24. Vai

The moment I saw the creatures lying prostrate on the cold ground I knew Emma had been the one to do it.

I couldn't explain how I knew that, I just did.

The same way I knew she hadn't yet been claimed.

I focused my attention on that glowing pulse in the center of my chest.

It seemed even more fragile now than it ever had before.

And closer.

Its origin tugged at me from the opposite direction I expected.

I heard footsteps.

They approached me from behind.

I checked over my shoulder and beat a hasty retreat.

Arms protruding from the bars in the upper windows retracted into their cells.

The footsteps hurried faster than I was, and I knew without a shadow of a doubt they would find me before I could get out of there.

I still had a long way to go before I reached the door opposite.

They could fire on me and I would never find Emma.

I couldn't let that happen.

I turned to the long row of cell doors and focused on them.

I reached back into the black tar-like shadows behind me.

I seize a handful of thick whips that writhed in my hand.

They could have been the tails of multiple snakes.

I set my stance, pulled my arm back, and threw my arm around in an arc.

In my mind, each of the whip-like appendages had a soft waxy material at the end, and so they did.

They each slipped inside a lock.

In my mind's eye, they expanded and took up the entirety of the space.

I focused, using every skill of Shadow Weaving I'd developed over my lifetime.

Locks were not intricate things, especially down in the belly of a building as old as the Citadel.

It shouldn't take long to—

Click!

I immediately wrenched my arm back, snapping the unlocked door open.

Now I had successfully picked one lock there was no reason I couldn't do it with the others.

I repeated the motion and, one after another, the locks clicked open.

The last door opened on squeaky hinges.

And no one emerged from the cells.

I thought they would have been desperate to escape.

I thought they would bolt the first chance they got.

But that was forgetting how badly they must have been treated in recent days.

I imagined them standing at the back of their cells, timid, thinking the worst thing in the world was about to happen to them.

They think I'm here to take them to the arena.

They needed to know different.

They needed to know I wasn't like their captors.

"I know things haven't been easy for you," I said in a soft but booming voice. "I'm not a Shadow. I'm not your fated mate either. But I am here to rescue her. She was captured, just like you. I came here to help her escape. The same way you can too. But you're going to have to work for it."

My ears perked at the heavy footsteps right outside the door.

The guards were here.

And my plan was failing.

"If you want to escape, you have to fight. Attack the prison guards when they arrive and you can earn your freedom. If you don't, if you stay inside your cells now, you'll end up staying there the rest of your life."

The guards smashed through the heavy outer door that bounced off the hard flagstone wall, splintering.

They skidded to a halt at the sight of me.

The Shadows were thick, heavyset creatures with jutting brows and crooked teeth.

Carved from the same inbred genetics as those at my feet.

Their eyes drifted from me to their unconscious brothers to my feet, and back up again.

A steely resolve came over them.

In their eyes, dark and brutal thoughts.

If being caught by your fated mate was bad, it was even worse for the likes of me.

I was a M'rora.

I was their mortal enemy.

Any one of them would jump at the chance to snap my neck.

I didn't cower when they pulled weapons from the darkness.

I wouldn't turn and run.

I wouldn't get far even if I did.

The Shadows moved toward me with slow and cautious steps, not wanting to end up like their unconscious brothers.

They edged toward me one step at a time, Shadow weapons dark and gleaming and evil.

A single figure stepped from the cell beside Emma's.

She was a delicate waiflike creature, little bigger than a twelve-year-old child.

She looked like something from the fairytale stories we told each other back home.

It made me sick to think about what they would do to such a beautiful creature in this place.

"Get back!" the guard with protruding fangs said. "I said back!"

The waiflike creature peered at them before turning to me.

"Fated mate?" she said in a high voice.

I nodded.

She pointed over my shoulder at the door at the far end of the hall.

"She go that way," she said. "You rescue her. You be good to her."

"I will," I said.

The Shadow snarled and turned on the tiny creature.

"That's enough out of you!" he growled. "Get back in your cage before we have a mating ceremony right here and now!"

The girl turned to the approaching Shadows and didn't move a muscle.

And then her shoulder spasmed.

Again.

And again.

Each time with greater force.

She wrapped her hands over her head and convulsed.

Her delicate bones snapped and she fell to the floor.

She writhed, her limbs flying out like she was performing a hypnotic dance.

It looked excruciating.

Each of her bones snapped one by one.

And then…

They morphed.

They became larger, longer, leaner.

And one hell of a lot more dangerous.

Her fine hair turned course and long.

Her nose crunched as it extended.

Her legs bent backward, her feet becoming long with terrible black hooked claws on the end.

By the time she was done, she was twice as tall and longer than two sleeping M'rora.

Her dangerous yellow eyes glinted and she slurped at her teeth with her long tongue.

"Easy now!" the Shadow said, backing up and waving his hands to calm her.

The giant wolf threw back her head and howled.

It was a starting pistol.

The Shadow guards turned to run but were blocked on the other side.

The other figures in the cells leaped forward, outnumbering the guards five to one.

The prisoners attacked first but the Shadow didn't let their end come easily.

They drew back their weapons and went to war.

I turned and ran down the hall.

The Shadows' screams nipped at my heels.

A precursor of the howls of pain Emma would feel if I failed her.