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“That’s my secret.” She laughed again. “I promise I wish you no ill will. I can help you find who you’re looking for.”
Zaandr drew in a quick breath, betraying his shock at her words. “How do you know we’re looking for someone?”
“We aren’t going to get very far if you continue to ask me the same questions.”
Tegan shot a sideways glance at the Dothvek. Either this woman had seen Rixx being taken, or she’d been a part of it. Or, she thought with a gulp, she was some kind of witch. Tori had mentioned that the madam who’d held Vrax had been a witch with supernatural powers. Was this another of those? A shiver went through her as she wondered if the Den of Thieves was crawling with witches.
Zaandr’s face was screwed up in a look of extreme concentration. Either he was having a stroke, or he was attempting to use his abilities to read her mind. Tegan still couldn’t see who was talking to them, and the passageway appeared to be getting darker.
She peered overhead. Daylight was fading fast, and dusk was overtaking them. Soon, it would be dark, and they’d be lost in a treacherous city. They needed to forget about this mystery woman and run before it was too late. Before Tegan could whisper those thoughts to Zaandr, his face went slack.
He squared his shoulders and turned slightly. “We accept your help.”
Tegan spun toward him. “We do?”
“She means us no harm.”
“Says her,” Tegan said under her breath. “How do we know she’s not involved with the ones who took your friend? This could all be part of an evil plot to get two Dothveks. Maybe she wants a pair.”
“Your girl has quite the colorful imagination.”
“She’s not—” Zaandr started to say, but Tegan cut him off with her own indignant outrage.
“I’m not his girl.” She practically spit out the words. “I’m not anyone’s girl!”
The woman emerged from the darkness, but Tegan would have sworn there had been nothing in the spot from which she stepped. Her dove-gray dress fluttered around her ankles as she walked, covered by a heavier cloak in the same color. “As you wish.”
She walked past them, long, pale-blue tentacles flowing from her head like a mane of hair and swaying down her back. Her eyes were colorless, with no iris or pupil, but she looked at first one of them and then the other as she passed. “If you wish to see your friend again, I suggest you follow me.”
Zaandr locked eyes with Tegan, but before she could tell him that this was a very bad idea, one phrase pulsed through her head. Trust me.
She was so stunned to hear his voice in her head that she didn’t utter a word, as he took her hand and led her with him behind the unknown woman and farther into the Den of Thieves.
Chapter
Nine
Zaandr’s mind roiled as he clasped Tegan’s hand and walked behind the creature in gray. His instinct told him that the alien female would not harm them, but what if he was wrong? He hadn’t sensed danger before Rixx disappeared. He hadn’t even noticed his friend was gone before Tegan said something. Maybe his abilities were weakening the longer he was away from his home world.
Like all Dothveks, he’d always been taught that their planet held a certain power bestowed on it from the goddesses and that was what imbued them with the ability to sense thoughts and emotions. But his Dothvek brothers who’d left with the bounty hunters had not lost their abilities, even though they’d been far from the planet’s pull for longer than he had. Even so, there had to be a reason he felt so muddled.
Tegan shifted her smaller hand in his. She was nervous and unsure of his decision to trust this stranger, but he didn’t know if it was the expression on her face as she peered at him or his empathic abilities that told him this.
He squeezed her hand but didn’t speak. How could he explain that he didn’t have a good reason for putting their lives in the hands of someone completely unknown? His only reason was his gut instinct and the sense that she wasn’t dangerous. At least, not to them.
The female paused at an arch that led down a low passageway with almost no light and a heavy, loamy scent. She reached a hand into her cloak, produced two more gray cloaks, and handed them to the pair. “Put these on.”
Zaandr eyed her, not sure if she was a spellcaster or just well-prepared. He took the cloak and shrugged it over his shoulders, watching as Tegan wrapped herself in hers and flipped up her hood. He did the same, trying to suppress the desire to snatch her up and run as far and as fast as he could.
“You okay?” she whispered, as they proceeded down the dank corridor, and the stone close on both sides brushed their shoulders.
He grunted for an answer, his senses on high alert as he picked up the frenzied chatter and energy of a large group. Since they’d left the marketplace, the assault on his brain had calmed, but now he gritted his teeth as he filtered out the cacophony of thoughts barraging him.
They approached a pair of short, but burly, albino creatures holding spears at their sides. The pair nodded at the female and stepped aside, revealing a door with faded, red paint and a tarnished, brass handle.
“Do not speak to anyone,” the female warned them before flicking the door open and proceeding inside.
They followed her into a massive, multi-floor space with balconies ringing a central hall. The scent of earth was gone, replaced by the heady aroma of liquor and perfume with a faint undercurrent of sweat.
