In desperation she took control of the fear and willed the mark to her cheek, to Abijah’s hand. He laughed. “Do you think I didn’t recognize a Spider? Especially one who looks as you do? Did you think it coincidence that I diverted my attention to the convicts and left you unattended in front of the very exit and trap I knew held no danger for you?”
Talons pressed into her side, piercing the fabric of her shirt but not breaking her skin. His palm slid from her face to curl around her neck, against the sharp, hard beat of her pulse.
“There’s something different about you,” he murmured, scraping the deadly nails lightly over her throat. “Something that stirs an ancient memory.”
She couldn’t stop the telltale race as her heart sped up more than she would have thought possible. To distract him she said, “I’m here to destroy the urn, Abijah en Rumjal.”
He stiffened at the mention of both urn and name, then laughed. “You might be able to do it, wrapped as you are in human flesh. But the one who thinks of himself as my master would need to be dead and I’m charged with protecting him. One threatening move, one command…”
Abijah’s hand slid to her belly, the movement suggestive. “And you will become my plaything, whether I will it or not.”
Araña blocked her revulsion and parsed through his words, seeing them for what they were—warnings, hints, the twisting of Anton’s commands.
Abijah’s forked tongue found her earlobe and she couldn’t stop herself from shuddering and trying to pull away from him. She staggered when he let her go, though one taloned hand kept possession of her wrist.
A curved nail scratched over the fingerless glove hiding the brand before tracing along the line where fabric and skin met above the veins in her wrist. Without warning he sliced through the flesh, cutting more deeply than he had when Anton asked him whether she was one of the human gifted.
Blood streamed over her leather-coated palm and off her bared fingers. Abijah’s tongue submerged itself in the flow. Yellow eyes flashed to red. “You taste like my enemy,” he purred, cocking his head. “Perhaps I won’t regret your fate when you fail at your task.”
“I won’t fail.”
His tongue lapped over her wrist again. “Tell me, has he enjoyed his captivity as much as I have mine?”
“He’s hated every moment of it and wants his freedom as much as you must want yours.”
Abijah laughed, but his eyes remained red. He leaned forward abruptly, and the scorpion mark flared to life on his cheek, only inches away from the spider on hers. “Is that your price for destroying the urn? The incantation I used when I placed the collar on him?”
“No. I’ll destroy the urn regardless of whether you tell me the incantation. That’s a price I have to pay for gaining help from a vampire.”
Red eyes faded to glittering yellow. “Your mother was always one for playing deep games, but then she wouldn’t have risen to rule her House otherwise.”
The tip of Abijah’s forked tongue brushed over the spider. “Did you know we were lovers once? Your mother and I?”
“I didn’t know anything until yesterday, when I would have died. When I could have died and been reborn into the kingdom of our people. But I chose to return.”
Abijah’s eyes flashed red for an instant. “Because of him?”
“Yes.”
He cocked his head. “He will kill you when his memory returns.”
An icy hand squeezed her heart, its cold fingers the words Tir had spoken in the midst of the carnage at Gulzar’s house. “I’m not his enemy.”
Abijah’s smile was terrifying. “In all scenarios your mother gains something.” He stroked a talon over the spider. “You succeed in your task, I return to her. If you don’t, your failure will see you reborn into a place at her side.”
He leaned forward to whisper in her ear. “Did it occur to you that freeing him completely was never the goal in this game? The incantation is in parts. Speak some of it and he gains strength and power—enough to believe you’ve done what you can for him, enough to enable him to protect you until you grow weary of living as a human. Hold back the last of it and he doesn’t remember anything about… demons.”
“No. I won’t betray him.”
Abijah stepped away from her. “Where do you expect to find the one who calls himself my master?”
She didn’t know. Killing Anton had always been secondary to destroying the urn. She guessed this was Abijah’s way of helping her without violating the commands governing what he could and couldn’t do.
“Upstairs. In his study.”
“A good choice.”
She tugged at the wrist still in Abijah’s possession. He dug his talons in, reopening the wound he’d created. “I’ve been told you are a permissible plaything as long as you don’t try to escape. Given you’re the more immediate danger to the one able to command me, I will remain with you. Make a threatening move toward him and I’ll kill you. Think of it as a fate preferable to the one you’ll gain if I take you prisoner instead.”
She nodded and he released her.
As they moved deeper into the house, Abijah said, “If you succeed in performing the vampire’s task, I will give you the incantation.”
Twenty-six
THE snap of Farold’s neck and the sound of Levi dropping the body to the ground seemed loud in the silence of the maze. To the animals that hunted and killed there, it served as a trigger for them to charge the front of their cages and clamor to be let out. For Rebekka it was a signal to move, and move quickly.
A glance at Tir, who nodded from a position allowing him to watch Levi’s stealthy attack on Farold, and Rebekka left her hiding place. It helped that she’d done this a thousand times in her imagination, dreamed of sprinting to the caged animals serving as a gauntlet of terror for humans running the maze, and calming them until the Weres could be freed.
She went first to the pack of feral dogs, using her gift to silence them before something went wrong and the demon appeared.
The hyenas were next. Then the cheetah and the bears.
She wasn’t telepathic, not as some Weres were. But her gift allowed her to touch emotion, use it to gain trust.
Levi and Tir joined her, their presence and her own rush of excitement nearly undoing what she’d managed with her gift. A couple of the dogs began barking and she hurried to quiet them. When it was done, Levi motioned and said, “Come on.”
A final mental push, trying to convey that freedom was near, and she followed Levi to the metal door leading to the cells holding the Weres.
He jammed the key with Gulzar’s dried blood on it into the lock and twisted. A motor hummed to life and the door retracted.
Rebekka’s heart lodged in her throat as she stepped inside. It was bad. She knew it would be. The only thing that would have made it worse was if there’d been more Weres held captive. Once there had been.
Cyrin’s eyes held only madness as Levi went toward him. Deadly claws at the end of furred arms reached through the bars with the intention of savaging anyone who got close enough to strike.
A flattened, maned face pressed to the cage. Yellowed teeth glistened as he roared.
Torn human carcasses represented what was left of meals, not just in the werelion’s cage, but in those of tiger, leopard, and wolf shapeshifters.
Rebekka moved to the bars, working hard to establish rapport. Knowing all of their lives depended on her gift.
Tir’s machete was drawn, as was his knife. He’d kill any threat. Including the Weres. Rebekka knew it without it being said.
The werewolves calmed the fastest, and then the leopard and tiger shapeshifters.
For any of them to escape, they needed to work together, to leave together, to use their combined abilities to keep the pure animals in line after they’d been freed from their cages.