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Yes, I know it doesn’t make sense, but that’s what Margetta told me earlier when she visited my room. I believe I’m to be a reward for a mastyr who has aligned himself with her.
Sandra remained perfectly still. I’m very sorry, Mistress. Although you must be right about the timing because gossip in the fortress has been rife. But I’m doing all I can to find the key for you.
I’m more grateful than I can ever express.
It’s the least I can do for you and for the war against this terrible woman.
She left shortly afterward, more determined than ever to discover the location of the duplicate.
She thought about reverting to her original get-the-guard-drunk scheme, but Griffin was right. She’d have no chance of survival afterward since all evidence of the Ruby Fae’s escape would point to her. Somehow she had to locate the duplicate and sneak it to Regan during the last meal before dawn.
She spent the next hour searching through the various cupboards in the lowest levels of the fortress. If she was questioned, she planned to say she’d misplaced an entire box of Margetta’s favorite rose petal sachets. But no one asked what she was doing and for that, she was grateful.
There were numerous storage rooms and pantries, but she had no luck, even in the dungeon areas. Every key had a duplicate but the only places where they were kept were on the pegs outside the kitchen or in the guard room. But the duplicate to the tower wasn’t in either place which meant it had to be somewhere else. But where? She just hoped Margetta didn’t have it in her possession. If she did, Sandra would have to change plans and probably go with her get-the-troll-drunk scheme, after all.
As she returned to the slaves’ dining room to have her own bowl of soup, one of the maids, Trisha, intercepted her, dragging her into the hall near the bathrooms.
The young elven woman’
s eyes were wide. “Mistress Sandra, I’m so sorry, but Mastyr Griffin has been wounded while sparring. Badly. He’s lost a lot of blood. The healers have called for you. They have orders to summon Margetta if he approaches death, but as you know, it goes badly for all of them if she’s forced to leave her labors. Especially for Mastyr Griffin. Margetta will torture him if she has to bring him back from death again.”
The world went entirely white, except for young Trisha’s face. Her pointed ears twitched and tears bloomed in her dark brown eyes. “Mistress Sandra? Did you hear what I said?”
Sandra patted Trisha’s shoulder, but she wasn’t sure how to answer her. Was it only a couple of hours ago Griffin had kissed her? Sweet Goddess, she couldn’t bear the thought of Griffin suffering one more night at the hands of the Ancient Fae.
When the room no longer spun, she met Trisha’s gaze, choosing to ask the hardest question. “How close is he to succumbing?”
“Very. The healers were most adamant you should join them immediately. It was Mastyr Fulton who did this.”
Griffin’s feud with the vampire in charge of the sparring line was well-known. He despised Fulton more than even the Invictus pairs. From the time Griffin had been a captive in the camp, Fulton had tortured a number of slaves for the pleasure of it and several had died. Yet somehow Fulton had managed to dispose of the bodies without Margetta becoming aware of the murders. The Ancient Fae punished anyone who killed her slaves.
More often than not, when Griffin took mortal wounds, Fulton was the author.
With her heart pounding, she swallowed hard. “Where is he?”
“In the stables.”
“Please tell Mistress Yvonne where I’ve gone.”
“I will.”
Sandra picked up her long skirts and ran as fast as she could. Griffin was the reason she’d started feeling more like herself, like maybe she would be okay, like she could do the impossible and help the Ruby Fae escape. She didn’t want him to die. And the thought of how cruel Margetta could be when she had to use her healing power to bring any of her people back from the dead was an equal motivation to do her part.
She raced down the hall and out the north door leading through the fortress vegetable garden. She turned to the right and hurried along the path beside a row of tall hedges. A couple of Invictus wraiths streaked through the air, jeering as she ran, but she was safe from them. Margetta had strict rules about the slaves remaining unmolested. Any Invictus attempting to harm a slave would be killed.
Even the most maniacal wraiths had sufficient self-preservation instincts to restrain their killing urges.
The stables were two hundred yards from the house, a leftover from the era of horses. The stone out-building now housed several motorcycles and ATVs, imported from the States.
She didn’t need to be told which room Griffin was in since a cluster of sparring warriors had gathered around the central door. They were all slaves captured at various times during Invictus raids from a number of the realms. Griffin, one of the most powerful mastyrs in the sparring line-up, was their unacknowledged leader.
She pushed through the group and found Griffin stretched out on a table. Eyes closed, he writhed from the pain of the wound and several men worked hard to keep him pinned in place. But they struggled because the mastyr was so physically strong.
His suffering pierced her heart.
Two fae healers, both men who had slaved at the fortress for even longer than she had, worked on him. Each had their hands poised above two severe abdominal cuts. Vibrations of healing energy pulsed within the room.
For a moment she stood transfixed, her gaze watching Griffin’s blood drip from the table to the stone floor beneath. The color was red and so very real.
