I JOLTED AWAKE TO THE lever creaking and moving upward, then the door opening. I shifted Waleron’s head off my lap and scrambled to my feet as Tarek entered with a cocky grin and a bounce in his step.
Disgusting, pathetic worm.
Nothing would give me more pleasure than to wrap that golden rope in his hand around his neck and hang him up by it, then whip him until he took his last breath.
Waleron groaned and his muscles twitched when he tried to sit up. “No. Don’t move,” I whispered.
His back was ravaged and he desperately needed a Healer. Jesus, this was my fault. Tarek was demented, and obsessed with me. I had to find a way to get Tarek to release him.
Tarek swung the gold rope in his hand back and forth. Zurina was the only person who had the connections to obtain a rope with powers. She must have been planning this even when Tarek was in Rest, hovering like a snake in the grass until he rose and then collaborating so they both got what they wanted.
God, why? Why after all these years would Zurina betray us? She was a Taldeburu Healer and had been loyal to the Scars for centuries.
Tarek snapped the rope in the air. I sidestepped to the right, to block him from Waleron.
“Protecting him? Sweet. But that won’t last long,” Tarek said.
He stopped in front of me and I smelled the sweat leaking from his pores. His fingers tightened around the rope and his arm muscles flexed.
I tensed, waiting for him to hit me, but instead his fingers caressed my cheek, then curled around the base of my skull.
He yanked me up against him and my stomach curdled. Memories flooded, and it took everything in me to keep from fighting, but I had to protect Waleron. Now wasn’t the time to fight. Both of us were too weak from whatever drug he had given us and Tarek had that goddamn rope.
“Twenty years I lay in Rest, dreaming about you,” he spat, fingers cruelly digging into my neck. “The nightmare of finding his letter repeated in my dreams over and over again. The beating. The agony of what I’d done. I don’t want to hurt you, Delara. You force me to. All I want to do is love you, but you won’t let me.” Bullshit. Love didn’t come with fear. “But we’ll be together now.”
I had to do something. I had to get us out of here.
“Delara. Break his hold. Now.” Waleron’s voice whispered in my mind.
I didn’t question him, just reacted, slamming my elbow into Tarek’s face. At the same time Waleron leapt to his feet, staggered a second, and tackled Tarek, trying to get the chain around his neck. The gilded rope whipped into the air before it fell to the ground.
I ducked and the rope missed me.
“Get the door open,” Waleron ordered.
I ran. But my feet were heavy from the drugs and everything was moving in slow motion. I reached the lever and pushed up with both hands, but it wouldn’t budge. Shit.
“I can’t get it!” I pushed, pulled, yanked on the lever. Nothing.
I glanced over my shoulder at Waleron. Tarek threw him back and Waleron landed on his back, his face a mask of agony. Tarek jumped on top of him while coiling the golden rope.
“Waleron, the rope,” I screamed.
Waleron dove to the right, but a second too late. It lassoed his neck and Tarek yanked.
Both men were on their feet now. Waleron’s hands latched on to the rope and I smelled his burning flesh.
No. I ran toward them and Tarek half turned just as I jumped on his back and we both crashed to the cement floor.
Tarek’s elbow thrust into my side and knocked the wind out of me. I lost my grip around his neck and fell to the side as he leapt to his feet, still holding the rope around Waleron’s neck.
I leapt up and ran at Tarek again, sliding on the floor at the last second and using the momentum to kick Tarek in the back of the legs. He stumbled forward and released the rope.
“Fuckin’ bitch,” Tarek yelled as he went for me.
I kneed him in the groin and he dropped like a lead weight, eyes tearing and his face a mask of agony as he cried out.
“Waleron.” I ran for him and helped him lift the rope off his neck. His skin peeled away with it. The burns looked deep and had just missed his Ink.
Waleron was bleeding profusely; the wounds on his back had reopened and blood was now trickling down his skin and pooling on the cement floor.
I turned to see Tarek swinging the rope over his head like a lasso. I ran at him.
“Delara, no!” Waleron shouted.
I cursed my weak legs, but managed to jump for the rope at the same time Tarek threw it to lasso Waleron. The gold-covered cord ripped at my hands as I stopped the momentum.
Tarek yanked on the rope and I stumbled forward, falling to my knees. I tried to gain my feet, but Tarek was already on me. He grabbed my arm, pulled it behind my back, and wrenched it so hard I cried out.
“He can’t leave here, Delara.” Tarek jerked up on my arm and I fell to my knees. It is a pointless fight.”
“Not if you’re dead.” I gritted my teeth as my shoulder screamed in agony.
“I miscalculated your strength. I’ll have to be more careful.”
Tarek waved his hand at a lever on the wall and it shifted downward. The chains slowly became taut as Waleron was pulled up until his feet barely touched the ground.
“I’m sure you remember what this feels like. Sixty-one years as Jasmine’s play toy. I suspect she kept you tied up nice and tight in her webs. Did she fuck you?”
The chains rattled violently and I heard Waleron’s roar of fury in my head.
“Waleron. Don’t. On my life, I swear I will get you out of the chains and you can Trace to the Realm. Whatever it takes. However long.” And whatever I had to do, even if it meant submitting to Tarek.
“No more oaths, Delara. No more fuckin’ oaths.”
Tarek pulled me to my feet and I stumbled toward the door.
Waleron’s words blasted into my mind. “You stay alive. No matter what, you fuckin’ stay alive. Do whatever you have to do to survive, maitagarri.”
He’d said those words once before a long time ago and I did. I survived and I would again. We both would. We were never meant to be apart.
I nodded and Tarek noticed. “Speaking with him? Make sure you tell him how much you enjoy me fucking you.”
I spat in his face then jabbed him in the throat with my fist. He coughed and choked, but reacted with a brutal punch to the side of my head.
Waleron’s chains clanged. “I will fuckin’ destroy you, Tarek.”
Tarek laughed as he dragged me out the door.