He couldn't let them get away with her. He couldn't lose track of her.

He cursed the f.u.c.king keys, shoving another one into the lock. Tynan had reached through the bars and pressed a hand against Madoc's back.

Pain flared under his skin, sinking into his wounds as Tynan used his magic to knit them shut. "It's not much, but it's all I can do."

Madoc almost thanked him, but a key finally turned and he blasted out of his cell. He tossed the keys through the bars to Tynan, took a battered sword from Tori's hands, and rushed after the pile of Synestryn that had Nika.

He found them in the chamber they'd first entered, and came to a dead stop. There were more of them. He had no idea where they'd all come from, but he knew for a fact that he'd never seen this many Synestryn together in one place at the same time ever before.

They were so dead.

Still, there was no way he was giving up on her. He'd free her or die trying.

Tynan appeared at his side, sword in hand. He was breathing hard and the tip of the sword vibrated in his hand. He was either really weak or really scared. Either way, he wasn't going to be of much use.

"Get Tori out if you can," bellowed Madoc as he hacked off the head of another demon. "I'm going after Nika."

"There's too many of them. You'll kill yourself."

"I'm dead without her, anyway. Now go."

Madoc didn't wait to see whether Tynan did as he'd asked. He waded into the group that had descended into a feeding frenzy. They were turning on themselves, ripping one another apart for a drop of Nika's blood.

He cut his way through, slashing at them like wheat, not bothering to see whether they got back up or not. Bodies littered the ground, and hunched over each of them were several more, ripping flesh away with their bare hands.

One of the demons lifted a sword as if preparing to cut off Nika's hand. Madoc wasn't going to let that happen.

He lunged for the thing, slipping on blood. He missed lopping off its head and instead sliced a deep cut along its chest. More blood splattered to the floor.

Madoc made a grab for Nika, caught her ankle, and pulled hard, ripping her from the demons' hold. He was sure he'd hurt her being so rough, but it was a h.e.l.l of a lot better than what they were going to do to her.

He stood over her body, fending off as many of the things as he could, but there were too many. He couldn't defend his own back.

Something sliced across his ribs, making him grit his teeth in pain. He lifted his sword awkwardly, realizing something vital to movement had been severed. His right arm was useless.

He switched the sword to his left, going completely defensive. This whole cl.u.s.terf.u.c.k wasn't going to last much longer. He knew a lost cause when he saw one.

They were both going to die in here, and the only solace he could find was that he'd been able to love Nika. She had made sure that he'd die with his soul intact, and without his soul, he couldn't have loved her. Loving her was one of the greatest gifts he'd ever been given.

Madoc did his best to fend off the blows of the few beasts that weren't too busy feeding to fight him. None of the demons managed to hit Nika, but he'd taken more than a few cuts. He felt his strength draining as his bleeding increased.

More blows landed on his arms, slicing his skin open. The hilt of his sword became slick and hard to hold. His heart started beating faster, fluttering in his chest as it tried in vain to pump blood to his extremities.

Love you, Nika. I'm sorry I failed you.

Madoc's love flowed into the tiny sliver of Nika that was left huddled in her mind, hiding from the things that wanted her blood.

Until now, all she'd felt coming from him was determination, pain, despair. The love spilling out of him glowed bright, searing her with its intensity. It filled her up, made her strong. Even with all the other parts of her missing, he somehow managed to make her feel whole.

Nika slid inside his mind, needing to bask in that love. Everything was so wrong and confusing right now, and the only good thing she could find was him. She needed that goodness to rea.s.sure her.

The link between them had grown, or maybe she'd shrunk. Either way, the little bit of her that was left felt tiny as she moved into him, needing to be as close to him as she could get.

Once she was there, Nika realized what was happening. He was under attack. Synestryn were hurting him, killing him. She could feel his pain and the seep of blood from his body. He struggled to find enough breath to keep moving, but he managed somehow.

Through his eyes, she saw the horde of demons. They already had her blood and now they wanted his.

Rage rose up inside her, so strong she felt her very soul shake with the force of it. Her connection with these things shimmered in the air, humming, taunting her. They pulled at her, urging her to come into them and kill. Feed on Madoc's blood.

She was going to kill every last one of them.

Nika searched out the source of Madoc's power and sped toward it. Like a huge, shimmering lake of glowing liquid, she saw it looming ahead of her. Without thinking about what might happen, she dove in, immersing herself in that power, soaking as much of it in as she could.

It writhed inside her, needing to be set free. Nika wasn't going to disappoint it.

She reached out for one of the demons tugging at her and slammed a chunk of energy straight into its head. The thing didn't even have time to scream before she felt it die. The slice of her that it had stolen came back to her, but she barely noticed such a small piece. She was too busy searching for her next target.

Madoc could no longer lift his sword. He curled his body around Nika's and let the blows. .h.i.t him. This was the end, but he thrust all the pain and fear from his mind and concentrated on the feel of Nika in his arms, letting it comfort him.

He didn't think they'd kill hera"at least, not once the feeding frenzy was over and they remembered their orders. All he had to do was stay alive long enough to keep her safe until then. One of his brothers would come for her and save her. Andra would come and blow them all to h.e.l.l. Nika would be okay. He had to believe that.

The frenzy behind him went quiet. No more blades sliced through his skin, which surprised him. Maybe he'd gone into shock and couldn't feel anything.

But if that was the case, then how could he feel the smoothness of Nika's skin? Feel the sweep of her breath against his face?

Confused, Madoc glanced over his shoulder.

The demons were no longer fighting or feeding. One by one they clutched their heads, then simply fell over, dead. At first, it was just a few, then more and more until not a single demon was left moving.

Nika. She was doing this. She was killing them from the inside, taking control of their minds, using their hunger for her blood against them.

Brilliant, beautiful woman.

Madoc slid his hand so the halves of the luceria locked together. He tried to make power flow into her more easilya"doing what little he could to help her.

He eased into her thoughts, looking for something more he could do. What he saw made him reel back in horror.

Her mind was twisting with hunger for blood and a frenzied desire to kill. Holes were gouged out of her, ripped away. He could almost see the slimy ties that connected her to the Synestryn, thick, oily, and dripping with black blood.

She was screaming. Fighting to regain those lost chunks of her mind.

Madoc had to help. He had to slay these things before they ripped her sanity away again.

He intended to set her behind him and take up his sword against the Synestryn, but his arms weren't working right. His legs buzzed with weakness and he couldn't even shift her weight, much less stand. All he could do was shield her with his body and hope she was strong enough to save herself.

Madoc stared down at her, praying it wasn't for the last time. There was so much he wanted for her. So many things she hadn't experienced, so many things he wanted to show her. She'd lost years of her life to the Synestryn. It didn't seem fair that she'd die now.

He wished like h.e.l.l she'd open her eyes and let him know she was okay.

The wet thud of bodies falling to the ground went on for a long time before it finally stopped. Madoc didn't have the strength to lift his head. He tried to squeeze her tight to let her know he was there, but his arms were too weak to manage even that. He'd lost a lot of blood. He didn't see how he was going to get either of them out of here.

"I'm sorry, Nika. I failed you." That failure bore down on him, driving the breath from his lungs.

Her eyes opened. They were bloodshot, which made them look so blue, just like the skies from his childhood. So pretty.

Her delicate hand cradled his cheek and he felt a tingling sweep out over his skin. "You didn't fail me. You never will."

She said it like she thought they had a future together. Madoc had been hurt enough times to know that it wasn't looking good. He was bleeding out.

"I've called Tynan. He's coming."

"How did you . . . ?"

"He drank my blood. We're connected now."

"I'm not sure how much I like the idea of your being connected to another man."

"You'll get used to it. And once we get home, I'm going to show you exactly how you're different from any other man in my life."

"Now, that's something to live for."

She gave him a weak smile. "He's almost here. You're not going to get away from me that easy."

Footsteps came around the corner, but Madoc didn't have the strength to see who it was.

"Looks like you could use more patching up," said Tynan.

Relief made Madoc dizzy. "A little."

"Yeah. And I'm Santa Claus. Hold on; this might hurt," said Tynan. "We're in a bit of a rush."

Madoc braced himself, but whatever Tynan did felt like he'd taken a blowtorch to his back. When he laid his hands on Nika, Madoc nearly stopped him, but figured pain was preferable to bleeding to death.

She pulled in a harsh breath, but showed no other signs that Tynan had hurt her.

Tynan was shaking when he pulled his hand away. "There. That'll do for now. We need to move before it's too late."

"Where's Tori?" asked Madoc.

"Waiting outside, freezing," said Tynan. "Let's go before we can't."

Chapter 31.

Tynan was so exhausted, he barely made it back to his suite. The trip home had been long and filled with silence. Gilda and Angus hadn't made it out. No one had heard from them. Tynan feared the worst.

Fatigue weighed him down, so strong he could hardly feel the hunger rumbling through him, weakening him. He'd pushed too hard tonight. It had been necessary, but it had nearly killed him.

Later he would feed more. What he'd taken from the Theronai hadn't been nearly enough to replenish his strength. Right now he needed to sleep, but it had to wait for just a few more minutes.

He went to the spare upstairs bedroom where he kept his lab and took the tiny, lifeless newborn out from under his shirt. There had been so much chaos, none of the others had noticed him hiding the baby under his coat.

And it was a baby, unlike the previous creatures they'd found. It was perfect, every tiny facet of its body an exact replica of a human, or a Sentinel.

Tynan didn't know why it hadn't lived, but he intended to find out. And then, when he had, he'd bury the boy in the graveyard with the others who had fallen. This child did not deserve to suffer for its parentage, and Tynan refused to treat it like so much garbage, leaving it lying on a dirty cave floor.

He understood why Tori couldn't face her child's death right now, but one day she'd be ready. When she was healed. When she was older. She was still a child herself, but one day he'd be able to lead her to the unmarked grave of her baby, giving her a place to grieve.

Tynan wrapped the infant up in a clean towel and laid it gently in his lab's refrigerator. It seemed a dishonor to the life that could have been, but there was no help for it. He would do what must be done, as he always had.

Andra raced into Dabyr, ignoring all the chaos. Paul was right on her heels. Neither one of them had slept in days, but her fatigue seemed to evaporate the closer she got to home.

She knew from her phone call that Nika was safe, but Andra wasn't going to relax until she saw her sister firsthand. And when she'd done that, she had an even bigger issue to deal with.

Nika had found Tori. Alive. After all these years.

Andra still couldn't believe ita"not even after having struggled with the life-changing news for the hours it had taken to get back home. Andra had buried what she thought had been her sister's remains last year. How could this have happened? How could she have been so wrong? Was Tori's "appearance" now a trick by the Synestryn, or was the trick played on her when she'd carried a stranger's bones out of that cave?

If it weren't for Tynan's vow that the blood of the girl they found was unmistakably linked to her and Nika, Andra probably still wouldn't believe it. Maybe part of her still didn't. She needed to see Tori with her own eyes, hold her in her arms like she used to when Tori was a little girl.

Andra sped through the corridors toward their suite, praying that Nika hadn't been fooled and this wasn't all some kind of horrible trick the Synestryn were playing. She so desperately wanted this outcome to be real.

Andra burst through the door. Madoc jumped to his feet and pulled his sword before he recognized her. As soon as he did, his big body melted back onto the couch in a pile of exhaustion. Nika left his side and went into Andra's open arms.

Andra hugged her hard, breathing in the scent of her little sister's pale hair. She felt delicate inside Andra's embrace, but no longer quite so fragile.

When Nika pulled away, her blue eyes were wet and she wore a bittersweet smile. "Tori's alive."

Emotions swelled inside Andra, jumbled together in an almost indecipherable pile. She felt relief and joy that her baby sister was safe, but shame that she'd written her off for dead. "I need to see her."

Nika nodded and led her down the hall to the spare bedroom.

Tori lay on the bed, sleeping. She looked pale and thin, but what was most striking was that she looked exactly like the girl Andra had seen in her mind last year. She'd been trying to find Sibyl, who'd been abducted, and instead she'd found a girl she'd thought was a younger version of Nika.

In that moment, Andra knew the truth: This young woman was the baby sister she'd lost nearly nine years agoa"her sweet Tori.

Tears burned Andra's eyes and her throat ached, fighting the need to cry. All these years. She'd left Tori in the hands of those monsters, abandoning her for dead. Shame welled up inside her so thick she couldn't breathe. How could she have seen Tori and not known who she was? How could she have walked away without recognizing her own sister?

Tori opened her eyes, but there was no warm greeting in thema"just a cold, distant stare from a stranger.

"I'm so sorry," she whispered, unable to find enough air to speak. Not that it mattered. Nothing she could ever say would make up for what she'd donea"what she'd allowed the Synestryn to do to Tori.

Tori said nothing. Not that Andra blamed her. What was there to say? The common response of "It's all right" simply didn't apply. What Andra had done wasn't all right. Neither was Tori. Part of her was missing, as if the Synestryn had scooped out something vital and left a hollow spot behind.