Misery Happens (22 page)

Chapter Twenty-One

Sweat beaded on my skin as I shifted to a defensive crouch, and my hand fell on the hilt of my sword. It was hot in here. Dry too. And curiously empty. Nothing stirred, not even the air.

Cautiously, I let go of the hilt and lowered my arm to my side. The ground beneath my feet wasn’t ground at all, but dirt over stone. I traced a finger through the grit, examining more closely what I’d landed on. No, not dirt entirely. Mostly it was sand, and the stones beneath it were rough, unpleasant slabs. I raised my hands to my face and discovered they were bleeding. Great.

Wiping them on my pants, I circled in place. I’d expected to land among a hoard of hungry demons, but this emptiness, while probably better, was eerie. However our ancestors had created this prison, they hadn’t done a perfect job. To judge by the scene, the demons had broken free of their shackles long before the Pit’s door was opened. The question that remained was: if they hadn’t all left yet, where had they gone?

At my back, the doorway that led here was reduced to a thin line that wobbled in midair. My heartbeat slowed to something closer to normal as I stepped away from it. I was still hoping someone friendly might follow me, and I didn’t need them landing on me if so. After all, the room I was in was plenty big and hauntingly silent.

If I could even call it a room. From where I stood, the space stretched out in both directions without much variation. The Gryphons and magi had entertained a lot of speculation about what we would find in the Pit, but no one could provide useful answers. The best theory we had was that the prison would resemble whatever its creators had thought it should look like, and that could have been anything. Research about the time period and climate during its creation provided hints, but their usefulness was debatable.

It would appear that some of those hints were correct. The heat, for one. It would have been hot as hell at that latitude during the summer, and likely dry too. If that weather had been on the minds of the humans, magi and preds who built this place, it stood to reason the prison would reflect it. But magic was malleable, as one of our own magi had reminded us. Just as the prison’s creators would influence the initial design, over time the demons would alter it too with their own thoughts and desires. The only thing they couldn’t do was alter themselves a door.

I was guessing the room I found myself in, however, was basically untouched. Heavy iron bars and heavier shackles, a low ceiling, and the stench of old sweat and blood all screamed grisly, ancient prison to me. There wasn’t a window or a hint of natural light, but then, where would that light have come from? I was standing in a magically created bubble. One lit by millennia-old torches that were equally surreal.

The first sound I’d heard since I arrived—besides my boots scuffing the stones—came from behind. I reached for my blade again, but it quickly became clear that what I was hearing were voices. People shouting at a great distance. I recognized a couple of them and realized I was hearing the fighting back at the castle.

Before I could figure out what that meant, the gateway’s thin line swelled into an oval similar to what I’d jumped through. From out of the blackness, Tom appeared. Like I had, he found the floor in an uncontrolled fall, and the bag of supplies he carried dropped from his back. I started to run over to assist, but more people were on his tail. In a heap, they landed nearby, cursing and gasping for breath and rolling out of each other’s way.

The doorway snapped back to its original shape as though the newcomers had been stretching it like a rubber band. The sounds from France disappeared.

Relief flooded through me, and I grabbed one of the many stone tables in the middle of the floor for support. Lucen had made it through, along with Mitch and two other Gryphons. Both were part of World’s p-squad, but neither had spoken much to me.

“What the…?” The collective comments from the group parroted my initial thoughts in three languages.

Groaning in pain, Mitch pulled himself to his knees. When he saw me, his shoulders sagged with obvious relief. The p-quad duo got to their feet first, hands on their weapons, but they faltered as they also discovered we were alone. On the floor, Tom beckoned me over as he opened his bag.

I started his way then noticed Lucen hadn’t moved much. His forehead rested on the stones, his legs pulled under him. I could see his back rise and fall, so he breathed, but he didn’t get up. Was the trip through the gate affecting him differently than the rest of us? Ignoring Tom, I rushed to his side and placed a hand on his back.

He stiffened. “Please remove that.” His voice was soft and vaguely pained.

I did as asked, my worry changing to confusion. “Are you hurt? What’s wrong?”

Lucen didn’t answer, and his breathing was loud and jagged. Although Tom called my name, I didn’t move. Fear was chilling me in spite of the heat. What if Lucen had landed badly? Had Tom brought any medical supplies in that bag? What about Lucen’s protective charms—were they not working in here? We’d known there was a possibility that any charms we carried in might act strangely or not at all.

Wetting my lips, I pushed a strand of stray hair from his cheek, and he grabbed my wrist. Hard. “Jess, I know you’re concerned, but I meant it when I said not to touch me. Please.”

“Okay, okay.” He let go, and I retrieved my hand and sore wrist. Tom was glaring impatiently at me, and I scowled at him. “Just tell me if you’re okay.”

“Give me a minute.”

That wasn’t quite the same thing as “I’m fine”, but I got the sense that I wasn’t getting another answer. Reluctantly, I shuffled over to Tom.

He handed me a generic magic-detecting charm, similar to the ones used around Gryphon headquarters. “The magic in here is definitely interfering. I’m not sure these will be any good. They’re too weak.”

Indeed, the charms, which turned from green to red in response to magic, were glowing a pale pink already. Nevertheless, I strapped the one I was given around my neck, and Mitch did the same. “Will the main detector work?”

If it didn’t, we had a serious problem. With no idea what the key we needed looked like or where it might be hiding, finding it could be impossible.

“It seems to be.” Tom played with the dials, each of which controlled a different type of sensitive charm. It was far more powerful than the dinky single charm around my neck, but it required actual skill to use. Tom had described it to me as being like the scanners Gryphons used to detect magical residue in blood, only portable. “I’ll need to calibrate so it filters out the background noise.”

He wandered away, leaving Mitch and me squatting by the supply bag. Mitch’s brow pinched with concern. “This is a creepy-ass place. Is he okay?”

The he in question was clearly Lucen, who was finally moving, though slowly. His hands were clenched into fists at his sides, but he was getting to his feet.

I swallowed. “I don’t know.”

Lucen shuffled down the length of the dungeon-like room in a controlled, deliberate motion. When he reached an open cell, he swung the door open wider. Ancient hinges creaked, and the bars shuddered. With the cell opened like a dark maw, Lucen rested his forearms along the far wall.

“I’m going to take a look around,” Mitch said, climbing to his feet. “Maybe I can find that key before Tom gets his gadget ready.”

While Mitch wandered away to explore, I hesitantly approached Lucen. We were all dressed in our best attempt at battle-ready clothing, seeing as we didn’t know what to be ready for. For the Gryphons, Mitch and me, it was the sturdy but flexible uniform p-squad members wore into raids—some kind of magically enhanced material, both lightweight yet armored. Lucen hadn’t been offered such things by the Gryphons, so he wore clothes similar to what I’d seen other preds wear when they intended to fight—pants and a form-fitting jacket made of soft dragonhide. It offered the same basic protections with the added benefit of being incredibly sexy.

The dark material also made it difficult to assess his body language in the dimly lit cell. “Are you going to tell me what’s wrong, or are you going to let me worry?”

He twitched, still facing the wall. “Sorry, little siren. I don’t want to worry you. I’m just trying to figure out if I’m going to be useful in here.”

Shouting from behind startled me, and I spun around before I could ask why. Holding my breath, I stayed back as Tom ran over to where the other two Gryphons were agitated about something.

“Did you see that?” the woman asked in heavily accented English. “It was a dragon.”

The other p-squad member shook his head. “No, it was too long, too low. A snake maybe.”

“Oh, I do not like snakes,” Mitch said.

“We’d better hope it’s just a snake,” Lucen muttered. “No telling what we might find.”

Whatever it was, it had been too fast for anyone to see where it went. Turning away from the commotion, I started to ask Lucen what was going on again when the answer dawned on me—emotions.

The fear I was sensing from Mitch and the others wasn’t having the effect on me I’d have expected. In fact, my magical energy reserves were not as juiced as they should be in general. Locked in here, I was cut off from the usual supply of human negativity, just as the demons had been for thousands of years. Obviously some hint must have been seeping through the open portal to have roused them, but if so, it wasn’t much. And if my magical batteries were running low, no doubt Lucen’s were doing the same. Possibly his were worse seeing as we’d never figured out how much negativity I needed to be around to survive.

“You don’t have the energy. Shit.” I rested my shoulder against the wall next to him.

“It’s not the energy. Between the five of you, I’m okay. It’s everything else.”

I reached for him, and he flinched. Right. For some reason, he didn’t want me touching him. Damn it. “I’m not following.”

“Going through the portal severed my addict bonds.”

“Oh.”
Oh
. Thanks to Devon, I very much understood what happened to preds—satyrs in particular—who lost their addicts. No wonder Lucen was keeping his back to the group. Now that I knew to check, I could see a telltale bulge through his dark leather pants. All the lustful magic that he usually dispersed among his addicts was building inside him. “So you have plenty of energy, you’re just…”

He winced. “Having a hard time concentrating, and it’s only going to get worse.”

“I suppose ‘think of demon jokes’ isn’t going to help.”

“Talking to you isn’t going to help.”

I frowned and scooted a few inches down the wall, torn about what to suggest. I had no way to know whether Lucen’s bonds would simply reform when he returned to France, and I couldn’t imagine he had a clue either. Given what had been going on when we left, trying it could be even more dangerous for him. At least for the moment, no one was attacking us.

We were unlikely to remain that lucky though. It sounded as if Tom had the magic detector ready, and the others were beginning to search the vicinity. I should join them, but that would mean leaving Lucen alone to cope, and I didn’t care much for that idea. This room went on and on. If I left his side, eventually we’d be separated, and he’d be vulnerable.

That settled it. There was only one thing to do. I returned to his side and discreetly—I hoped—slipped my hand over that tempting bulge in his pants. He jerked at my touch. “Addict me.”

“What? Jess, no.”

His tortured expression was painful to see, though I wasn’t sure if it was caused by unhappiness at my suggestion or the agony of unfulfilled desire. But I knew which one I felt, and I cupped him harder. In this state, he didn’t need to purposely work any power on me to rile me up. I was getting seriously damp between the legs, and it had nothing to do with the temperature.

I pressed myself against him, and he moaned quietly. Unpleasantly aware of the voices down the cell block, I lowered my voice. “I’m serious. You can offload some of your tension on me. It’ll help better than sex alone, and I can handle it.”

Lucen swore under his breath, and the color rose on his cheeks. “I appreciate the offer, but you alone aren’t going to be enough to make this manageable. Besides, it will interfere with your own ability to think straight, and we’re all relying on you and Mitch if the rest of us lose our minds.”

I declined to remind him what had happened to me with the purple-skinned demon, distracted by the hard edges of his body and the potent scent he was giving off. There had to be a zipper on these pants of his. Why the hell couldn’t I find the zipper?

My brain had taken a turn for the lascivious, and the damned demons and their key were having a hard time competing for my attention. I wanted to lick the thin sheen of sweat from his throat. Wanted to breathe in his skin and run my tongue over the stubble on his chin. The thought of the Gryphons noticing what was going on didn’t bother me half as much as it had a minute ago.

I pressed my face into the crook of his neck and nibbled on his tender skin. Lucen shoved me against the wall, releasing my hand and grabbing my backside. The heat from his erection burned through my clothes. The fabric might be resistant to salamander fire, but it was helpless against satyr flesh. “This is a bad idea,” he murmured.

“I told you, I can handle it. Dump what you need to on me. I can channel and release it.” I was fairly certain I could anyway. I’d been practicing how to control that sort of thing, and if I could do it with Claudius, I should be able to do it with Lucen.

His mouth slammed into mine, stealing my breath. Our tongues met, and he struggled to take all he could from the kiss. I gave it gladly, desperate for more as a moan rose in my throat. My lips were sore when he let go, but my nerves were scorching. I wasn’t sure how I could be so wet when the air was so dry.

“Release is definitely in order.” His grip on me tightened, and I closed my eyes in anticipation. “Are you sure about the rest of it?”

“Oh gods, yes.” It occurred to me that even if the others were too busy to be aware of what was going on between us, Mitch would certainly be able to sense my lust. But Mitch had succumbed to being Lucen’s addict—temporarily—for the greater good as well. Surely he’d understand that our bad sex timing was all done in the task of saving the world.