she waved her hand toward Kat, “namely you, that he would be satisfied and leave my city.” She stopped and glanced up at Kat. “It seems that’s not going to happen. So I have to do what I have to to make him leave.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because I’m going to release you, and you’re going to leave the city, and Baruch’s going to follow. Like a dog chasing a rabbit.” She reached up and unbuckled Kat’s right foot. “And you’re the rabbit, my dear.”
Kat remained motionless as Satarah released the binding on her left ankle. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Could she trust this woman? Would she really let her go without repercussions? She didn’t think so. Satarah was a ruthless, calculating bitch. There had to be a catch somewhere. Kat was just too relieved and exhausted to see it.
Once her legs were free, Satarah pushed a button on the wall and a small platform popped out.
She stepped onto it, enabling her to reach Kat’s wrists. While she unbuckled them, she scrutinized Kat’s face. Likely watching for signs that Kat was going to attack.
If Kat had had the energy, she would have.
When the last restraint was undone on her left arm, Kat fell to the ground in a heap, her legs unable to keep her upright. If she had been previously uninjured, the fall may have hurt, but at the moment she couldn’t feel anything but one giant pulsating throb over her entire body.
“I’ve brought your clothes and your weapons.” Satarah gestured to the bed.
Raising her head, Kat glanced toward the king-size mattress. Indeed, her things were piled on top. It felt like an eternity since she’d seen them last. The days had blurred into one massive beating. She couldn’t pinpoint the last day she’d felt the familiar weight of her blade strapped to her leg.
She turned her gaze to Satarah. “Why?”
“I told you already. So Baruch will follow you out. I was a fool to allow him entry in the first place.” She strode toward the bed and fingered one of Kat’s knives. “I realize now that he isn’t a man to make deals with. He has no sense of honor. He thinks only of himself.” Meeting Kat’s gaze, she smiled. “I may be no better, but at least I will keep my word.” She strode back to Kat and offered her hand. “And I give you mine that I will let you go without consequence. I will even direct you to what you desire most. A cure for the disease that spreads through you.”
Kat didn’t trust her. The woman could call her guards or, worse, Baruch, as soon as she let her go. But any chance of escape, she’d take. No matter who was offering it to her.
She reached up and took Satarah’s hand. Satarah clasped her other hand over Kat’s. A rush of something electric surged through her arm at the contact.
“You must promise me that you will take your cure and get out of my city. I can’t risk you coming back to seek revenge on Baruch.”
Kat nodded. Too tired to do anything else.
Satarah pulled her up and helped her over to the bed. She sat on the edge of the mattress and watched in silence as Kat got dressed.
The feel of her weapons back in her hands brought a fleeting smile to Kat’s lips. Maybe she’d survive after all. In that moment, she thought of Hades. If only he were still alive and eagerly waiting for her escape. Their reunion would’ve been explosive, to say the least. Even exhausted and in pain as she was, nothing would’ve stopped her from fucking him silly.
“How do I get past the guards?” Kat asked as she strapped the final blade sheath to her right thigh.
Satarah motioned toward the ceiling just above the bed. “There are a series of ventilation shafts all through the city. Follow this one until you come to a T, and then go to the left. That will take you to Onyx.” She stood and smoothed down the line of her teal gown. “Tell him he is to give you the cure and to show you how to get out of the city. He will listen to reason, I am sure.” She chuckled. “And I know you are a woman who can use reason like a finely honed blade.”
Legs still quivering and barely able to support her, Kat stood and looked up at the grate in the ceiling. She glanced back at Satarah, who still sat primly on the bed watching her. “Baruch will kill you for letting me go.”
She stood and crossed the short distance between them. “But I’m not letting you go. You’re escaping.”
Kat nodded, understanding the fire in Satarah’s eyes. She imagined she had similar flames in her own.
Unsheathing her longest blade, Kat swiped it across Satarah’s face. Blood instantly sluiced down her cheek like rivulets of rain and spotted her pale cleavage.
Kat winced at the twinge of pain in her arm with the motion. She hoped she didn’t run into any trouble along the way to the dark man and her freedom. Even with her weapons, she’d have a hell of a time defending herself.
“Good, but not enough, I’m afraid.” Satarah grabbed the knife from Kat and brought it down hard into her thigh. Crying out, she pulled the knife out of her leg and handed it back to Kat, pain swimming in her eyes. “Don’t worry, I’ll heal.”
After wiping the blood off on her pants, Kat sheathed the knife. “I’m not worried.”
In fact, although the woman was releasing her, she didn’t care what happened to her after she was gone. Satarah was nothing but a means to an end. The woman had made her bed. She could damn well sleep in it.
Kat looked up at the vent again. “How do I get up there?”
Satarah, now wincing with pain, lowered herself back onto the mattress. She motioned toward the bedpost closest to the grate. “I suggest you climb.”
Although the climb was not hard, just thinking about it caused swells of pain to surge over her again. In her condition, it would be difficult. She could barely move her arm. But the thought of staying trapped in this room, with Baruch only minutes away, caused her more agony. She’d chew off her own hand to escape any more of his torture.
The virus inside her was too close to the surface to resist much longer. She’d been close, too close, to letting it drag her under. Even if she had let it out only to attack Baruch, to defend herself, it would have possessed her.
Taking in a deep breath, Kat stepped on the edge of the bed and grabbed the wooden post. Her legs and arms trembled from the exertion. Damn, she hoped she’d make it. She’d come too far in realizing that she was human, that she had real emotions, like love, to allow anything to snatch it from her.
C
rawling through the vents was like creeping on shards of glass. Every movement Kat made, her body screamed in protest. But she drove on. She could rest and heal later when she was safe and outside the city walls with her cure in hand. Until then, she would push her body harder.
Surviving was her number-one objective.
After the second turn in the shaft system, Kat realized she was lost or Satarah had given her the wrong directions. Either way, she had to find a way out. She would regroup and reevaluate after she determined where exactly she was.
While moving through the system, she had yet to come across another grate. She prayed she could find another way out. It would be a shame to have to go back to Satarah’s room. She’d rather die of starvation in the vent than go back.
When a painful cramp seized her arm again, Kat stopped and rubbed her flesh. As she did, she noticed a change in the vent up ahead. A change in surface. Maybe it was a grate.
Once the twinge subsided, Kat moved on but slower. She didn’t want to press her knee into a grill and fall into a room full of Satarah’s men.
About six feet in, Kat saw a buttonholed grate. Leaning down, she peered into the room below her. From what she could see, it looked to be a small apartment, sparsely furnished, but livable.
Then movement in the corner caused her heart to skip a beat or two.
The dark man. He was standing at a counter and looked to be mixing something in a bowl. His back was to her. Pressing her ear to the metal, she listened for other sounds. Indications that he wasn’t alone. She heard nothing but the clinking of his stirring instrument.
Moving to the other side of the grate, Kat put her boots on it. She’d kick it out and slide down, jumping into the room. She hoped the fall didn’t immobilize her.
Taking in a deep breath, she counted to three and then booted out the grill. Pushing with her hands, she went through the grate and fell to the floor. Thankfully she only collapsed on one knee and not on her face.
She was able to push herself up by the time the dark man had turned.
He smiled when he saw her. “Now this is interesting.”
Unsheathing a knife, she rushed toward him. Reasoning without a weapon just wasn’t one of her strong points. “You and I need to have a chat.”
He put up his hands in defense. “I’d wait a minute, if I were you.”
Kat hesitated. Why wasn’t he afraid? Her sudden drop through the ceiling hadn’t seemed so strange to him. Had Satarah already sent a message to him? Was he expecting her? Or was it a trap?
Sensing movement behind her, Kat gripped her knife tightly. When the hand came down on her shoulder, she swiveled on her heel, brought up her free hand to push on the assailant, and lifted the blade up to his throat. It wasn’t until she had him pressed against the wall, her knee between his legs, that she looked into his face.
Her heart nearly burst out of her chest.
He grinned, the dimple at the side of his mouth winking at her. “Hey, babe.”
Taking a shaky step back, Kat could hardly breathe. Was this real? Or another heart-twisting dream? Would she suddenly wake up and be in Baruch’s vile embrace once again?
He reached out to her, intent on touching her face.
She swiped her blade across his palm.
“Fuck, woman!” He pulled his hand back and stared at the blood dribbling from the cut. “Are you trying to kill me?”
It wasn’t a dream. He was real.
Dropping her knife, Kat launched herself into Hades’ arms, covering his mouth with hers.
Everything about him swept over her, nearly crushing her heart with its intensity. His smell, his flavor, the texture of his lips, the sweet moisture on his tongue, the way his hands felt on her back holding her close. Everything came crashing down around her and ripped at her heart, tore at her soul. She didn’t realize how utterly helpless she had felt until this very moment.
Tears, hot and hard, burst out of her, and she sobbed into his mouth. Hades moved up his hands and cradled her head as she cried into his chest. Fisting her hands in his shirt, she allowed her raging emotions to, finally, come out.
She cried until she thought she’d shrivel up from dehydration. Hades just held her, his face nestled against her head, murmuring nonsense into her hair. It didn’t matter to her what he said, it was that he was there, alive, in her arms that mattered most. She never thought to feel the warmth and security of his form again. Could never hope to have her heart whole. But as she nuzzled into him, inhaled his masculine, woodsy scent, Kat could feel the pieces start to knit back together.
“I thought you were dead. I saw you die.”
He smoothed a hand over her hair and pressed his lips to her forehead. “I almost did. Leucothea cut me loose.”
That brought Kat’s head up. “Thea? She saved you?”
He nodded and then glanced past her face to something behind her. Kat turned.
Leucothea stood there, her hands wringing nervously at her waist. She was dirty and rumpled, looking like she’d crawled through shit to get to where she stood now. By the haggard look on the girl’s pale face, maybe she had.
Kat crossed the distance between them in two seconds and gathered the girl in her arms. She was still rake thin, but Kat thought she no longer sensed fragility in her. Obviously Leucothea had been through enough to change that.
She hugged Kat back hard. Kat could feel the moisture of tears on her shoulder. After patting the girl’s back, Kat took hold of her arms and pushed her away so she could see her face.
“I should kick your ass for being here.” Leucothea opened her mouth to protest, but Kat continued. “But I won’t, considering you saved Hades and brought him back to me.”
Leucothea smiled, tears still streaming down her face. “I couldn’t very well let him come by himself. Who knows what kind of trouble he’d find without my help.”
“Yeah.” Kat returned her smile.
“How did you escape?” Hades asked.
Dropping her hands from Leucothea’s arms, Kat turned around and went back to the sanctity of Hades. She nestled into him before answering. She needed to feel his touch. Only then could she answer.
“Satarah let me go.”
“She what?” This from the dark man who hadn’t moved from his perch against the counter. “She never lets
anyone
go.”
Kat turned her head to meet his gaze. “The only reason she let me go is because she wants Baruch out of her city. She figures if I escape, he’ll follow.”
“Will he?”
“Oh, yeah.” The thought brought a violent shudder to her body. Hades pulled her in tighter, wrapping his arms snugly around her as though he sensed she needed him to.
“Onyx’s agreed to help us, if we take him with us.”
“Fine with me. As long as he has the cure.”
“I have it.” Onyx nodded and then pushed away from the counter. “Which reminds me, I should get to my lab and start packing stuff up so we can get out of here.” He moved toward the middle of the room where the grill in the ceiling still hung open. “C’mon, Thea, you can help me.”
Leucothea glanced at Kat and Hades and then nodded. “Sure.”
Once Onyx and Leucothea were up through the grate, Kat raised her head and found Hades’
mouth again. She nipped on his bottom lip as she swept her tongue over his, feasting on him. He tasted like home. It was no particular place, just him. A familiar sense of warmth, comfort, and longing filled her mind and body.
A sudden violent urge to have him took her by storm. While she continued to feast on his lips, her hands raced everywhere, desperate to find his hard, hot flesh. Streaking her fingers under his shirt, she moved them up his stomach and over his ribs. The tips of her fingers grazed the bandages over his side. He flinched and grunted in protest.
“You’re hurt.” She pulled on his shirt, yanking it up to reveal his wounds. She’d never seen skin so badly bruised before. Certainly she’d had her fair share of beatings—the last one still lingered in her mind—but she’d never seen injuries to match the ones that blossomed across Hades’ side.