given you her health. She’s transferred your affliction onto herself, healing you.”
No. This could not be happening. His sweet Grace could not be paralyzed. “You’re wrong. If she’d done that, she’d be able to talk. I was.”
“She’s not a Theronai. Her human body isn’t as strong as yours. The poison will be harder on her than it was on you.”
“Fix it,” demanded Torr. “Make it go back the way it was.”
“I can’t. It’s not the way they work. I’m sorry.”
Torr was crying now. Big, fat, sloppy tears he couldn’t seem to stop. Rage and denial clashed inside him, twisting his guts. “Heal her. Take it back. I don’t want it. You can have all my blood. Just make her better.”
Logan gripped his arm hard, pulled him to his feet, and marched him out of the room. He closed the door behind him, hissing in a low voice, “Pull yourself together. She can hear every word you say. Do you really want her to suffer more?”
Torr closed his eyes and pulled in a deep breath, trying to calm himself. The idea that he’d do anything to make this worse on her drove him crazy.
In a calm voice that belied all he felt inside, he asked Logan, “Can you do anything for her?”
“No more than I could do for you.”
Which had been jack shit.
“I’m sorry.” His words were final, tinged with the feel of condolence.
Torr wasn’t giving up. “I’ll go find another one of the things that bit me. I’ll bring it back so you can study it.”
Logan’s face was grim. “I suggest you hurry, then.” “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means that she’s human. The paralysis is worse in her. It’s only a matter of time before she can’t breathe on her own or her heart stops beating.”
“How long?”
Logan shrugged. “There’s no way to know. Days. Hours.”
Hours? Even years wouldn’t be enough. He didn’t want to let her go. Not now, not when he once again felt like he had a life he could share with her.
A life she’d given him.
She’d said she loved him. Those had been the last words she’d spoken to him—maybe to anyone. Until now, he’d made himself believe she’d given him the words out of pity. Until now, he’d had no idea just how much she’d meant those words.
She loved him enough to trade her life for his, and he couldn’t think of a single way to make sense out of that.
“Take it off,” said Torr. “I want this thing off of me.”
“Try to remove it and you risk killing both of you.”
Frustration and grief grated inside Torr. “And just what the hell am I supposed to do in the meantime, while it’s sucking the life out of her?”
Logan’s pale gaze was steady. “I suggest you find a way to say good-bye.”
Nika hit the ground hard as the portal she’d opened snapped shut behind her. Her vision was blurry and spinning. Her stomach gave a hard heave and she had no choice but to lean to the side and throw up.
“It’ll pass in a second,” she heard Madoc say.
“If we live that long,” said Tynan. His words were hard to hear over the noise coming from below where they were.
Nika’s eyes watered, but she forced herself to look up from the ground. Her teleportation had worked. She hadn’t killed them and this was definitely the right place, but it hardly mattered.
They were in another cave, only this one had a huge cavern that sloped down like a bowl. In the center of that bowl was Tori. Zillah stood over her, and surrounding him were dozens of Synestryn. Maybe a hundred. From this distance, she could have easily mistaken some of them for human. Their skin was a little too gray and shiny to be human, and their faces were distorted, but the resemblance was too close to be a coincidence. They were stomping their feet and letting out snarling that sounded disturbingly like cheers.
They hadn’t noticed them yet, but that wouldn’t last long.
“We’re going to die,” said Tynan.
“Fuck that,” said Madoc, stepping in front of her and Tynan. “No one’s dying but the snarlies. Pull yourself together.”
Nika took that advice herself and pushed up to her feet. She was shaky, but managed to stay standing.
“Back up into that dip in the wall,” said Madoc. “I’ll keep them off of you.”
“You really think you can kill all of them?” asked Nika.
“I was kinda hoping you could lend a hand, love.”
“What do I do?”
“Whatever makes you happy. Just make it deadly and figure it out quick before they see us.”
Tynan pulled a sword out of nowhere the way Madoc did.
“I didn’t know you could fight,” said Nika.
Tynan didn’t bother to look her way. He was too busy staring out at the throng of demons below. “There are a lot of things you don’t know about me, and that’s the way I like it.”