Fiona, she’d said. Tough, and a little bit ruthless from the look in her steel-gray eyes. But damned if he didn’t like her. Hard not to—she was getting him out of this place.
CHAPTER TWO
Holy shite, it worked.
She’d just busted a prisoner out of jail. And not just any prisoner. A tall, muscular, dangerous-looking one whose eyes felt like they were burning into her back. He was too handsome for her sanity, with black hair and black eyes that saw too much. He looked like a poet but was built like a warrior. A warrior who would help her get that damn book back.
Fiona marched down the stone hallway like she had every right to be there. Which she did. Sort of. After Logan had delivered his odd message to her this morning and said that Ian was the only one capable of getting through the museum, she’d gone to Lea, the highest-ranking university official that she knew, to plead her case. Lea was the historian, and one of the top three officials at the university. They were the only three with the unilateral ability to grant prisoners temporary release. Thank gods she was also Fiona’s closest friend.
Lea had agreed to provide Fiona with the documents that would release Ian temporarily, on the condition that he wore the collar, which would ensure that he couldn’t make a run for it and couldn’t use his most dangerous magic. So they should be fine—as long as they made it out of the building and no one asked too many questions. Even though Lea had okayed Ian’s release, Fiona’s boss, Darrence Wright, sure as hell wouldn’t like the fact that she’d taken matters into her own hands. Utilizing prisoners for intel was definitely not in her job description at the moment.
But she had to get that book back.
“I’ll lead from here,” the guard said from behind when they walked through the entrance to the prison, which was in the basement of the building that housed the Praesidium, the university’s security division.
The guard walked past her and pushed open the door to the stone staircase. His were the only handprints that could activate the door. And only if they were alive and willing. She and Ian followed him up the stairs, eventually alighting on the first floor of the Praesidium.
“Thanks,” she said, then nodded at Ian while trying to keep from appearing too rushed.
The Praesidium, named when Latin was still the language of knowledge, provided security services for the university. Now she and Ian would have to make it through the building without being stopped. No one would recognize Ian, not after nearly one hundred years down below, but the collar around his neck marked him as a prisoner.
But he’d ditch her without it, so it stayed on. She shot him a look that she hoped said let’s move.
His eyes lit with understanding.
Good, he could read people well.
She walked quickly, nerves making her chest feel tight. He followed her down the stone-paved hallway, his presence huge and looming behind her, and through the beautiful atrium of the entrance hall. Gray clouds hovered over the glass dome in the ceiling, casting a dim light on the wooden floor. They crossed it and pushed out through the great wooden doors into a cold January day.
She heard him inhale deeply from beside her, pleasure plain in the sound. It struck something within her, something that mourned for the years he’d spent locked up, though she barely knew him and definitely disapproved of what he’d done to get himself imprisoned.
“Air taste better when you’re free?” she asked.
“Hell of a lot better,” he said as he followed her down the grand stone steps. The pleasure was thick in his voice.
He’d be thrown back in prison when this was all over. She felt guilty about it, but it didn’t stop her. Whatever it takes. The motto had served her in the past and would continue to do so.
She finally had a chance to fix her life. To fix what she’d screwed up so badly. For ten years, her life had revolved around her failure to locate the Book of Worlds, as she’d been prophesied to do. Hell, it still revolved around it and probably always would.
Five different fate gods had prophesied that she’d return it to the safety of the university. And she’d failed to find it. For ten years.
That book defined her. It was everything that made her special, everything that made her a failure.
Her skin prickled as they strode across the cobblestone parking lot, around the great oak in the middle, and toward her little hatchback, which she’d parked in the shadowiest part of the lot. It was lime green and stood out like a priest in a brothel. She had no reason to be parked at the prison and didn’t want anyone noticing her car.
No sooner had the thought crossed her mind than a car door slammed. She jerked her head to the right and caught sight of Cerus, one of her colleagues in the Department of Magical Devices. Francis climbed out of the dark sedan after him. Her spine stiffened as they glanced at her and their mouths twisted in a sneer.
Her head snapped back toward her car and she picked up her pace, her cheeks burning with shame. She prayed they didn’t catch sight of Ian’s collar.
“Friends of yours?” Ian asked.
“Hardly.” They were former colleagues, from before she’d been demoted for faili
ng to find the Book of Worlds. Their open disdain was a fact of life now, and she despised it. But she was a Failte, one who’d failed her fate, and she should expect it.
She shook the thought away and glanced at Ian out of the corner of her eye, struck once again by the sheer physicality of him. He was so damn big. Three or four inches over six feet. Nearly a foot taller than her and all hard muscle.
When she’d stood so close to him and snapped the collar about his neck, it had been as if a live wire had connected them. She’d wanted to touch him, to see if he felt as hard as he looked.