Chapter 29.

Madoc woke up in a small chamber fitted with metal bars embedded into the stone itself. He was sprawled on the floor, throbbing with pain. Only years of experience carrying around a s.h.i.tload of agony kept him from groaning. He pushed himself up, seeing the far wall of the chamber.

Names were gouged into the stone. The letters were different sizes; some had dates by them going back decades. Some of them were illegible, and some so faint they'd been there for a long, long time.

A lot of people had been in this cage before, long enough to carve their names on the wall.

Madoc refused to join that list.

He went to the bars, shaking them to see if he could find a way out. The cuts he'd sustained hadn't had much time to close, and the movement caused several of them to rip open and bleed more.

"I think you'll find that the magic holding those in is still in working order," said Zillah. He was outside the cage, flanked by armed guards. Nika sat slumped against the far wall. Tori was crouched next to her, naked and shivering, staring off, her expression dull and lifeless, as if she'd already given up.

Madoc was going to get both women out of here. He wasn't sure how, but he'd find a way.

Nika? Are you there?

His question echoed in the stillness between them.

He knew she was there. He'd felt her before. He tried to push power through the luceria, urging her to wake up.

Tynan had been tossed in an adjoining cage and stood unmoving, watching Zillah with hatred glowing in his ice blue eyes.

"How long have I been out?" Madoc asked him.

"Two minutes."

Long enough to trap them all.

Zillah grabbed Tori by the arm and wrenched her to her feet. She was in bad shape. She flopped around weakly, not bothering to fight what was being done to her. She was naked, dirty, shivering. Blood seeped down her thigh.

"Heal her," demanded Zillah, thrusting her toward Tynan.

"I'm too weak," said Tynan.

"I don't care if it kills you. Heal her or I'll let you starve to death in there."

Tynan swallowed, anger twisting his perfect features. "Why do you care if she lives?"

"Because she owes me a son and I'm going to get it from her."

Tynan's voice hissed out in anger. "She can't give you a living child. Your species is too different from hers."

"You're wrong. I've done it before. Now do as I ask or you'll wish you had."

Tynan shook his head. "I can't let you do that to her."

"Are you willing to die slowly for your morals?"

"Yes."

"Fine, then I'll use Nika instead."

Madoc roared in rage, pounding the metal bars. Nika, wake up! He slammed the command through their link, but he couldn't tell if he'd gotten through.

"No," whispered Tori. "I'll do it." She lifted her eyes to Tynan. "He can't hurt me any more than he already has."

"See?" said Zillah, a metallic ring of satisfaction in his tone. "She wants it. Now heal her."

"Are you sure?" asked Tynan.

Tori nodded.

Tynan took her dirty wrist and lifted it to his mouth. Madoc watched her eyes flutter closed. Her body shrank; her belly flattened; her b.r.e.a.s.t.s tightened.

Tynan pulled away and angry blisters fattened his lips. He turned away, vomiting something thick and black onto the ground.

"I guess she didn't agree with you," said Zillah. "Too bad. I have a feeling the two of you will be seeing a lot of each other."

Nika heard Madoc's cry of rage in her mind, felt his frantic need for her to wake up. But she wasn't asleep. She wasn't dreaming. Zillah had trapped her inside his head and he had no intention of letting her free.

Nika slammed around inside Zillah's thoughts, flailing about inside the rotten depths of evil moving sluggishly through his mind. She'd never been trapped like this before and she had no idea how to get out.

A single, silvery strand connected her to Madoc, but she was losing sight of it as she weakened. Soon, she'd be too weak to fight and she'd be trapped here, forever.

Like h.e.l.l.

Brute force was doing no good, so Nika stopped fighting and focused on the strand connecting her to Madoc. She shrank herself down until she was a pinpoint of light and slid along that strand slowly, steadily.

She kept her thoughts shallow, remembering little things like the feel of air against her skin or the sun on her facea"anything to distract her from thinking about what she was trying to do.

The closer she got to Madoc, the stronger she became. He was urging her on, fueling her with his power. It pulsed into her, driving away the clinging tendrils of filth that snagged her, trying to hold her in.

She was almost out. She could almost feel the warmth of Madoc's mind when those tendrils thickened and barred her path.

Nika panicked. They were pulling her back in. She couldn't fight them. They were tugging her under, driving her down into uncontrolled evil.

Fight, she heard Madoc scream. He's going to rape Tori.

Nika couldn't let that happen. Not again. Never again.

Fear was all around her, weighing her down. Desperate, she resorted back to the one thing that had worked to drive the sgath away: cold.

Nika took the cold in her body and shoved it into Zillah. She let the stones beneath her suck the heat out of her until she was shivering. She forced herself to remember every aching, frigid moment she'd ever felt, and used Madoc's power to amplify those memories.

Zillah's mind rebelled, and despite his intentions to keep her locked away, she managed to pull free. He screamed in pain and outrage.

Nika opened her eyes, curling in on herself in case he attacked. She felt like she'd been swimming through sewer sludge. Every part of her mind felt infected by Zillah's filth. She could almost taste it on her tongue. She was never going to be clean again.

Not that it mattered. From the fear and despair leaking out of Madoc, they were at the end of the line.

Nika pushed herself up to her feet and looked around. Madoc and Tynan were locked in cages. Madoc was bleeding, battered, and p.i.s.sed. Tynan looked like he'd been hit in the mouth with a hot iron. Both of them gripped the bars of their cages, trying to break free and get to Tori.

Zillah shoved Tori to the ground and kicked her ankles apart.

"No!" screamed Nika. "Get away from her." She hurled herself at Zillah, but thick Synestryn arms caught her before she could reach him.

"Hold her," ordered Zillah. "Make her watch."

One of the demon guards put a sword to her throat, keeping her in check while two more held her arms.

Pain and anger boiled inside her, making her shake. The cold was gone now, and left in its place was a fiery rage. This was not going to happen. She was not going to let nearly nine long years of staying by Tori's side come to this. She was not going to let her sister suffer another moment of pain or fear. She was not going to allow her to be raped. She was going to get them all out of this, even if it cost her her life.

Madoc's voice was raspy from yelling, but she felt a wave of sympathy sliding into her. "Close your eyes, Nika."

Screw that.

She tried worming her way back into Zillah's mind to stop him, but he was too strong. She couldn't get in. She pounded at his mental barriers, but all she managed to do was give herself a headache. He hadn't consumed her blood. She couldn't control him.

But maybe there was another way. None of these Synestryn had taken her blood, but that didn't mean she couldn't convince them to. They were always hungry. All she had to do was bleed. Surely one of them would take the bait and enough blood to allow her to control it. She'd use it to kill Zillah before enough of them got her blood and tore her mind apart.

"No," said Madoc, clearly having heard her thoughts. "You can't do that." His jaw was tight with anger, but the look of fear in his green eyes gave Nika pause.

She didn't want to do ita"she didn't want to go back to that living nightmare where the Synestryn held her mind captive and blood and hunger and death were her whole world. But there was no other way. She couldn't let Tori suffer. She'd already suffered so much. They were so close to saving her. She deserved a chance to live free of this evil and find some speck of happiness for herself.

Nika had so many things she wanted to tell Tori, but there wasn't time. She settled for, "I love you," saying it loud enough to be heard across the chamber. She sent that same love to Madoc, letting him feel how much he meant to her, how glad she was to have been with him, even for the short time they'd had together. She loved him more than she'd ever thought possible.

Madoc was screaming at her to stop, but she ignored him. She didn't think the Synestryn would kill her. They liked having her in their heads too much. She'd live through this. Maybe she'd be splintered and crazy, but she'd live, which meant Madoc would live, too. He'd get Tori out alive. Then maybe he'd find a way to save her again.

"No!" roared Madoc, pounding at the bars.

Nika looked away from him, unable to bear the sight of his pain.

All it took was a slight shift of Nika's weight. The blade at her neck sliced through her skin and blood flowed down her chest. It hadn't even hurt.

The Synestryn on her right realized what had happened and dropped its sword. A growl of hunger rumbled out of the thing and it bent to lick at her neck, unable to resist food offered so easily.

The first swipe of its vile tongue made Nika gag. She steeled herself against the next one, watching as the demon on her left realized what had happened and joined the first.

Zillah had lowered himself over Tori.

Nika closed her eyes and searched for the connection she now had to the demons holding her. She found it vibrating between them and shoved her will upon them, forcing them to let her go and attack their master.

Her body fell back. A sea of twisted faces stared down at her, baring their teeth in hunger. One of them leaned forward to feed on her blood and another one ripped it away.

Nika tried to focus on fighting for control of the first two. She saw one of them go down under the attack of another. It ripped its fellow demon apart, tearing its throat out with its teeth.

The smell of food drove them into a feeding frenzy and they began to attack one another.

Nika forced the first Synestryn who'd fed from her to pick up its sword and attack Zillah, but Zillah was too fast. He rolled to the side, narrowly missing the blow.

"Halt," he bellowed, but it was too late. His troops were ravenous, mindless beasts. He'd lost control.

She opened her mouth to shout at Tori to run while there was at least a partial distraction, but before the word came out of her mouth she felt the first tug on her mind. Then the next and the next, until her thoughts began to crack and her mind began to splinter.

Nika pulled on Madoc's power, trying to shield herself from the mental attack, but she was too late. These things were too strong, too fast. They devoured her mind, ripping away little parts of it to hold for their own.

She saw through dozens of eyes, felt through dozens of bodies. Hatred pounded at her, making her snarl with the force of her need to kill. She wanted blood. Gallons of it. She was starved for raw flesh and the warmth of a fresh kill.

Some of the eyes turned to Madoc and all Nika saw was food. They were going to kill him and she was going to enjoy letting them.

Chapter 30.

Madoc knew the moment Nika was lost. Her mind was gonea"splintered into too many pieces to count.

Fight, he ordered her as he tried to feed her the power she needed to do so. Don't you dare give up on me.

But there was no Nika left, only the hollow echoing where her essence had once been.

Grief swelled up in him so thick, he couldn't breathe. She was gone. His sweet Nika was alive, but torn to pieces.

Zillah had fled down a dark corridor, two of his guards on his heels. Madoc was going to find him and kill him slowly, stripping his flesh from his body one inch at a time before he staked him out in the sun to fry.

But first he had to get out of this f.u.c.king cage.

He pounded at the bars again, feeling them vibrate, but not give an inch. They were solid. It was going to take him weeks to bust out of here, a.s.suming he lived that long.

Nika wouldn't. He could still feel that she was alive, but how long would that last? How long would it be before she bled out or one of the demons decided blood wasn't enough and went for her flesh, too?

Then, like a dirty, timid angel, Tori appeared in front of him, a ring of keys jingling in her trembling fingers. She was naked and shaking with cold, shock, or both, but she hadn't given up.

Madoc stripped out of his shirt, ripping open wounds that had begun to close, pa.s.sing it to her. "Here, put this on. Give me the keys."

She did as he said, then stood there, watching the demons feeding from Nika.

"Can you find me a sword?" he asked, more to distract her than anything else. He'd kill with his bare hands if he had to, but he didn't want this memory adding to the other horrible ones he knew Tori had gathered.

One of the Synestryn grabbed Nika's limp body and scurried out with her. All the others followed, growling in hunger, racing after it.