Wounded: Book 8 (A Rylee Adamson Novel) (11 page)

The rat-faced demons dumped me onto the floor in a room that looked like a throne room. They did their squeaky-assed giggling routine as they backed away. Everything in the room was done up in black and white, shades of gray and not much else in the way of color. I knew where they’d taken me.

The deepest level of the veil was not a place I thought I’d be visiting again. I was so royally fucked.

Talia stepped into view. “I’m sorry. I did not want to bring you here. But it was the only way.”

I got to my feet, didn’t bother to put my sword away. “Yet you did.”

“Rylee, Talia is right. She had no choice. It is the way of the binding Orion has on her.”

I turned to see Milly walk toward us. Her hair was bound back in a tight braid and her eyes looked haggard, as if she hadn’t slept in days. A blood red, floor-dragging gown hung from her body, the empire waistline accentuating the fact she was hugely pregnant. One hand cupped her belly, which had grown by leaps and bounds even in the short few days since I’d seen her last. She glanced down. “Orion has found a way to speed up the growth of my baby.” Her green eyes slowly lifted to mine. Despair echoed the horror I knew was in mine.

“You can’t stop him?”

She shook her head. “No.”

I glanced at Talia. “Why did you bring me here; what does he want with me?”

Yeah, I know the obvious would be he wanted to kill me, but he had an opportunity on the other side of the veil. I wouldn’t have been able to stop the rat pack from tearing me apart. Yet they’d waited on Talia to open the veil and bring me through.

“Come on, we don’t have much time,” Milly said, striding past me. “Orion didn’t expect us to bring you in so quickly. If we make haste, you can be gone before he even knows you are here.”

I had no choice but to follow her since there was no one else I could trust. “What are you saying?”

Milly let out a sigh. “You didn’t read the papers I gave you, did you?”

To be fair, I’d kept meaning to. Only I’d never found the time. “No. Why?”

“If you’d read them, you would have known what was coming.” She started off again, her dress dragging through the skim of dust and dirt on the floor. Like the queen of a hovel.

“What did it say?” I jogged to catch up, swayed and ended up leaning against the wall.

Milly’s hands were on me in an instant, a flood of healing washing through me. “Rylee, how have you survived without daily healings?” Her voice held a thread of laughter and I couldn’t help but smile up at her.

“Well, I’m getting better at letting people help me.”

She snorted and rolled her eyes. “Come, we are almost there.”

I felt refreshed like I hadn’t been in a long time, the cuts and bruises from too many fights evaporating as if they’d never been. I jogged to her side, and Talia followed at a slight distance.

“What’s going on?”

“You need the violet book of prophecy, the book written by the Blood of the Lost. You need it so you have all the steps to stop Orion. That is where all the answers are. But he has it in a spelled room I cannot unlock.” She blew out a sharp breath and clutched at her belly. A groan slipped between lips. “Gods, not yet.”

Fucking hell, was she going into labor? The sound of fluid dripping onto the floor made me think that was exactly what was going on. “Milly, tell me you aren’t in labor.”

“Hurry.” Was all she said as she used the wall for support. I slipped my hand around her waist and helped her walk. Her belly where it pressed against my side contracted and flexed and something hit me. I gritted my teeth to stop from freaking the fuck out. Like an alien life form, her baby kicked and fought to break free of his mother’s belly.

We made our way to the top of a set of stairs that curled up out of sight. Narrow and tight, they would make a perfect bottleneck for someone coming after us. “You sure you can do this?”

Milly nodded, though there was sweat on her face and her eyes were strained at the edges. She gulped in a breath of air and let it out in a slow hiss. “Let’s go.”

The stairs were just wide enough for me to walk beside her, supporting her as we worked our way up, flight after flight. Milly kept moving though, and I was fiercely proud of her.

There were five floors to be exact, without a single landing to pause on, just a doorway marking the level we were at, until we neared the top. There, on the fifth floor, we found a landing that was about ten by ten and bare, except for a single window that let in a dull, weak light.

“At the top,” Milly whispered, “there is a doorway with no door. It looks like you could walk through with no thought, with no consequence.” She dragged in a gulp of air and let out a low moan, sliding to the floor. I lowered her down so she could lean against the wall. Talia came up and crouched on her other side.

“The baby will be here soon.”

Milly grabbed my arm. “Rylee, there is someone you will have to face within the room. I can’t see who it is, I don’t know if they would see you as friend or foe. But the spell, you should be able to walk right through it.”

“And if I can’t, what will happen to me?”

Talia shook her head. “You will be bound to Orion.”

I rocked back on my heels. Bound to Orion if my Immunity failed. “Got it. You wait here.”

Milly let out a soft laugh that turned into a whimper as she clutched her belly. “Hurry.”

Without looking back, I ran up the last flight of stairs. At the top was an open doorway as she said, but it was fuzzy. Like one of those stupid tricks people do when they put cellophane across a doorway and then they put something appetizing on the other side.

The tease for me, of course, was the violet skinned book of prophecy. I could see it on a small, wooden table in the middle of the room. I walked right up to the edge of the doorway and stared at it. Rimmed in symbols, I knew what some of them represented. The black skinned book had a lot of them.

Power. Obedience. Violence. Nothing good, of course.

“Piece of shit,” I snarled and forced my feet forward. The spell that held the doorway slid over my skin and I felt the daggers of it try to dig in. The black snowflake on my chest burned with a fire that made me want to gasp out loud, but I held my breath and took another step, the spell dragging hard over me, leaving welts. I stumbled and went to one knee, and the spell finally gave up and slithered back to where it had been. I turned to look at the doorway. The spell hadn’t stuck to me, but it hadn’t been dispelled, either.

The sound of a sword being drawn snapped my head around. An older man stood between me and the table where only moments before the room had been empty. He wore tight black pants and knee high black leather boots and a white shirt that was buttoned all the way to the top. Dark hair streaked with grey at the temples accentuated his eyes, which where a bright silvery tone. He reminded me of the three Musketeers. Minus the ridiculous hat and feather. “It seems you must face me now.”

“Are you a guardian?” ‘Cause if he was, there was no way I could beat him, I’d have to out maneuver his ass, grab the book and make a run for it.

“I am not a guardian. I am the last pureblood.”

I arched an eyebrow up. “Well, la-dee-fucking-da. I’m the last Tracker. Want to compare notes on being the last of our kind?”

His lips arched upward into a smile. “I shall enjoy gutting you, Filthy Tracker.”

He launched his attack, but I met him from my knees, drawing my swords in time to block his swing at my head. Like I would go down in the first round.

“Come on, let’s see what you’ve got, bitch.” I stood and slid around to the left, keeping my eyes on him.

I’ll give him his due; he was good. His skills were honed and every move he made was textbook, the forms perfect, the angles superb. But he didn’t fight dirty.

Something I most certainly did.

As he lifted his sword arm for what would be a bone-jarring hit, if I caught it on my crossed swords, I leapt inside his guard and drove my knee into his man junk. He lost his air and started to bend over. I snapped my elbow up, into his nose, breaking it. His fingers went limp around the sword and the weapon fell to the floor with a clatter as his eyes rolled back into his head.

“See? You stink, you filthy pureblood.” I spit at his feet as I backed away. Just because he was down didn’t mean I would take my eyes from him. I slid one of my swords into its sheath and then reached back as my hip hit the table. Blindly, I groped for the violet skinned book. The leather was smooth under my hand and I thought of Sas. She was the only violet skinned ogre I’d ever met. I tucked the book under my arm, holding it tight.

“You cannot take that book. It is for the one who would save the world from the demons,” he gasped out and I stared at him. How much info could I get from him? And would it help me or would he deliberately try to deceive me? I was betting on the deception side of things, but still….

“And who is that?”

“The child of prophecy, the one who will face the demons. She will save the world. You cannot take that book.” He rolled to his knees and reached for his sword. I jumped forward and kicked it out of his reach. It skittered across the floor coming to a rest near the doorway.

“I am that one,” I said, feeling the truth center within me. I was the one who would stop Orion. “I need this book. I don’t know everything I should if I’m going to kick his ass into oblivion. So if you are really on my side, stop trying to fucking well kill me.”

He lifted his eyes to mine. “You cannot be her. She was to be pure of heart, the last of our bloodline.”

A chill swept through me. “I don’t know about pure of heart, but what do you mean the last of our bloodline? I am the last of the Blood of the Lost. Is that what you mean?”

His eyes widened and he slid back against the wall. “The Blood of the Lost. That is what we are known by now?”

Shit, he was like me, the ones who’d created the veil. “I guess so. But what did we start out as? And how can I be the last if you’re here?”

His smile was pained. “If you do not know, you do not need to know. The Blood of the Lost is a fitting title. And you are the last, if that is true, because I am not really alive. I have been dead for a thousand years.”

Frustration made me bold, and I stalked to him, holding my sword out. “What. Am. I?”

“You are a being that has the ability to create as well as destroy. Your power is miniscule next to those of us who are of pureblood.” He shook his head from his position on the floor. “If your blood hadn’t been so diluted, I would have recognized you right away.”

“You’re not even going to try and be helpful, are you?”

A laugh trickled past the blood on his lips. “It isn’t a matter of being helpful. At some point you may discover the truth of your family history. But it doesn’t truly have any bearing on what you must do. You must stop the demons. So go and do what you were born to die for.”

I stepped back from him as my blood chilled for a second time. “I’m not going to die. Orion is.”

His smile slipped and I didn’t like what I saw on his face. “Yes, he will die. Of that you
must
be right, and I pray to the gods you are successful. Go. Before he knows you are here.”

A cry slid up the stairwell, one filled with pain. Milly. I didn’t look back at the man who may or may not have been my past, as I ran toward my friend. The doorway’s spell knocked me to my knees and I struggled to breathe as I hit the stone floor. Again, the snowflake burned, searing my chest. Milly had set it up so I would gain immunity from demons through the hoarfrost demon’s poison—though at the time I’d thought she’d just been trying to kill me. Apparently it was still working in my favor, helping my natural immunity keep me safe.

Book in my arms, sword in my hand, I ran down the stairwell to the level below and the small landing. Milly still leaned against the wall, but Talia was between her legs, hands on her knees.

The necromancer glanced up at me. “We only have minutes before he’s here.”

“Please tell me you mean the baby.”

Talia shook her head as Milly let out a cry and then bore down. Shit, this was not good timing.

I dropped to a crouch by Milly’s head, putting the book at her side. “Milly, you can do this. But you have to push the baby out now.”

Her green eyes were filled with tears as she blinked up at me. “You’ll take my baby with you. Protect him from Orion.”

I nodded, stroking her forehead. “I promised to, didn’t I?”

She bit her lower lip and a sob slipped out. No more words came from her, no more cries.

“I see the head,” Talia said, her voice soft.

Licking my lips, I did something I never wanted to do.

I Tracked Orion.

His threads blazed with darkness that circled around me and his voice whispered inside my head.
You are here?

I didn’t answer him, just worked out how close he was. A hundred feet at best.

I shut down the threads to him with a deep shudder. “Hurry, Milly. You have to hurry.”

There was going to be no choice here. I stood and faced the stairs that curled up to us. Orion was coming and I was going to have to deal with him, at least long enough to get me and the kid out.

I pulled my whip loose, wishing I had my crossbow with me. A distance weapon would have been particularly nice. A cry shattered the air, the sound of a baby’s first bellow.

“Shit, your kid’s got lungs.” I made the mistake of looking over my shoulder, seeing the baby pressed against Milly’s chest, wrapped in a swath of her red dress. Something slammed into my upper body and drove me back. I tumbled ass over head until I was up against the stairs leading up to the top doorway.

Orion stood looking down on the three of us. He was as big as I remembered him, muscular, completely bald with red eyes that pierced me and made my blood chill. “Three little pigs, did you think you could escape the big bad wolf?”

From the corner of my eye, I saw Milly clutch the baby against her. “You can’t have him, he’s innocent.”

Orion threw back his head to laugh, a move I’d seen him do before. I took advantage of it. I snapped my whip out as I thought about Milly, about her love for her baby, about my desire to protect them. In that moment, I let the anger go, and embraced my heart and all it knew.