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“Wait!” Lex shouted over the alarm. “We need someone to tell us where she might be!”
I looked around at the bodies of the guards crumpled around us. Some were obviously dead, but others groaned, their injuries slowly healing. I grabbed one of the survivors, making him cry out in agony.
“Where do you keep your prisoners?” I questioned. “Where’s Arden?”
“I don’t know!”
I growled in frustration, creating a pinpoint of heat and letting it dance up his chest like a laser. The skin underneath his shirt blistered and burned. He screamed for mercy.
“They’re kept one floor down in the labyrinth! Down the hall, make a left, hidden door on the right wall that you should be able to feel!” he cried. “Please! Don’t kill me!”
I stopped, and the guard went limp, dead weight in my arms. Had the stress killed him? No, his chest was still moving.
I threw him to the side, his head hitting the wall with a sickening thump. He let out one more rattling breath and stilled.
“Come on, let’s go,” I said. I created a flare inside to signal our enforcers to come in and sweep the place for Tommy or the Moon Oracle.
We followed the path the guard had given us, finding the hidden door. Flint shifted back into his human form in a puff of smoke, then dismantled the spells hiding it to let us through.
I thought the guard had been exaggerating when he said the lower level was a labyrinth, but he was being literal. The walls shifted and moved, making it impossible to know which way you were really going to go.
“What a fucking pain.” I stepped forward, pressing my hand to one wall. The spell was massive, something put together by several powerful fae. I didn’t have the patience to undo it, so I burned right through the walls in front of me. They shifted again, hiding the sections I’d just burned through.
“Careful,” Flint warned. “Arden might be behind one of these walls.”
“I can feel her. She’s…” I gestured vaguely to the left, just as the walls shifted to reveal guards.
I dodged one throwing a chunk of a rock at me, then shot a ball of fire straight through his chest. Flint and Lex took on the others with ease. The only problem was their numbers. Every time we took down all the ones who came in one wave, the walls shifted to reveal more.
“Fuck this, I’m going to find her,” I growled.
I fought past a few guards and into another hallway, the walls closing up behind me. The adrenaline coursing through my veins fought against the calming potion, but I slowed down enough to sense Arden. She was in a panic, and her essence was moving. I followed her, blasting holes through walls and fighting off guards.
But at some point, I stopped fighting them and started chasing them instead. I engulfed a group in flames, leaving one survivor to lead me to wherever he was going. The guard looked over his shoulder and ran faster. I caught up with him without much effort, pinning him against a wall.
“Where are you running to, kid?”
“To—to guard the prisoner!” He swallowed. “If you follow this trail of magic, you can find her!”
He lifted his hand, illuminating a glowing trail on the floor.
“You’re sure?”
He trembled under my hand, his eyes squeezed shut. “I’m very sure, Your Highness!”
He was young, not even eighteen, if I had to guess. I held him in place for another moment before sighing and shoving him aside just hard enough to move him. Not all of them needed to die today.
I followed the trail up to a door. The miserable ache in my heart had subsided almost completely. I yanked open the door and found Arden staring at the walls as if she was trying to figure out how to open them. The relief that washed through me was unbelievable. I crossed the room in a few steps and pulled her into a kiss.
The burst of elation that pulsed through us both almost brought me to my knees. My hands wandered over her, not to feel her up, but to check if she was real. She was. She was okay. She was safe now that she was with me.
“Jagger?” Arden asked, finally breaking the kiss.
“Fuck, I was scared, Little Flower,” I said, pulling her into a hug.
“I was scared, too. I felt you coming, but…these freaking walls.” She gestured to them. “Like a prison within a prison.”
The walls shifted again, and Arden tensed in my arms. But it was just Flint and Lex. They threw themselves at her, hugging her tightly and not letting go. They didn’t need to speak—the way they murmured relieved words in her ears said enough.
