Her mouth opened and closed, no sound coming out as her fear bled away to confusion, then… hope.
I didn’t have those emotions that got in the way with knowing shit had to be done in order to stay alive and on top. I didn’t allow love or sadness, happiness or yearning to cloud my judgment. There was no pleasure in my life.
I only had loyalty and the need for bloodshed.
“My mate?”
I could see the hope filling her face, and I felt like a bastard for feeling indifference mixed with impatience.
“I overheard the guards talking about you, saying your name and your mate’s as I was taken out of one of their torture rooms.” I tried to keep the harsh growl from my voice, but even thinking about the shit they put me through made me a grouchy asshole. “If you want to get to him, I know where he’s at.”
Feigning like I was damn near comatose from the drugs had led these pricks to have loose lips around me.
“I don’t know where the other guards are, and I don’t know how long we have before they swarm in. We have to go now.” I didn’t wait for her to follow. She’d either come with me or take her chances alone. A part of me didn’t want to throw her to the wolves, but I didn’t have the time or patience to coddle a female who wasn’t even mine.
I heard her following only a moment later, and I felt the tightness in my chest wane.
Despite the corridors looking all the same, I’d been taken from my cell more times than I could count while being here. I had memorized the labyrinth of hallways well enough to find my way to where I knew Odhran was being held.
“Who are you?” she whispered behind me, but I kept moving.
I made sure to scan every available space in front of me, to the sides, and extended my senses outward so I didn’t miss an ambush. We’d only been walking for another minute before I held out my hand to stop her.
I could smell the stink of human depravity.
I pressed my forearm to her chest and shoved the female back against the wall so suddenly I heard the air give out from her lungs. I instantly felt her disgust from my close proximity, and knew because I wasn’t her fated mate, touching her would cause her physical discomfort. I lowered my arm from her and focused ahead as the humans came closer.
I looked down at her and lifted my hand to place a finger to my lips, making sure she knew she had to be silent. A moment later the sound of low voices came through.
I stared at Odhran’s mate, keeping my composure calm and easy because that’s exactly how I felt. But I wanted to physically portray that to her in the hopes it would ease her. I could see she had seen a lot of shit, and knew from her Lycan mate that she’d been trapped with the Assembly for decades.
I inhaled deeply, scenting the Assembly humans coming closer. I felt my eyes flashing red intermittently, unable to hide the thrill and high I got with the thought of taking their lives.
Two human males walked by from the opposite direction, their backs toward us, their conversation low. I held in my growl, kept still, and didn’t attack… yet.
I wanted to go to them, to break their necks and drain their bodies of blood. But I stayed back because it wasn’t just me to think of right now. I’d get Odhran’s mate to him if it fucking killed me.
When the humans were gone and we could no longer hear their voices, I gestured for her to follow me again. We went in the opposite direction, taking a left, then a right, my memorization of this fucking place leading us to where I knew the Lycan was being held.
I stopped when we arrived at a large metal door, the small, wired window in the center showing a slice of the interior.
There were cells on either side of the room and a human stationed at the end of each point of the walkway. I glanced at the nymph and grinned before using the key card I’d swiped from the now dead humans to open the door, and stepped inside.
Right away I grabbed the guard closest to me and snapped his neck, then ripped the throat out of the other. The noise within the cell block grew tenfold as the Otherworld creatures caged inside went berserk at the violence and bloodshed.
“In here,” I called out to Odhran’s mate, and saw her glance around the corner before hesitantly stepping inside.
Corpses littered the ground, and blood was splattered across the concrete. The nymph stood there and watched as I went from cell to cell and used the key card to unlock each one.