Chapter 21

Chapter Twenty-One

PIPER

The thudding of their boots echoed in the concrete stairwell as Piper raced down flight after flight behind Ash and Lyre. She jumped two steps to a landing, her backpack bouncing against her shoulders, and checked the floor number on her way past an exit door—second level. One more to go.

Ash reached the main floor exit and stopped in front of the metal door. He tilted his head, then stepped back. “There’s movement on the other side. Go down.”

Piper had no time to ask how he knew there was movement on the other side of a door with no windows. She descended the next flight into the basement and had barely rounded a corner onto the next landing when the door above clanged.

Voices reverberated in the stairwell. Piper, Ash, and Lyre held still, waiting to see which direction the prefects would go. Searching the units made more sense. Only idiots would trap themselves in a basement, right?

A jumble of terse conversation ensued, then clomping steps, but it was impossible to tell which way the prefects were headed.

Ash swore. “They split up. Keep going.”

How did he know all this? He’d tossed Zwi out the window to fly away before they’d left the unit, so she couldn’t be checking for him—though Piper had no idea how Ash seemed to know where his dragonet was at all times either.

Carrying the briefcase of files in one hand, Lyre shoved the exit door open, revealing a long, dimly lit hallway lined with closed doors. There was nowhere to hide. The prefects would see them before they could run all the way to the end.

Lyre cast a look around, then swerved toward the nearest door. He grasped the handle. It didn’t budge. Magic sizzled, a clack sounded, and he swung the door inward. The three of them crowded inside.

It was a boiler room. Clusters of pipes sprouted from a big horizontal tank at the back—the boiler, she assumed. The rest of the room was jammed with metal ducts, some large enough to crawl through, that ran along the walls and disappeared into the ceiling. The only free space was piled with junk—pieces of ductwork, cans of paint, a broken chair, and other garbage.

“We’ll have to hide,” Lyre said.

Hide? Where the hell were two guys, one girl, three backpacks, and a briefcase supposed to hide in this?—

Lyre closed the door with a snap, plunging the room into darkness. Piper’s heart pounded in her throat as she stretched her hands out, catching the back of Ash’s shirt as he stepped forward.

“I can’t see,” she hissed.

His hand closed around hers, and he led her slowly through the darkness. Her toe collided with something that clanked like an empty paint can. The musty air was hot and stifling, and she was already sweating. A fan in the ventilation system hummed loudly, and a piece of ductwork vibrated with a high-pitched metallic rattle.

A bang sounded from the hall. The prefects had reached the basement.

“Watch your head,” Ash whispered.

With her free hand, Piper groped at the air in front of her and found pipes at shoulder height. Stooping, she squinted in the darkness. Faint light leaked under the door, and as her eyes adjusted, she picked out Ash’s shape. He drew her toward the boiler.

Prefect voices filled the hallway outside the room.

Ash’s destination was a gap between the boiler and the back wall—a small gap. It was barely wide enough for Ash’s shoulders as he scooted in backward until he was tucked out of sight from anyone coming through the door.

Crouching, Piper glanced around. Where was she supposed to hide?

“What about in here?” a male voice yelled, so close he could have been standing outside the room.

Teeth gritted, Piper slid her backpack off, jammed it under the boiler, and sat in the only spot available: Ash’s lap. Her hand landed in a spider web by the wall, and she yanked it away, choking back a squeal of disgust.

The door rattled. Piper could just make out Lyre’s silhouette as he slid sideways into another gap between the ducts and the wall.

The handle rattled again, but the door didn’t open.

“It’s locked,” a man called.

Someone else answered. The noise grew fainter as the prefects moved down the corridor. Ash relaxed—and Piper felt a whole lot of hard muscle shift wherever their bodies touched.

Despite being scrunched in a stuffy room full of hot metal pipes with spider webs everywhere, her awareness narrowed to Ash. Her back was pressed against his chest, his breath hot on the side of her neck, his leg flexing under her ass like he was uncomfortable—which he probably was.

Seconds ticked past, agonizingly slow, as they listened to the muffled sounds of the prefects searching the other rooms in the basement. Piper wiped the sticky cobweb strands on her pants. Heat radiated off the boiler beside them, and her face was damp with perspiration.

Ash abruptly jammed his hands under her ass and heaved her up a couple of inches so he could straighten his leg. He settled her onto his lap again, and his sigh of relief whispered across the back of her neck, stirring strands of hair that had come loose from her ponytail.

His hands rested on her waist. Her bare waist, because she’d cut the bottom of her shirt away in a pointless attempt to look like a sexy clubber.

It was a casual touch. He might not even realize he’d left his hands on her exposed skin. But she was aware of it. Very, very aware. His hands spanned her hip bones, and her skin felt flushed beneath his touch, her heartbeat racing from more than adrenaline.

“Would they hurry up and leave?” Lyre whispered irritably, his voice almost inaudible over the mechanical hum. “We’re going to suffer heat stroke before they’re gone.”

“How long will they keep searching?” Piper muttered, trying to sound neither breathless nor desperate to escape this situation.

“Quiet,” Ash said, presumably listening for clues as to what the prefects were doing. Their voices echoed in the hall, and doors slammed. The noises grew closer. Were the prefects backtracking?

An itchy feeling prickled Piper’s knee. She started to reach for her leg to scratch the spot when the boiler room door rattled again.

“Just break it,” someone said.

Bang.

The prefects had slammed something into the locked handle. The whole door shook.

The prickly feeling on her leg intensified, and Piper gritted her teeth, not daring to move. Another violent clang reverberated through the room.

The prickly feeling crept across her knee—and she realized it wasn’t a random itch. Something was crawling up her leg .

Bang! The handle broke and the door flew open, flooding the room with light.

Piper screamed.

Ash clapped a hand over her mouth at the last second, and the thud of the door swinging into the wall covered her muffled shriek. Ash clamped his other arm around her middle like a vise.

“Hold still,” he hissed in her ear.

An electric charge of magic rushed through her, coming from Ash. A spell. She had no idea what its purpose was, and she didn’t care—because the biggest spider she had ever seen was sitting on her knee, right on top of the rip in the fabric. It was brown and bristly, and its buggy black eyes stared right at her as it wriggled its fangs like it was chewing on something.

Flashlight beams flickered around the room, and Ash was crushing the air out of her to keep her still, his hand tight over her mouth. She still didn’t care. Death by firing squad was inconsequential. Preferred, even. Anything to get the spider off her.

“There’s no one here,” a prefect announced.

“Big surprise,” another complained. A light skimmed along the floor. “Wait, what’s that?”

Ash’s fingers twitched against her face. The spider inched over her knee and onto her thigh.

“Never mind, just a reflection,” the guy said. “Let’s go.”

Their footsteps clomped out into the hall, and the broken door swung most of the way closed, leaving a narrow strip of light from the hall to illuminate the room.

Piper couldn’t look away from the spider. Her chest heaved, air rushing through her nose. Ash started to loosen his grip on her middle.

“Hurry up!”

The bellowed order came from outside the door, and Piper jumped—which made the spider jump. In a flash, it leaped onto her exposed stomach, its horrible prickly feet poking her skin.

She lost it, screaming into Ash’s hand and flailing like a mad thing. He struggled to hold her on his lap, then twisted sideways, dumping her onto the floor on her back and pinning her arms.

“Hold still,” he growled. “Where is it?”

“Where’s what?” Lyre hissed. “What’s wrong?”

Piper went stiff as a board, Ash straddling her hips. Her muscles quivered, and tears streamed from her eyes. Give her minotaurs, sphinxes, anything but spiders.

“I don’t see it,” Ash whispered.

Something tippy-tapped against her stomach—under the hem of her shirt. She swallowed a screech of terror and tried to launch off the floor, almost headbutting Ash.

“In my shirt! It’s in my shirt!”

Ash yanked the hem of her shirt up to her bra. She felt the spider race across her torso. Then Ash’s hand swept over her skin, and the feel of the spider vanished.

“Where is it?” she gasped.

“I got it. It’s dead.”

Piper sucked in air, her limbs trembling. Little more than a silhouette in the faint light, Ash flicked his fingers like he was shaking water off them—or spider bits. Had he squashed it with his bare hand? Just the thought made her stomach lurch.

He peered at his palm. “It bit me.”

“It bit you? ” she repeated in horror, tensing to sit up—but she couldn’t. Ash was still straddling her, one hand braced beside her head. Her heart thumped against her ribs.

“Would somebody tell me what the hell is going on?” Lyre snarled.

“Spider,” Ash replied.

“A spider?” Lyre repeated mutinously.

“A huge spider,” Piper corrected, half angry, half humiliated. “It was crawling on me.”

“A spider,” the incubus said again, sounding even more displeased.

Ignoring him, she reached for Ash’s wrist. “Let me see. How bad is it?”

He allowed her to turn his hand around, but she couldn’t make out a bite mark in the dark.

“It’s fine,” he said. “I’m resistant to poisons.”

She blinked. “You are?”

“Yeah.” A brief pause. “Bugs don’t really… bug me.”

A laughing snort escaped her. “I’m okay with most bugs. Just not spiders.” She sucked in a deep breath. “Sorry for losing it.”

Ash shrugged. “Everyone has their phobias.”

“Even you?”

He tilted his head to look at the boiler on one side and the wall on the other—so close he’d probably scraped his shoulders while wrestling with her—then glanced at the pipes a foot above him.

“You’re claustrophobic?” she whispered in disbelief.

He started slightly, as though he hadn’t realized she could make him out in the darkness. She felt his leg muscles tense against her hips—and a blush heated her cheeks.

“Mostly just underground,” he admitted in a reluctant growl.

“Underground like this basement room,” she pointed out.

He was silent.

“You two can continue this party without me,” Lyre grouched, his words accompanied by a rustle as he squeezed out of his hiding spot. “I’m leaving. If the prefects are still out there, I’m just going to kill them.”

Piper rolled her eyes. As if an incubus could take on a whole squad of prefects with rifles.

Ash shifted off her and maneuvered out of the corner. Sitting up, Piper straightened her shirt, made sure the ring box was still in place, and grabbed her backpack. Slipping out from behind the boiler, she hastened after Ash, her cheeks flushed and heart still beating fast—because of the spider, obviously.

As they snuck up the stairs and out into the blessedly cool night air, Piper couldn’t stop glancing at Ash. She’d almost gotten them caught, but he hadn’t gotten nasty about it or made her feel stupid. He hadn’t even seemed angry. She just didn’t get it. Nothing he did was what she expected from him.

She crossed her arms over her chest, using the motion to covertly check on the Stone again. Whatever else he did or didn’t do, only one thing mattered: he wanted the Sahar, and a Hades assassin wouldn’t hesitate to kill her to get it.