Page 96 of Dark Lover

“Not until I see Sam.”

“When did you find courage? Or maybe you simply don’t care all that much about her.”

“Take me to her,” he shouted. Aidan touched his arm. He flung him off.

“I’m afraid we are at an impasse,” the monk snapped. “I want the page—you want to see her. If you think about it, you will realize you have to bring the page here.”

“I don’t have to think about it. What have you done to her? Take me to her!”

The monk’s smile vanished and his eyes blazed red. “You can’t give me orders. I have the greater power here!”

“Really?” Ian blasted him as hard as he could, before he could think to restrain his fury.

“Ian, don’t!” Brianna screamed.

The monk laughed as his power forked toward him, abruptly turning back around and blazing into Ian.

He gasped as his own power drove him across the hall and into a far wall. He saw exploding stars. Pain erupted in his head, his neck, his back. More pain sizzled through his organs.

But Aidan knelt beside him, instantly laying his hands on him. Ian opened his eyes and met his father’s blue gaze as his powerful and healing warmth entered his wounds.

“I’ll never let ye die,” Aidan said.

And a moment later the pain was mostly gone. He shrugged Aidan off.

Aidan rocked back on his heels. “Losin’ yer temper won’t bring her to us.” His gaze narrowed. “Do ye truly have the page of illusion?”

He stood up, enraged but in control of that anger now. “And if I do?”

Aidan also got up. “Will ye use it to save her?”

“What do you think, Father?” he mocked.

“I think ye can never hand another power over to the monk.”

HE CLOSED THE DOOR of another vacant bedchamber, grim and disappointed. He and his father had separated, Ian taking the dungeons, Aidan starting on the ground level. But the dungeons below had been windowless, and Sam hadn’t been within them. Instead, he’d come across Carlisle’s many prisoners, mostly innocent men, women and children, as well as a few political captives. He’d freed everybody.

He was now on an upper floor, determined to go through the various guest chambers. Where was Sam? Where was the dungeon with the small window that he’d first envisioned? He’d stopped repeatedly to use his visual telepathy to locate her. He couldn’t understand why he couldn’t find her. She’d been at the Cathedral moments ago. Had she been smuggled out or taken to another place, in another time?

This was taking too long.

And as he stood in the long corridor, a sensation of awareness went through him. Sam.

He’d just felt her. She was somewhere nearby. He tried to see her and suddenly glimpsed her pale, determined face, framed by her short, spiky hair. Something dark was blocking his view. He realized it was a part of a wall. Sam? Where are you?

The image grew stagnant, and he knew he was remembering it, not seeing her somewhere. She did not answer him. His disappointment intensified. She didn’t seem hurt, but he couldn’t tell if she was shackled or otherwise bound, or not.

“Ian?”

He jerked at the sound of Brianna’s voice as she and Aidan hurried toward him. A maidservant was with them. “Meg has something to show us.”

He looked sharply at the thin, freckled maid, who stared wide-eyed at him and then at Aidan. She blushed and darted past them. Ian fell into step with Aidan and Brianna. The maid ran to the end of the hall and then entered a small closet door. There, she waited for them.

Ian went to the threshold of another very dark, very narrow hall. She pointed down it, ducked under his arm and ran away.

Ian rushed forward, Aidan and Brianna on his heels. A single door was at the hall’s end. As he thrust it open, he strained for Sam. He remained aware of her presence, but the awareness didn’t intensify. Even before he saw the torture chamber, he knew she wasn’t there.

He recognized it immediately.