Or we’d both be crushed by the next chunk of falling rock.
Both of them, a shitty way to go.
My arm was shaking so hard, my bones rattled. The metal screamed under the pressure. This wasn’t even a fight anymore—this was desperation and my refusal to die.
“Please,” I rasped as the pressure cut off my air, “Nico…Stop. It’s me.”
He just shoved harder.
My broken blade shuddered. One more surge and it would snap. Then I’d be— Movement flickered at the edge of my sight.
A figure raced toward me, dodging falling stones.
Gabriel.
He didn’t move like a pampered heir to a dynasty; he moved like he’d been born for this place—fast, efficient, eyes hard as flint. He slid to a stop beside Nico, spraying sand, and for the first time, Nico’s attention wavered.
Gabriel’s bound hands came up, and somehow, impossibly, clasped between them was a small vial, the glass catching the sunlight, illuminating the clear liquid inside.
My heart lurched.
Antitoxin.
The same thing Nico had given him yesterday, a contingency plan we didn’t think we’d need, but now…would that even work on whatever was in that draught?
Gabriel didn’t hesitate.
He jammed the vial into Nico’s neck, forcing the needle through skin and deep into muscle.
Nico roared, the sound of a wounded beast. He ripped his sword away from my throat and whirled toward Gabriel with murder in every line of his powerful body.
My broken sword fell to the ground as I sucked gritty air into my lungs and tried to blink the sand out of my eyes so I could see.
When Nico bore down on Gabriel, I didn’t hesitate, diving forward, reaching for the only thing I could grab—his ankle. My fingers closed around the top of his boot likea vise.
“Nico,” I shouted. “Stop.” I hung on with everything I had, digging my ruined nails into the leather of his boot, feet sunk deep in the sand, using my weight as an anchor.
Gabriel met Nico’s deadly swing with his own shackled wrists, and sparks flashed, metal shrieked, the chain broke. Then Gabriel pinned him down, shoulder to chest, using his weight to keep Nico in place.
“Hold his legs,” Gabriel snapped through clenched teeth. “Gotta give the antitoxin time to work.”
“I’m trying. He’s too godsdamned strong,” I gasped, locking both arms around Nico’s lower leg like I was trying to capture a raging bull.
Gods, Gabriel’s face was a bruised, beaten mess, almost as bad as Dante’s. I lifted my head, peering through the foggy air toward the collapsed platform, where the brutish soldiers were rounding up prisoners.
“Where is Dante?” I asked, panicked. “He wasright therebefore the roof collapsed.”
“I don’t see him. But we have to get clear of this roof collapse, or we’re going to get crushed,” Gabriel hissed as more and more chunks peeled off the roof overhead, pounding into the sand around us, taking out unsuspecting guards and prisoners both.
“Come on, you asshole, get your shit together,” Gabriel hissed, shaking his friend.
Nico just thrashed, sand filled the air as I tried pinning down his powerful legsandhis right wrist. The weapon carved a shallow trench as he dragged it closer to us both, our wary gazes split between the falling debris and the threat that could just as easily carve us in half.
“Two minutes, that’s how long it takes to work.” Gabriel shoved his forearm up under Nico’s jaw. “I was lucky theymissed it in their search. Too fucking busy beating me to a pulp.”
Those two minutes seemed like forever.
Somewhere beyond the compound walls, another explosion hit—closer this time.
