106

AURORA

The days blur together.

After sharing one creepy meal together, Imro locks me away in the room and seemingly forgets about me. My guard, pissed at being tricked, is the only person I see for two minutes as he shoves some food through the door.

It would be easier to track how long I’ve been here if the meals were consistent, but they appear to be at random.

It’s a strange sort of captivity where I’m left to my own devices in a room with absolutely nothing to do. Imro doesn’t make good on any of his threats, not yet anyway. With only myself for company, there’s precious little I can do to pass the time other than think.

Lucian, Orion, and Cassian consume my thoughts when I’m awake and haunt my dreams when I try to sleep the time away. I picture their faces and replay their voices so often that things start to warp in my memory. Each time I focus on a detail, it seems to slip a little further from my mind. I expect it’s the right price to pay for what I did to them—for betraying them so terribly.

Knowing Cassian is alive though, brings me a small note of comfort. I pray that whatever went down at the estate after I left is enough to bring them all some kind of peace.

The hours claw by.

I watch the sky change colors through my window and try to track the time of day by the shade of blue that catches my eye, but it all becomes useless on a day when a storm rolls through. The gray clouds tell me nothing, and when I wake up and the world is still gray, I’m still confused.

I’m adrift in a timeless ocean and I’m going to drive myself crazy.

My only distraction comes from scraping lightly against the stone wall with my fingernails. Some of the plaster is old and it crumbles away under the lightest pressure. I start dramatically and try to score out how many days I think I’ve been here.

That fails when the seven strokes don’t line up with the three meals I’ve been brought. Unless Imro plans to starve me to death, of course.

I miss my men.

Captivity brings an odd sense of clarity about the things I should have done. If I’d had the strength to tell Lucian about who I was, maybe I could have prevented this. If nothing else, I should have told them about the baby. Selene’s condition was tragic, it’s true, but maybe my baby would have been good news. A ray of hope to give Lucian strength.

The pain of hindsight.

As another impossible hour drags by, I flop back onto the mattress and bite back a groan of frustration. Rehashing things in my mind is doing nothing good. I’m torturing myself for Imro at this rate. But something needs to give. I don’t know what. I don’t care what. I can’t stay locked up in this damn room for another day with nothing to do.

Rising from the bed, I head to the door. The low light from ceiling lamp is my only warmth, and the dark sky outside suggests my current request is about to go unanswered.

“Hello?” I slam my hand against the wooden door. “Is there anyone there?”

No reply.

“Hello! I need—I need something, okay? I’m going crazy in here. I need something, a book to read or hell, I’d even just take some pens at this point. Hello? Can anyone hear me? Hello!”

Punctuating my words with slams of my fist on the door does nothing to attract any attention. I can’t even tell if the guard is out there. Kicking the door in frustration, I stomp away toward the window while fighting back the wave of hopelessness that washes over me. Am I to spend the next months like this, trapped like an ant in a matchbox, just waiting for my baby to come?

Is there nothing I can do to get out of here?

With a splinter of wood and a creak of hinges, the door suddenly blasts open and Imro stumbles inside. His face is thunderous with eyes so dark that they’re like pools of ink.

“You,” he snarls, sweeping up to me quickly with a sharp clack of his cane. His vest is missing a button. This close, the glint of a handgun catches my eye. My heart leaps up into my throat, and a band tightens around my chest.

Bit of an overreaction when all I wanted was a book.

“Me?”

“Time to go.”

“Go? Wait, go where?”

“I’m not going to answer your questions,” Imro snarls. “Move!”

“Not until you tell me what the hell is going on?”

Beneath the anger, I can see he’s worried. It’s a strange look on a man who’s been eerily calm since my arrival, but I see it now, as clear as day.

“I don’t have time for this!” In a sweeping motion, he raises his cane. I only just manage to turn, taking the blow across my back. As the pain starts up like the heated lick of a whip, the cane clatters to the floor, and Imro’s claw-like hand snaps around my forearm.

“I don’t have time for your wicked little games!”

“The hell?—?”

Imro doesn’t wait. With surprising strength, he drags me out of the room and into the corridor. His hand is like a vise, and no matter how much I struggle, he doesn’t appear to be phased by my attempts. It doesn’t affect his balance, even when I dig my bare heels into the ground and throw my weight backward.

He’s fueled by determination.

We go down through the corridor, past a familiar set of paintings I briefly saw on my own escape attempt until we make it to the top of a set of stairs.

It’s there that it hits me.

The air is sour with the stink of smoke and an unnatural heat warms the planks beneath my bare feet. Two breaths in, and I’m coughing as the sourness tickles the back of my throat. Beneath us, at the bottom of the stairs, lies a couple of dead guards with blood staining the ground around them. Soft yells rise up from below, followed by the familiar pop of gunfire.

Are we under attack?

“Imro, what’s happening?”

He glares at me and his grip tightens so incredibly that my forearm bones creak together.

“Come on!”

“Ow!” My pain is ignored, and Imro continues on, dragging me upstairs to parts of the mansion I never saw when I was trying to escape. We climb up and up, and the unnatural heat seems to follow us, clawing at our ankles no matter how high we climb. Imro has enemies; I know that. Would any of them dare attack him here?

Is this really how my life is going to end? Caught in the middle of some conflict, miles away from the men I love.

Maybe this is karma.

We climb until my thighs burn and each step is weighed down with lead. Imro doesn’t stop. He doesn’t pause for breath, but it’s clear he has a destination in mind based on the doors he chooses and the path he takes. Corridors narrow, and the stairs turn into spiral columns until we finally burst through the last door.

Cool, crisp night air floods my lungs like it’s the first breath I’ve ever taken. I immediately erupt into a coughing fit as the clean air mixes with the smoke in my lungs. We’re on the roof, and the carnage is a sight to behold.

Up here, it’s clear that the entire mansion is on fire. Giant plumes of smoke rise up from all over the place. The furthest away part of the mansion is already consumed with flame, giant red and orange streaks that claw their way up to the sky. Imro still doesn’t stop and he drags me along the rough tarmac toward a landing pad surrounded by a short railing.

The dark abyss of night stretches infinitely out past the edge of the roof.

Below, the surrounding water is flooded with light. The bridge is down and filled with vehicles. The quiet pop of gunfire drifts up like a whisper.

“Imro?”

He ignores me, intent on dragging me toward the landing pad. Panic takes over. Where the hell are we going? Was the great Imro Shinsky running away from a fight?

And taking me. I could end up God knows where.

“Imro, where are you taking me? Where are we going? Imro!” My yells pitch and I start to fight against his grip with all the strength I have. Too many horrors flash through my mind; being pushed off the roof for pissing him off, getting carted away to the middle of nowhere, and being forced to live out my days until my child is born, or worse. All of it fuels the terror in my heart.

I scratch and twist, turn and fight, kick at his knee, and even reach up to pull his hair. Anything I can think of to get him to break his grasp on me.

“Shut the fuck up!” Imro turns around and whips the butt of the pistol in the air. The gun impacts my face, smashing into the bridge of my nose. My vision flashes white and my head spins. It’s a struggle to keep my feet underneath me until a roaring fills the air. Imro finally comes to a stop.

As my vision returns, blurred from the tears that flood my eyes, the smoke around us whips up into the air. Flames pull upward, reaching out to the source of the noise as if to coax the noise down. Out of the darkness melts a helicopter with red lights blinking along the bottom.

This must be for Imro. His ticket out of here. If I let him take me, there’s no telling where I might end up.

“Let me go,” I sob, twisting my arm so fiercely in his grip that my skin burns at the point of contact. “Please!”

“No!” Imro roars, pulling me closer to him as the helicopter descends.

For some reason, it doesn’t land. It hovers in the air and then begins to rotate slowly until the side door is visible. With a dull clunk of metal, the side door slides open and my eyes widen as a tell-tale sexy man in sunglasses slides to the edge with a large black rifle in his hands.

“Orion…?” My heart starts to lift, but before I can fully comprehend that Orion is above me, the door Imro and I just ran through is kicked open with a loud clatter. Imro drags me against his body and presses the cold, hard metal of the handgun against my cheek while we turn to the door.

Smoke billows out of the open door, drawn forward by the helicopter and then cast aside by the wind from the blades. Orange and red flames dance through the smoke, but they don’t quite make it through the door. Someone else does, though.

Someone tall, with dark hair and tanned skin streaked in dirt from the smoke and sweat from the fire. His white shirt is ripped open at the chest, and his black suspenders look like they are the only things holding the fabric together. Blood stains his shirt and his pants. His dark, dangerous eyes glint as they reflect the light of the helicopter. He strides forward without hesitation, pumping the shotgun in his hands and then taking aim toward me and Imro.

Lucian.

Never in his life has he looked as fucking sexy or dangerous as he does now.

I can’t breathe. I can’t think. I’m terrified and aroused all at the same time. Why are they here? Did they come for Imro?

“Give her back!” Lucian roars, continuing to stalk forward. The wind from the helicopter pulls at clothing and hair alike, and I squint, trying to peer through the wild strands of my hair. Imro stumbles backward, dragging me with him despite my best efforts.

“You’ve got nowhere to go, Imro,” Lucian continues, his voice deep and feral as he shouts. “It’s over, do you understand? Your men? Dead. My men? Shitting in the carved-out skulls of the assholes that tried to defend you. You want real power, Imro?”

Lucian spreads his arms wide, tilting the shotgun off to the side.

“This is power. You see, Imro? Men and women who are loyal to me because they know I will have their back and lead with compassion, not blood.”

“Fuck off,” Imro snarls. “I’ll kill her, don’t you realize that? Your arrogance is fucking boundless!”

Lucian doesn’t stop walking forward. Doesn’t he care? Doesn’t he see the gun imprinting on my cheek?

“I’ll kill her and the baby!”

Lucian stops suddenly and Imro scoffs out a victorious noise. “This is power,” he spits. “All that shit you have, and yet you stop for me. Because I hold the power here. I hold the one thing that matters.”

I can’t take my eyes off of Lucian and when his dark eyes lock onto mine, it’s like he’s punched me in the gut. I can’t breathe.

“Aurora.” The warm way he says my name makes my knees knock together. I can’t believe he’s really here. “I’m sorry. I know right now, that might not mean much, but I am sorry. There’s so much for us to talk about, but I need you to know right here, right now that I am sorry. And I love you.”

More tears flood my eyes and I dig my nails harder into Imro’s arm. This has to be some kind of dream. Too many days spent in solitude, too much pain from being captive that my psyche surely cracked, and this is all a dream.

And if it is, then…

“I-I love you too,” I gasp. “All—all of you, I?—”

“They know.”

“Enough!” Imro snarls and he takes several steps backward, dragging me along. Lucian begins to advance again, and with each step he takes, Imro mirrors with several of his own. We stumble together and Imro ends up dragging me along, keeping his gun on me the whole time.

“Aurora,” Lucian says, his eyes never leaving mine. “Do you trust me?”

“Yes,” I answer with little thought. I do. I never stopped.

Lucian suddenly lifts his shotgun and opens fire.

An explosion of pellets rain forth and slam into Imro’s chest, shoulder, and arm. He lets out a gargled scream and stumbles back—only there’s no more roof left. His determined retreat brought us to the very edge of the roof and there was nothing to catch his fall.

Imro topples backward, a complete dead weight, yet his grip remains like a vise around my arm. A final look of victory flashes in his eyes before he falls from the roof and drags me with him.

A scream of terror escapes me as the roof disappears from beneath my feet, and Imro’s body drags me down into an infinite darkness of smoke and heat.

I’m weightless, falling down, down, down…

I trusted Lucian! I trusted him and?—

My scream of fear is cut short almost immediately when I thump down onto something that’s firm but soft. Tightness winds around me, drawing me up from my fall and holding me close. Whatever I land on crumples underneath me with a grunt. Pain flares across my arm as Imro’s nail scratch grooves into my arm upon release, and his body falls into the abyss.

“Ow,” groans an achingly family voice.

“Cassian!”

I push myself up immediately and stare down at Cassian who has his arms securely around me and a cheeky smile on his face. We’re balancing on the crumbled remains of a balcony, and Cassian has several ropes attached to his waist.

He caught me.

He caught me?!

“Hey, gorgeous. Would have sucked if I missed, huh?”