She looked around the area, her expression curious. If there’s any time to blow a secret, this is it.
He nodded, turned to face the others and ordered, “Come in close.”
The troops drew near, keeping their attention on his face.
He told them, “I have only one objective. I’m not going to let them take Evenfall. If I have to napalm the inside of those walls, I’m going to do it. That means we need to split into two groups. One will be with me. We’ll be on the offensive. Another group needs to focus on evacuating noncombatants.”
Melly said, “I’ll lead that team. I’ll take ten of my people to work on the evacuation.” Her gaze told him she wasn’t happy about the two of them splitting up, but she accepted the need for it.
His attention shifted to Shane. He said telepathically to the other man, As soon as Melly’s presence becomes known, she could become a target again. Justine kidnapped her for a reason.
The Light Fae captain replied, The Queen’s orders are that I’m to do anything Melly says, except leave her side. Today my goal in life is to make sure that the Light Fae heir remains safe.
Relief lifted a weight off his shoulders. He told the other man, That’s more than acceptable to me.
Aloud, he said to the group, “This tunnel leads to my suite. The passage is narrow, so my team will go first. Once we get inside, we’re not going to wait, so the strongest fighters in the second team need to follow directly afterward.”
The last person he looked at was Xavier, who told him, “Tess and I will come to the suite. Even if the cables were cut, the internal network might be operational. If it is, we’ll be able to assess where the fighting is and communicate with people in the IT area.” His mouth tightened. “If that’s acceptable to you.”
He considered the younger Vampyre with a narrowed gaze. Xavier was pushing right up to the edge of Julian’s orders, but the reality was, not only would the suite be heavily protected, it shouldn’t become the focus of any of the fighting. And Xavier and Tess could potentially do a lot of good from that position.
He said, “Excellent.”
Turning to the broken, rocky rise, he located the door hidden deep underneath years of moss and ferns, and heaved it open.
Then, despite the fact they had forty witnesses, he stepped to Melly and pulled her close for a hard, deep kiss.
Honey, I’m going to war, he said in her head. So put out, will you?
She burst out laughing against his mouth. Throwing her arms around his neck, she kissed him back with all the passion and enthusiasm he could have hoped for, and much more than he had expected in front of their audience.
After spending so many years in the army, he had no shame.
What he had forgotten was, after her years of acting in front of cameras, she had no shame either.
Melly hadn’t realized how hard it would be for her to step into the tunnels.
After all, this wasn’t the same place where Justine had committed her atrocities. Melly was no longer imprisoned. There were no ferals, no piles of corpses, no would-be rapists. A team of experienced, deadly soldiers surrounded her and Julian, and everybody carried a flashlight, so the tunnel would be well lit for yards around.
None of those details made any difference. As soon as it was her turn to step below, the walls closed in on her, and she nearly hyperventilated.
Julian had already gone ahead. Shane gripped her elbow, his gaze concerned. “Are you all right?”
I’m dealing with a touch of PTSD, she told him telepathically, unwilling to admit it out loud in front of so many witnesses. The tunnels where Justine held us… Shane, it was bad. After this, I don’t know if I’ll be able to tolerate even living in a house that has a basement.
His face tightened in sympathy. Whispering something under his breath, a golden, calming energy spread out from his hand and enveloped her. While doing nothing to affect her reflexes or judgment, the spell loosened the tight band around her chest.
Does that help? he asked.
Giving him a grateful look, she nodded.
Others were waiting for her to go underground so they could follow behind. She plunged in, with Shane at her heels.
The tunnel was very long, perhaps as much as a quarter of a mile. It dipped down then gradually angled up again, until it came to rough steps hewn in stone.
They climbed for a long time. She imagined the staircase cutting up through the hill on which Evenfall sprawled. It would need to ascend past the lower levels in the castle to reach Julian’s suite.
The trek seemed to take forever when suddenly she arrived. Stepping out of the narrow staircase, she looked around.
She remembered Julian’s suite as spacious yet streamlined, with large landscape paintings from European Old Masters and only enough furniture to make the living space comfortable.
Because of the artwork, the lack of windows had never bothered her before, but now she frowned. The castle had been built long before the technology for automatic shutters existed. While there were plenty of guest suites along the outer walls, the entire core of Evenfall was like this suite, window free and utterly secure from sunlight, with hallways running throughout the castle like a honeycomb, interconnecting everything.
The suite no longer felt spacious to her, but all the soldiers crowding the rooms might be influencing her perspective. The air felt electric with adrenaline. Energy jumped underneath her skin.
Julian and the rest of his group had already disappeared. A small part of her tried to panic. She might never see him again. Ruthlessly, she squashed it. She had seen firsthand what he could do when he had fought the ferals. He would win this fight.
Tess and Xavier were the last of the group to arrive. They strode immediately to the office area. Tess threw herself in front of Julian’s computer.
Two Nightkind guards in black uniform stood just inside the suite’s carved double doors, watching everyone with undisguised relief. One of them was a Vampyre unfamiliar to Melly, but the other was a ghoul whom she recognized.
She strode to him. “Herman?”
The ghoul fixed large, dark eyes on her. The long, downward lines of his gray face shifted into something that approximated a smile.
“Mum,” he said. “You is a sight for sore eyes, you is.”
“How are you?”
“Trootfully, mum, I seen better days,” he told her.
Shane joined them. At that, he turned to face her and raised one eyebrow.
Telepathically, she said to him, I love ghouls. They’re the Eeyores of the Elder Races. He might have said the same thing on a perfectly wonderful day when the Nightkind demesne wasn’t imploding and there was no attempted coup.
Aloud, she asked the ghoul, “You’ve been guarding the suite?”
“Yes, mum,” said Herman. “King’s suite always haz a guard. Usually we stands outside no matter what, but shit happened dis morning. Mr. Dominic wanted in. We say no way, cuz he ain’t no king of ours. Then we scarper inside, and we bin stuck here ever since.” The ghoul rubbed the back of his bald head with long, skeletal fingers. “Whatta surprise when Mr. King himself walks outta that wall.”
She told them, “We’re going to start evacuating noncombatants. Don’t let anybody through those doors if they aren’t with us, do you understand?”
Herman’s Vampyre partner said, “Yes, ma’am. The King told us what you would be doing and ordered us to help. We’ll keep watch for you.”
She glanced through the open doorway to the office area where Tess and Xavier were focused on the computer screen.