“No. I mean I found Tori. Her body is there with Sibyl.” Tori had died alone in a cage, trapped in the darkness.
Paul’s presence slid into her mind, cool and calming. She felt him trying to comfort her, whispering soothing words directly to her soul.
She soaked them up and let them give her the strength to pull in her next breath. She didn’t know how she would have lived through this without him. Even now, her heart was struggling to beat against the pressure of her grief. Her baby sister had died alone in some cave, and Andra hadn’t been able to stop it.
“We’ll recover her body,” whispered Paul. “We’ll bring her home.”
Andra tried to control her breathing and quiet the sobs that shook her. She wanted to give up, to curl in on herself and cry until nothing mattered anymore and all the pain was gone. But Sibyl needed her. She owed it to Tori not to let another little girl die alone in the dark.
She pushed away from Paul, already missing the animal comfort of his warm body. “We need to get moving. We’re not far away now, and night is coming.”
Paul grudgingly let her go. He gently wiped her tears away and kissed her forehead. “Sibyl is lucky to have someone as brave and strong as you on her side. So am I.”
She was going to miss him. Their time together was up in only a few more hours.
His kind brown eyes swept over her face as if soaking her in. “Don’t think about that now. You’ve got enough to deal with to also be thinking about our future.”
They didn’t have a future. Not really. And as hard as it would be to walk away from him now that she loved him, she would have done it all again in a heartbeat. She now had proof that real courage and honor existed to fight back the ugly things in the world.
“We should go,” she said.
He looked like he wanted to say something more to her, but instead he nodded. “Sibyl needs us.”
Three hours later, they found the cave where Sibyl was being held. The strain on Andra was nearly too much for Paul to bear. She was pushing herself, and if he hadn’t felt her desperate need to see this through—if he hadn’t known that failing would kill something inside her—he would have demanded she stay behind in the SUV.
Not that he had any real right to demand anything from her. Less than an hour remained on the clock before his luceria fell from her neck and he was once again alone.
Paul looked at his ring. The colors had solidified completely, which meant their bond was complete. Breaking it would kill him. Unless she changed her mind about leaving him, he wasn’t going to live to see sunrise. If he tried to hold out, Andra would end up paying the price. He’d already tried to force her to stay with him once. As soon as his soul started to die off, there would be nothing to stop him from finishing what he’d started. The only way to keep her safe was to walk away for good.
The saddest part of knowing that wasn’t that his life was ending—he’d had a long, full life. The saddest part was going to be leaving Andra alone. She didn’t deserve that. She deserved to be happy. To be loved.
Maybe Iain could give her what she really needed once Paul was out of the way.
It was full dark now, and based on the trampled dirt and vegetation near the cave entrance, most of the Synestryn had already gone out to hunt.
“Where is she?” asked Gilda, the Gray Lady. The woman looked like she was barely holding herself together. Angus’s arm was supporting her, keeping Gilda from swaying with weakness.
“Inside,” said Andra. “About a quarter mile from here.”
Nicholas surveyed the surrounding land. “This whole area is low. We’re bound to run into some water.”
Shit. That made this whole rescue effort a lot more dangerous. They weren’t just going to be fighting demons; they also had to make sure they didn’t drown.
“The tracks they left behind aren’t muddy, so maybe we’ll get lucky,” said Paul.
“Yeah.” Madoc snorted. “ ’Cause that happens all the fucking time.”
“Enough,” ordered Angus. “We’re going in, regardless. Paul, Andra, Madoc, Nicholas, Gilda, and I are going in. The rest of you guard our exit. Don’t let anything come back in and sneak up behind us.”
Everyone nodded. Helen pushed her braids behind her shoulders, lifted her hands, and a ring of fire erupted around the vehicles and the entrance. “They’ll have to come through that first,” she said.
“Good,” said Angus. “That’ll help. Andra, you stay behind me and Gilda.”
Andra stepped forward. “I need to go in first so I can see the way. Besides, Gilda looks like she’s about to fall over.”
The Gray Lady straightened her shoulders. “I’m fine, stronger than a child like you on your best day.”
Angus stepped in front of his wife and lifted her chin. “That’s enough. We do it her way. She’s gotten us this far, hasn’t she?”
Gilda gave a slight nod and looked away. “Fine. Let her go first.”
Andra was already at the mouth of the cave when Paul caught up to her. “You need to be in constant contact with my power. Something nasty could pop up, and you won’t have time to react if you’re not ready.”
“Okay. I can do that.” He felt her reach out to him and open herself up. Their conduit was larger now than it had been only hours ago. Power flowed easily out of him, making his body sing.
“Tell her about the seeing-in-the-dark thing,” called Helen. “She’s going to need that.”
“Right. If you funnel some power to your eyes, you can see in the dark. Just be careful not to do too much, though. You could hurt yourself.”
“Got it. I can see everything. Thanks.”
The tunnel went down steeply for twenty feet before it leveled off. This wasn’t a nice, well-planned mine. It was a natural cave with plenty of twists and turns and no nice, flat surface to walk on. At one point, they had to squeeze one at a time through an opening no wider than his shoulders.
The smell of damp earth and decay clung to the air. A steady drip from a hundred places echoed off the walls. Boots scraped behind them, and Madoc grunted as he tried to fit his big body through the hole.