The knife clinked the wall. I swiped my eyes with the back of my hand, tried to clear the visual snow. A shadow on my left. I dropped the knife and reached for it. Warmth. Muscle. Michio.
My hands climbed his legs, found the button at his waist. His pants dropped. I hugged every inch of flesh in my reach. Nausea retreated. The golden perfection of his skin came into focus and my body heated.
I crawled up his torso, keeping contact with as much of him as possible. His hips rocked in urging taps. His voice hummed behind his gag.
The keys fumbled in my fingers. At last, the lock snicked. Oh, thank Christ. The shackles fell open and strong arms caught me. I tugged at his gag until it fell away.
A roar burst from his mouth. “I’m going to kill him.” His anger rolled off him in shuddering waves. He pulled away and angled his body toward the Imago.
“No. Don’t let go of me.” I clung to his neck.
“Then let the beast go, Evie. Let it have him.”
With his strength, it was easy to clip my leash on the aphid. I simply willed it. The Imago’s final shriek gave way to greedy slurps and sucking.
Michio shrugged out of his shirt and pulled up his pants, his movements clumsy with the aftereffect of sedation. We slid to the floor and his gaze drifted over my shoulder. A smile stole over his face.
The swoosh of steel erupted behind me. A wet smack followed. Then another. I turned in his arms.
Roark stood over the headless aphid, gore clinging to his sword and cassock. He tapped the Imago’s head with his boot. It rolled from the body.
Jade eyes rose, searched mine. He sheathed the sword, crossed the distance between us in three huge leaps, and pulled me into his embrace.
“Love,” he drawled. Ah, the lilt of that one word. A silken caress.
Giant hands framed my face. I reached for his, mimicking him. Whiskers scratched my palms. Our eyes locked. His exhale was my inhale. So much was said in that shared look. I knew his regrets, his fears, his heart and he knew mine.
Then he took my mouth, a dusting of lips in tender greeting. All too quick, his reluctant release tugged at my bottom lip, a pledge for another time.
Michio staggered to his feet. Something dangerous clouded his eyes, and it was aimed at Roark. “We need to go, Father Molony.” Then he wrapped a possessive hand around mine and pulled.
I pulled back, spearing him with a look that unclenched his fingers, and turned to Roark.
Dark membranes caked his face, his curls, his calloused hands. He’d sliced his way there. Getting out would be much of the same. My chest clenched. “Lose your clothes.”
His freckled forehead scrunched into his hairline.
My lips twitched. “You can keep the pants.” I tackled the buttons at his chest. “Don’t have time to explain. Just trust me, okay?”
His hands brushed mine aside. A moment later, his cassock and shirt hit the floor.
“You siphoned him to get past the guards upstairs?” Michio gestured to the dead cook.
“Yeah. And you were right about something else.” I raised my chewed-up palm. “Toxic blood.”
The rip of fabric responded. Michio held up long pieces of his abandoned shirt and tied one over my hand.
Deep grooves bracketed Roark’s eyes, which were locked on my bandage. “Wha’ toxic blood?”
Michio secured another strip around the gash on my thigh, a smile in his voice. “Hers. It’s poisonous to the aphids. We can discuss the mechanics later.” His eyes turned to me. “Head up with the priest. I’m two minutes behind you.”
I ran toward the exit. “Where’s Jesse?”
Roark’s drawl followed me into the stairwell. “Distracting the Drone.”
The feeling I’d been ignoring, the one tapping at the edges of my mind, materialized like a knife in the chest. Jesse was the breach, the explosion.
I raced out of the bowels of one hell to rise into another.
Though my soul may set in darkness,
it will rise in perfect light.
I have loved the stars too fondly
to be fearful of the night.
Sarah Williams
Humidity thickened as we rose from the basement. Roark in the lead, we took the stairs two at a time. The steps behind slipped into nothingness.
“Michio,” I shouted into the black cavity.
“Two minutes behind, remember?” Roark’s naked lats contracted through his jog. “Tell me,” he panted, “why I’m not wearing me duds.”
“You know how skin-to-skin blocks my nightmares?”
We stumbled on. A passing torchlight illuminated his nodding head.
“Same thing helps me communicate with the bugs. I can control them. There’s a masculine energy… Michio calls it Yang. I can somehow borrow it for strength, through skin.”
“Sounds like ye got lamped in your noggin, love.”
I touched the swelling egg on my head. Yeah, lamped by an obnoxious gold pistol.
A few silent strides later, he said, “Last time I saw ye, I was scran for the aphids. Ye saved me life.”