Chapter 33

Chapter Thirty-Three

PIPER

She would never have spotted the trapdoor if it hadn’t been for the evil black speaker the Gaians had used to incapacitate Ash.

On her first pass through the basement, she’d found no other rooms or locked doors. She’d been searching for a hidden door or some other non-obvious place large enough to imprison two daemons when she glimpsed a tiny red light on one of the shelves. There sat the boxy speaker next to several old paint buckets, its power light happily glowing.

The trapdoor was an almost invisible square in the floor in front of the shelves. Its rusty metal latch blended into the dirty concrete.

Heart pounding, she wrenched the latch and heaved the steel door up. It banged against the shelf behind it, leaving a black hole in the floor.

“Lyre?” she yelled. “Ash?”

“Piper?” A shadow moved in the darkness, and Lyre’s face appeared a good six feet down from the trapdoor. “Turn off the speaker!”

Jolting, she leaped up, grabbed the speaker, and twisted the knob on top to zero. Then, for good measure, she tossed it to the floor and stomped on it until it broke into multiple pieces.

With a scuffing sound, Lyre’s head and shoulders appeared in the opening. He scrambled out the rest of the way.

“Are you okay?” she demanded. “What about Ash?”

“He’s in rough shape, but now that the sound has stopped—” An explosion rocked the ceiling, accompanied by the muffled sound of shrapnel peppering the floor above. Lyre flinched. “What the hell is going on?”

“The Gaians are under attack.” She returned to the trapdoor and peered into the darkness. “There’s a window we can use to escape, but we have to get Ash out first.”

“I’ll probably have to carry him. He’s—” Lyre broke off, turning sharply.

Springing to her feet, Piper spun just as the sound of thudding boots reached her ears—but it was too late to run or hide. Three Gaians charged toward them, her mother running on their heels.

“Piper!” Mona shouted.

“Don’t move,” a Gaian barked as he and his buddy pointed their rifles at Lyre.

Lyre bared his teeth, his amber irises darkening almost to black.

Mona pushed past the armed Gaians and seized Piper’s elbow. “Thank goodness I found you. Where’s your father and the other daemon?”

“Gone.” Piper wrenched her arm out of her mother’s grip. “And I’m leaving with Ash and Lyre.”

Her mother’s expression hardened. “You’re coming with me.”

“No, I’m?—”

Mona gestured sharply. Invisible magic snapped around Piper, locking her arms to her sides. She gawked for half a second, shocked that her mother would use a magic binding on her, then felt an instant wave of furious stupidity for letting it happen.

“Take the incubus upstairs,” Mona ordered, gesturing at two of the Gaians. “Piper, you’ll come quietly or we’ll have no choice but to shoot the incubus.”

A new wave of sickening disbelief rolled through Piper. “No choice but to shoot him? What the hell do you?—”

“Quiet,” Mona snapped. “You—close the trapdoor.”

As the two Gaians shoved Lyre ahead of them, the third kicked the trapdoor shut. It slammed closed with an ear-splitting clang, and he used the heel of his boot to jam the latch into the locked position.

“Go,” Mona told him, then pulled Piper with her. “Please don’t be so difficult, Piper. I don’t want to force you.”

“Then let me go?—”

“And what? Leave you here while we’re being swarmed by daemons and prefects?”

Daemons and prefects? How had that happened?

“We’ve pushed them back for the moment, and we’re evacuating everyone while we have the chance.”

Piper dug her heels into the floor. “You can’t just leave Ash trapped in that hole. What if?—”

“Good riddance.” She hauled Piper forward. “Staying isn’t an option. We already placed explosives throughout the building.”

Sickening terror plunged through Piper’s belly. “Are you insane? You placed explosives while there are people in the building?”

Mona didn’t answer, dragging Piper forward.

“You’re condemning Ash to die!” she yelled, digging in her heels again as they reached the stairs. “Mom! How can you be okay with this?”

Ahead of them, Lyre tried to stop, but a Gaian rammed the barrel of his gun into the incubus’s back, forcing him up several steps.

Mona yanked on Piper’s elbow, causing the invisible bindings to cut into her arms. “Your safety is the most important thing. Now move .”

Piper wasn’t sure what she’d expected. Maybe she’d thought that somewhere under Mona’s unfamiliar Gaian-leader exterior was the mother she remembered, but this woman was a stranger to her.

The last thread of intrinsic love and respect Piper had been clinging to snapped. As Mona wrenched Piper toward the stairs, she headbutted her mother in the face. Bone crunched under Piper’s forehead, and Mona staggered back with a shocked cry.

Halfway up the stairs, Lyre spun around and kicked a Gaian in the chest, sending him tumbling down the steps. As the other Gaian tried to aim his gun, the incubus bodychecked him into the wall. Piper wound up to kick the last armed Gaian in the head.

A deafening bang exploded through the basement.

Mona held a black pistol, the barrel aimed at the ceiling and a bullet hole marking the trajectory of her shot. Blood dripped off her chin from her broken nose. She swung her arm down to point her gun at Lyre.

“Piper,” she said calmly. “Do not test me again.”

Piper didn’t move. Neither did Lyre.

A loud chatter erupted. Wings flapping, Zwi careened out of the room Calder had been locked in—the room with the broken window. The small dragonet raced toward them, still chattering furiously.

Mona pointed her gun at the oncoming creature.

“No!” Piper shouted.

Black flames erupted around Zwi in midair. The dark inferno roared outward in a blast of hot wind and swirling ebony sparks, shoving Piper and Mona back a step. The binding spell around Piper’s arms broke as the dark magic swept over her.

The flames died as swiftly as they’d appeared. With a thump that vibrated through the floor, Zwi landed a few feet from Piper—but instead of a cat-sized dragonet, a horse-sized dragon towered over them. Her half-furled wings thumped against the walls, and when she stretched her neck upward, the horns on top of her head scraped the ceiling.

The dragon snarled, and she no longer sounded like an angry cat. The deep, rumbling, vicious sound made Piper’s blood run cold.

Zwi took a menacing step forward, her golden glare fixed on Mona. Mona’s hand trembled on her gun, but she didn’t pull the trigger. Even if a bullet could pierce dragon scale—a big if—a gunshot wound would barely slow the dragon down.

Mona stumbled back, retreating toward the stairs. With another growl, Zwi stepped in front of Piper.

“Piper,” Mona called desperately. “You have to come with me. It’s too dangerous to stay!”

“Let Lyre go!” Piper shouted back.

Zwi let out another snarl, but the Gaians behind Mona were scrambling up the steps, forcing Lyre with them at gunpoint. Mona backed up the stairs after them.

“Piper!” she yelled.

Piper clenched her hands into fists. She didn’t move.

With a final half-agonized, half-furious look, Mona turned and sprinted after the other Gaians. Zwi lunged at the stairs, snapping her huge jaws, but she didn’t give chase—the stairs were too narrow for her full-sized dragon form.

Pain throbbed in Piper’s chest with each racing beat of her heart. Her mother had abandoned her again.

Zwi arched her back. Black flames whooshed over her huge body, swirling wildly, then shrank down to the size of a cat and extinguished like a blown candle.

The feline-sized dragonet chirped urgently at Piper and raced toward the trapdoor.

“Wait!” Piper scooped the dragonet up off the floor. Zwi hissed angrily and Piper almost dropped her. “I’ll get Ash. You go after Lyre and try to help him.”

Zwi hesitated, her golden eyes intent on Piper’s face. She chirped, then sprang out of Piper’s arms. With bounding steps, she took off up the stairs.

Piper turned and sprinted back to the trapdoor.

“Ash?” she called, crouching to flip the latch. “I’m going to get you out!”

The rusty metal didn’t want to move, and she wrenched on it. Her hands slipped, and she fell on her ass. Jumping up, she tried to shove it with her foot. That idiot Gaian had jammed it. Piper kicked at it, her pulse racing with urgency.

The crack of an impact hitting the house upstairs shuddered down the walls. Fear jolted through Piper. Had the daemons and prefects outside resumed their attack?

Horribly aware that the entire house could explode at any moment, she let out a desperate shout as she kicked the latch again. The metal plate came loose. With a gasp of relief, she rotated it off the trapdoor and dragged it open for a second time.

“Ash?” she called into the darkness. A metal ladder, as rusty as the trapdoor, was bolted to the wall and led down into the hole. “I’m coming down.”

Not waiting for him to answer, she turned and felt for the ladder with her foot. Rung by rung, she descended, the air cooling with each step. By the time her boot crunched on gritty earth instead of metal, she could hardly see a thing. The light from a bare bulb above cast a square of murky light on the dirt floor, leaving everything else in darkness.

Squinting, she turned around, a hand still gripping the ladder.

Three walls were made of cement blocks. The fourth was a heap of clay and dislodged blocks where half the room had caved in. Piper couldn’t tell if it used to be some kind of underground storage or a poorly constructed bunker.

Ash sat against the wall across from the ladder, a shadow on the gray concrete. She could hear his quick, labored breaths.

“Ash?” she whispered.

She didn’t know why she was whispering, but making any loud noises or sudden movements felt… dangerous. Somewhere above, a boom was followed by a crash that sounded like a collapsing ceiling.

“Piper.”

Ash’s voice was a low rasp. He sounded different, and that prickly feeling of danger increased.

She released the ladder and shuffled toward him. “We have to get out of here. I’ll help you up, okay?”

Her eyes were adjusting to the dark, and she could make out more details—like how pale Ash’s face was in the darkness and the sheen of perspiration on his face. She could see the tic in his clenched jaw. And she could see his black irises.

He was shaded. Really, really shaded.

She hesitated a step away from him—but he’d shaded around her before and hadn’t blindly attacked like other daemons were prone to do. She didn’t have time to wait for him to calm down, assuming that would happen anytime soon.

“We’re getting out of here,” she said again, keeping her voice low. “Come on, Ash.”

She crouched beside him, hesitated for a second more, then lightly touched his arm. His bicep contracted under her fingertips, and he let out a hissing breath. She froze, waiting for him to either control himself or rip out her throat.

“Yeah,” he rasped. “Let’s get the fuck out.”

A terse smile pulled at her mouth. She pulled his arm over her shoulder and pushed with her legs to lever him off the floor. He dragged himself upright, leaning heavily on her. His unsteady weakness was shocking. How much had that ultrasound hurt him?

His weight listed sideways, almost knocking her over. She grabbed him around the middle to support him as he regained his balance. He straightened, one hand braced on the wall.

She’d clamped her arms around him, and now they were pressed together, their faces close. Without intending to, she found herself staring into his eyes.

It was stupid. So stupid. Prolonged eye contact was a challenge. She was practically daring him to attack her. Hurt her. Kill her. But she couldn’t make herself look away. His eyes were like bottomless black pits, yet there was a sharp, savage focus in them.

It was the first time she’d ever looked into a shaded daemon’s eyes like this. Fascination gripped her. She wanted to understand how his mind worked while shaded. What was different? What was the same?

The biggest blast yet shook the house. Ash jerked upright as dirt rained on their heads. Shudders ran through the ground. Shelves toppled over somewhere above them.

As the tremor settled, there was a moment of utter, deafening silence.

Everything exploded.

The sound was beyond comprehension. The world quaked like ocean waves, the brick walls split apart—and the ceiling collapsed, plunging everything into darkness.