“That is all anyone can promise, Vasilisa,” Siv said, nuzzling the top of her head. “When it comes to a battle, things tend to happen very fast.”
“I understand.”
“I have got to go.” He stood up with his lifemate in his arms, and he set her firmly on the floor of the little cabin. “I’ll get back as soon I can.”
“I’m going to stay connected to you for as long as possible.”
He shook his head. “Vasilisa, the underworld is no place for you. If you see your brothers being tortured or acting in a way that would be upsetting to you, you could easily give us away. You didn’t see everything that happened to me during my time in the underworld because you deliberately skipped over the worst of what they did to me. They will be doing those things to your brothers in an effort to break them completely. Lilith knows a part of your siblings is fighting against her control. She will punish them for that.”
She lifted her chin. “I’m stronger than you think. If my brothers have to suffer, as I’m certain they will, why should I be spared? If I can aid you in any way, even by my presence, I want to be able to do so.”
Afanasiv considered what she was asking. He would feel the same. He wanted to protect her, but she was another pair of eyes. She also was very steady as a rule, and a woman. Lilith tended to use women as the captains of her armies. She might spot something important before he could.
“Never make a sound,sívamet. If you must retreat, do it slowly andquietly. Only a very small part of you can be with me. The rest of you must guard this cabin at all times. Put up your strongest safeguards. Sorina did teach you how to do this?” He made it a question.
“Yes, since I was fairly young and we played together. I didn’t know at the time that was what she was doing, but she was. After we realized we were both changing into something different, she really worked at teaching me how to safeguard any place I was sleeping.”
“Let’s do this, then, lifemate.” He framed her face with both hands and looked into her vivid blue eyes. She had beautiful eyes. Eyes a man could drown in. He brushed kisses gently over both eyes, the tip of her elegant nose and then the corners of her mouth. “I’ll add my safeguards to yours,” he murmured against her soft lips. “The weaves will be in my mind for you to follow.”
He ran the pad of his thumb over the curve of her bottom lip, etching the feel and texture of it into his soul for all time. Then he took her mouth. Gentle. Coaxing. Tender. Promising. Tasting her as she opened for him. The rush started. The heat. The flames. The fire. He wasn’t certain if he was the match or she was. They came together in a fiery explosion that was never-ending. He didn’t want it to end. It was the most feeling he’d ever experienced. Overwhelming. Good. Paradise. His brain turned off, so there was no real ability to think. He had Vasilisa and the way she made every nerve ending in his body come alive. Hot blood rushed through his veins and thundered in his ears, roared in his groin, pooling to make urgent demands.
He didn’t know who pulled back first, but suddenly he felt very much bereft, his mouth just scant inches from hers. “I know I was supposed to go somewhere and do something very important, but that’s gone up in flames.”
Her laughter was low, her blue eyes soft. Her fingers traced his bottom lip gently. “I believe you were about to go off on a rescue mission to retrieve my brothers from the depths of hell. Something easy like that.”
He nodded and captured her hands. “Be safe, Vasilisa. Don’t takeany chances. Anyone coming to the cabin—anyone at all—related to you, looking like one of your friends, could easily be someone compromised.”
She nodded her head. “I’m well aware. I won’t allow anyone in, no matter the circumstances.”
“They can get inventive. Wolves devouring someone right outside your door.”
“They could try that, but I control the wolves. If they didn’t obey me, I would know immediately that it was a setup. Go before the sun is up.”
“Seal the fault after me. Leave one tiny space my spirit will come through that only you know of. Do not share with me.”
Afanasiv saw the uneasiness on her face. “You cannot. We need to take precautions. A part of you will be with me, so you’ll know if you will need to escape quickly. This is a dangerous place. I cannot emphasize that enough. I have demons in me; you do not.”
Vasilisa nodded. “Go then. Hurry back to me.”
He turned away from her, one of the most difficult things he’d ever had to do. He knew what it was like in the underworld. It hadn’t been easy escaping. He’d been there with his physical body. This time he was only taking his spirit. That gave him both advantages and disadvantages. He lay down on the cot, stretching out to full length, and—without allowing further thought on the subject—shed his physical body.
Vasilisa touched his mind. Afanasiv felt her entrance, that sweet feminine brush along the walls of his brain. So light. Not tentative. She was never that. She knew what she wanted, and she acted with confidence most of the time. She generally filled every empty, lonely space with her energy, making him feel whole and complete. Right now, she found a very small space, barely there, and fit her spirit inside it.
He moved fast. He knew exactly where the fault line was, and hehastened to it. Vasilisa would be exposed, alone out in the wild while she sealed the long fissure and then set the safeguards for the cabin. Afanasiv wanted to quickly disappear into the underworld so she wasn’t exposed aboveground for too long.
He didn’t wait or hesitate. A single spirit, one already possessing demon properties, would slip past the guardians easily—and he did. The fetid odors didn’t get to him the way they had his physical body when he’d been there before. He could separate the smells of blood and sweat and agony, even fear and terror. There were levels of all of those things and scents to each that could easily debilitate one.
In his spirit form, he was wide open to the suffering and agony of those held in the underworld. He felt anguish and fear bombarding him from every direction. The hopelessness of those in torment and misery was debilitating. Worse, those sounds and feelings, amplified by his ability to feel emotions, triggered pieces of his memories to come alive to taunt him. His lifemate hadn’t gone back far enough. There had been more than one visit to the underworld, and there had been many reasons to shut, lock and barricade the doors to those memories.
He knew where the prisoners were kept, at least the ones that Lilith took an interest in. These prisoners weren’t the lucky ones that were kept in cages and mostly forgotten. These were men and women and sometimes even children she had tortured for her own pleasure or because they committed some infraction against her. He hurried past several sentries, down a long corridor, until he could hear the moans and despairing cries of the captives locked in their cells.
He stopped his forward progress near the cell of a young woman dressed in torn clothing. Her dress had once been a beautiful gown, one she might have worn to a party, but it was in tatters and smeared with blood in some places, and in others, the blood was thicker and much more of a bright crimson. She rocked herself back and forth in an effort to self-soothe or run away from the pain she obviously felt.
“Karine, you must look at me,” a male voice commanded.
The girl shook her head. “Don’t talk to me. You’re an illusion. I refuse to do one single thing you want me to do. I will not believe Grigor would turn on his people. I will not believe he would go back on his word to me. Beat me to death. Kill me right now. I will not do what you want me to do. I will not say what you want me to say.”
Afanasiv liked her at once. She was a spunky little thing. He even saw the glow that Grigor had told his twin brother about. She did shine from the inside out.