“Great minds think alike.” She gripped my forearms as her gaze roamed over the fresh whip marks marring my still-healing flesh. “I missed you.”
Enveloping her in my arms, I crushed her against me. “I missed you too.”
She melted into me, and we held each other before a voice came from the shadows. “We really have to move.”
I searched for the source of that voice; it hadn’t come from those I knew, but I still couldn’t see the gargoyle. He was there lurking… waiting.
We’d both put our lives into the hands of those who might seek to destroy us; hopefully, it didn’t come back to bite us in the ass.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Ellery
I had to let Ryker go, but my entire being protested releasing him. He’s here. He’s actually here.
I surreptitiously pinched myself and suppressed a wince when pain flared through my arm. This wasn’t a dream.
He really is here.
A sob lodged in my throat, and fresh tears burned my eyes, but I couldn’t cry again. We had far too much to do, and as ecstatic as I was to see him, we’d already wasted too much precious time.
I couldn’t wait to get out of here and just be with him. I yearned to curl into his arms, bask in his cinnamon and horse scent, and listen to his heartbeat while I reassured myself that he was alive and with me.
Before that can happen, we have to get out of here. And we couldn’t leave without the children.
I couldn’t stop staring at him as I drank in his masculine beauty. Dirt and blood covered his face and chest; it also cleaved to the remnants of his filthy pants. His wounds had mostly healed, but they still evoked sorrow and hatred in me. I’d kill his father for this.
The metallic stench of blood and rancid aroma of a dungeon clung to him, but it didn’t completely cover his inherent, loved scent. His mercury-colored eyes, with their lighter flecks of silver, were shadowed and haunted, but they filled with love when he gazed at me.
Oh, how I’d missed that. He didn’t have to say it; I knew how much I meant to him with that one adoring look.
I choked back a sob as I rose to my toes and rested my hand against the stubble on his face. “I love you so much, and I missed you so—” My words broke off when sobs almost overwhelmed me again.
“I know. I feel the same.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat as I managed a wan smile. “We have to get to the children.”
My hand remained clutched in Ryker’s as we strode through the shadows toward Indon and the other amsirah. I couldn’t see Indon, but I knew he was there, waiting for us.
Ianto clasped Ryker on the shoulder when we reached him. “It’s good to see you, my friend.”
Ryker embraced the giant and slapped him on the back. “You too.”
He glanced toward where Indon remained in the shadows, and I could tell he wanted to ask Ianto about them but refrained. The gargoyles had gotten us this far, and he wouldn’t question Ianto about their resurrection while in their presence.
When Ryker and Ianto parted, he reclaimed my hand. “While we work on freeing the children, tell me everything that happened,” Ryker said to me. “From the gargoyles to the aristocrats.”
The last thing I felt like doing was talking about everything that happened. I’d far prefer to forget about it and finish this. However, he was seeking a way to trust the gargoyles; maybe this would help.
“Why do you keep saying gargoyles?” Samael inquired.
I cringed at the sound of his voice. While I didn’t hate him as much as Gaius and the duke, he was high on my list of amsirah who I wouldn’t mind seeing dead.
“Because they exist,” I told him. “They’re the protectors of Tempest, and they’re not happy about what’s happening here.”
Samael chuckled, as if he didn’t believe what I’d said, but when I stared at him, he stopped laughing. “If that’s true, then where have they been?”
“Trapped, but I freed them.”
