“Samael,” I said.
I didn’t acknowledge the rest of the guards. It was taking all I had not to shove my way through them and outside to open a portal.
“To what do I owe this pleasure?” I asked my former friend.
His yellow-brown eyes darted past me to the men at the bar. He studied them before his attention shifted back to me. “King Ivan would like to see you.”
“Is that so?”
“It is.”
The panic inside me rose as I dug my nails into my palms. “Why?”
“That’s between you and him, but we have standing orders to bring you to him if we see you.” When my eyebrows rose, Samael held up his hands in a “what do you expect me to do?” gesture. “Those are the orders, Ryker.”
I didn’t know if those orders hadn’t made it to Windruff yet, or if I’d been fortunate not to encounter any law before leaving. The women also hadn’t been taken from Windruff before I left; I wondered if that was still true. If Ivan had taken the ones from here, he’d have taken more.
I didn’t ask what they’d do if I refused to go with them; I didn’t have that option, and we all knew it. I could refuse to lick Ivan’s boots like many others did, but I couldn’t rebuff his orders without putting my head on the chopping block.
And while I fully intended to stick my head there one day, today wasn’t that day…not if I’m going to save Ellery.
There was a chance Ivan had her already too. If that was true, and I refused to go with Samael, I might never get her back.
There was also a possibility that once I returned to the palace, I might never escape it, but it was one I was willing to take, but I wasn’t going alone. I’d opened too many portals today.
I had enough energy for one more; after that, I didn’t know if I could open another. I wasn’t about to waste my last one on a portal to Ivan.
“Are you going to escort me there?” I asked Samael.
“Yes.”
“Then let’s go.”
CHAPTER EIGHTY-SEVEN
Ellery
Every rutand rock in the road caused the carriage to sway as it rattled over them. The bounces jolted my spine and clacked my teeth together.
The sway of the carriage did nothing for my increasing nausea; neither did the cramped, hot confines or the stench of body odor and terror. Sniffles and muffled sobs sometimes broke through the rattle of the wheels, jingle of the harnesses, and clip-clop of the horses’ hooves.
It took everything I had not to lean forward and spew bile all over Scarlet’s and Ruby’s feet. They sat across from me on a bench packed full of women.
They’d crammed us so tightly together that I couldn’t move my arms and my shoulders hunched forward. The press of their hot bodies against mine was one more thing I couldn’t take in the prison carriage.
Clasping my hands before me, I almost stuck my head between my legs to gasp in air. I doubted that, so close to so many feet, the air was fresher.
This isn’t good. This isn’t good at all.
I didn’t know why we were all here, but I could guess the answer, which made it worse. Lifting my head, I blinked away the sweat running down my forehead to stick my lashes together.
I stifled a groan and my impulse to rock while hugging myself. I was desperate for solace but couldn’t fall apart in this carriage.
Most of those in the carriage were women, but a young girl sat in the far back corner with her mother. The mother had bruises on her face and a bloody lip; she’d most likely earned them by trying to protect her child.
WHY is there a child here?
And that woman wasn’t the only one who was bloody. At least four or five others had black eyes, broken lips, and battered cheekbones from resisting their imprisonment.
