Unknown - Scorched

She watched Ashe raise the captain’s head, giving him another swallow. “I don’t know if you’re aware, but we don’t need to eat or drink here.”

“Uh-huh. Well, aside from the whole blood volume thing, there’s the fact that this guy looks like he could use some TLC. We’re not all immortal.”

Although Reynard was even older than Constance, she let it go. She wasn’t going to argue about that, either.

Mac rose. “Then if you’ve got this covered, we’d better get going.”

“Go get ‘em, Sparky,” said Ashe, standing over the captain like a feral cat guarding her kitten.

Connie and Mac ran until they began seeing guardsmen in the corridors. Mac recognized the area by the fact that the stone of the walls had been polished to a faint sheen. He had approached this place from the other side before, climbing up a staircase slippery with moss.

They ducked into the shadows as a pair of guardsmen passed. They looked Roman, with short red capes and leather armor with plates of dull metal sewn on. He held his breath as they marched by, sandals clumping on the stone.

Both vampires and demons had a talent for hiding in plain sight, but he wondered whether his body heat would eventually give him away. Ever since the council meeting, his core temperature fluctuated between mild curry and extra-strength jalapeno. It wasn’t uncomfortable—he wasn’t even sweating—but he was conscious of radiating warmth like a bipedal pocket warmer.

The guardsmen passed. Mac and Connie slipped back into the corridor, silently ghosting through it. The hall with the black pond lay just fifty yards ahead. He could just see the outline of steps angling away from either side of the arched entry, leading up to the balconies above. The guardsmen that had passed them turned to the left, mounting the steps and disappearing from view.

The noise level was growing, not the clamor of happy anticipation, but a low murmur of anxious expectancy. It snaked through the dark spaces, brushing Mac’s nerves with a cold and flicking tongue. He could almost taste the panic in the voices, sour as bile.

Fear was a powerful motivator. All of this—mutiny and sacrifice—was happening because the guardsmen were afraid of being trapped in a disappearing prison. They thought this was the answer, and Mac was set to rip that last hope from them. I hate this.

He felt the same knot in his stomach as he’d felt before kicking down the door of a drug house. A mix of righteous anger and please-don’t-shoot-me. He drew his weapon. Connie drew hers, the sound of the blade on the leather sheath raising the hair on his arms.

He inched along the remaining yards to the entrance. Through the doorway, he could see a slice of what lay ahead. He caught a glimpse of the white marble edge of the pool, the stark color warmed by the braziers that lit the cavernous space. Mac’s gaze traveled up. When he had seen the space before, the balconies had been empty, but now guardsmen watched from the front rows, filling perhaps a quarter of the space. Had there once been enough guards to fill every seat?

It didn’t matter. There were too many of them for a straightforward fight. He looked for cover. There were pillars beside the twin stairways to the balconies. When he got close enough, he eyeballed the pillar on the right. Its angle to the wall made a small but effective hiding place. He pulled Connie into it.

“Stay here,” he breathed. “I’m going to take a closer look at what’s going on. I’ll be right back.”

Connie nodded silently, her features lost in the shadows. She gripped his shoulder, pulling him down and brushing his lips with hers. She melted under him, soft and sweet, but with the bite of her teeth against his tongue. Fierce, dark Connie. He felt the rush of heat in his blood, licks of fire under his skin.

She drew back quickly, as if his touch had burned her.

He stepped away, his gut gripped by a sudden, contrasting freeze. Those licks of fire hadn’t just been inside him. They’d flared along his skin.

Desire burns. Great as a metaphor, but his life would be sheer hell if that started to happen for real. I’m losing control.

Reynard had predicted this: Whatever you touch will be scorched to ashes. Dear God, no.

Connie shifted. With a quick flash, her hunter’s eyes caught a scrap of light. He caught her arm, pulling her deeper into the shadow before she gave herself away. He felt her flinch under his touch, and he tried to let her go, but she put her hand over his, holding him despite the heat of his flesh.

“Don’t let me hurt you,” he whispered.

She replied simply by putting her finger against his lips, hushing him. Scorching herself.

Mac’s heart broke.

She still clutched him, pressing her comfort into his burning skin. Vampires weren’t immune to fire. He could feel it in the tremor of her fingers. She’s in pain.

“Come back to me,” she pleaded. “Promise.”

Mac stepped back. Not if I’m going to hurt you.

He didn’t speak, but somehow she understood. Tears stood in her eyes. Despite his silence, she could sense he was pulling away.

Mac ached. All of him. The feeling was too big to punish just his heart.

He loved her. It was up to him to make her world better, not worse.

Demons destroy. I’m not going to destroy her. Without a word, he faded to dust and went to save Connie’s son. It’s the only thing left I can do.

He materialized in the very back of the balcony that curved above the entrance. From here, he could see that the balconies circled the whole space, forming a small, round theater with a clear view of everything below. No bad seats for the sacrifice.

Guardsmen sat at the front of the balconies, but over to the side Mac noticed a handful of figures standing to the back, half hidden by the darkness. A jolt of anger ran through him. He recognized one of the figures, hawk-nosed, black-haired, garbed in robes heavy with gold embroidery. An exotic figure, like some tribal leader who’d fought Genghis Khan, or the Turks, or Vlad Teppes. It was the half-fey warlord and Atreus’s sorcerer rival, Prince Miru-kai.

So that’s how Bran pulled this off. The rogue guardsman had help.

But the how didn’t matter anymore. What counted was the drama below. Mac looked down.

Although he’d braced himself, momentary shock robbed him of breath. Beside the pool stood a wooden scaffold three times the height of a man. Sylvius hung from one side by his wrists, his white flesh scored by dozens of angry wounds. Beneath him, a wooden bucket collected the blood.

Directly across from him, a cage was suspended from the ceiling. In it was Atreus, captive and forced to witness his son’s execution. Silver chains bound him to the bars, the metal robbing him of all magical power. The sorcerer was crumpled in the bottom of the cage, his face clasped behind his hands.

Mac started to shake with anger, his skin searing hot, but he slammed the demon down, forcing his mind to take in every detail, any scrap of information that might be of use. Think. What do you see?

Lit by the fire from the four braziers that marked the corners of the space, the scaffold’s wood looked dark and stained with age. Wood wasn’t plentiful in the Castle. It had probably been saved for use time and again, stored away between atrocities like a macabre Christmas tree.

Half a dozen figures stood around the base of the scaffold, one reading from a grimoire. He looked like a sorcerer, complete with gray beard and staff. The others were guardsmen, including Bran. They were standing in a loose circle around the base of the scaffold, repeating lines from whatever spell the sorcerer was reading. The charred-toast smell of magic hung in the air.