“Carina,” he breathed shakily before staggering to his feet. “Carina. Carina!”
There would never be a time when he wouldn’t recognize his daughter’s agony. Her keening raked its claws down his insides, killing him slowly, day by miserable day.
His lumoons were barely able to keep pace with him as he sprinted, slipping and sliding, through one tunnel, then backtracked to hurtle down another. Rope tugged at his arm but didn’t stop him. He called for his precious, young daughter over and again, through tunnel after cave, until the constant moaning sounded like it was moving farther away.
“No, no, no. Carina!”
He ran and crawled and scampered, until a feral scream overpowered the moaning. Then came his name. His breathing was heavy, his vision dark, too dark to see the fist coming that slammed into his jaw.
Chapter 16
Devilry So Dangerous That It’s Just Right
Resembling a tall and mighty tree losing a battle, Baz had plummeted straight back as if felled. I threw a nice punch, but I was half his size. My strike shouldn’t knock out a man as big and strong as Baz.
He lay flat on his back on the smooth, glistening floor, unmoving save for the twitching of a vein at his temple. His eyes, those mesmerizing ocean eyes, were closed.
“Baz.”
The vein ceased its clenching.
I leaned over him. “Baz!”
He jerked as if in surprise. When he still didn’t open his eyes, I slapped him.
His head rocked to one side.
“Hunh,” I said. “I thought I’d enjoy that more.”
Even if he hadn’t killed Teo, he was still my captor, the man who’d stuffed me in a cold, dark cage. It was a nicer prison than what Rafaela had kept me in, little more than a person-sized birdcage, and it was at least as nice as the room Teo, Isi, and I had shared at the fighting pits—until Isi was killed, and then one new boy after another had cycled through her empty bed until Rafaela had found us.
Baz had starved me and made me feed from him when I’d vowed never, ever to drink from the Majora vein. He made me desire him.
Maybe I needed to try harder.
I slapped Baz’s other cheek. His head jerked hard.
That time definitely felt better. Now I wanted to smack him again.
Baz’s eyes snapped open and flashed at me.
“You hit me.”
Leaning back onto my heels, I grinned. “Sure did. In fact, I slapped you twice, right across each cheek. They landed perfectly.” Dreamily, I rubbed each palm. “I can still feel the contact.”
He pushed up onto his elbows and glowered. “So can I.”
“Really, I hit you three times, ’cause first I punched you.”
He rubbed his jaw. “I know. I was there.”
My insides twisted into a knot before I remembered that this man was my enemy, and no matter what he did or how good he looked while doing it, that would never change.
“No, you weren’t there. That’s the whole point. I wasn’t hitting you just for fun.”
“You had ‘fun’ striking me?”
“Definitely. But that was just a bonus.”
