When she came back to herself she was in Saint’s arms, his face pressed against her neck. She felt the wetness of tears against her skin. She glided her hands across his hard chest and shoulders, soothing him without thinking to do so.
Something struck the earth in the distance and lumps of dirt fell to the carpet. Christina lifted her head, blinking to clear the haze of lingering magic and sexual bliss.
Earlier, she’d assumed that the entire earth was shaking around them in a quake, but now she realized the chamber shook because something heavy was being hurtled against the tunnel walls repeatedly.
“Saint,” she breathed out warily.
“I know.” He gently lifted her off his cock, both of them wincing at the sensation.
“Get dressed. Quickly,” Saint ordered.
Christina began to do as he said, despite her rising disorientation. Distant thunder occasionally shook the underground chamber.
She pulled her T-shirt down and stood, fully dressed. She glanced around the now-dusty chamber.
“Where’s Teslar?”
Saint glanced up from fastening his button-fly.
“He’s gone, Christina. I thought you understood. I used to control Teslar from without. But, because of you, I can now contain him from within.”
His magnificent muscles flexed as he drew his shirt over his head. Christina gaped when she saw the scar on his left pectoral muscle. It wasn’t the same scar that had been on Teslar…this one was newer, pink, and less jagged looking.
Still, it was in the same position and was precisely the same shape as Teslar’s had been.
“Teslar’s inside you?” she whispered in awe when Saint stood before her, fully dressed.
“In a manner of speaking,” Saint said quietly. “Better to say that because of you, I was able to absorb him. I always told you we were one. Teslar was my shadow…my dark half. We sprang from the same mother cell. But now I hold ascendancy over him. Don’t be afraid, Stina.”
She wondered what expression had showed on her face to make him say it with so much emotion.
She’d known there was magic at work in their lovemaking, but she hadn’t expected this.
“I’m not afraid of you,” she admitted shakily. “I’m just…stunned. Even though I thought I understood before…it’s still quite a shock.”
He nodded once.
“We have to get out of here. The Iniskium’s attack on the Scourge revenants is going to collapse this ancient tunnel.”
“That’s what’s causing the shaking?” Christina asked as Saint took her hand. They dodged falling earth and timber as he led her out of the carpeted chamber.
He nodded grimly. “And from the sounds of it, it’s the worst battle the Iniskium have launched in several centuries.”
Saint moved aside the thick carpet and Christina followed him.
They stepped straight into chaos.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The ancient freight tunnel that stretched ahead of them was thick with dust and both inert and writhing bodies. Christina’s eyes went wide when a huge, dark shadow came springing in the air toward them. Saint grabbed her arm, holding her in place behind him. He slashed with his right arm and then kicked.
She stared in horrified disgust at the muscular, panther-like prowler that fell to the floor with a dull thud. The severed head Saint had kicked with his booted foot bounced next to its chest, the cruel jaw frozen in a snarl around jagged teeth.
Saint didn’t spare the beheaded revenant a glance. He grabbed her wrist with one hand, holding his heartluster in the other, and led her down the chamber. They had to pick their way across dozens of bleeding bodies, some of them still, some in the final throes of battle.
Saint slashed with his heartluster several times as they moved, abruptly ending the struggle of what might have been mortal combats. Once, he knelt and touched a fallen woman’s cheek.
“Help is coming, Shrinar. Can you hold out?”