Enchanted Guardian. Sharon Ashwood

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СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">      When she reached the corridor outside, it was empty but for stairs leading to the rooms above and below. Where had they taken Susan? It had to have been just minutes ago. Nim listened to the sounds around her. There was fighting downstairs, spilling in from the yard. Not the first place she’d take a prisoner. She glanced up, but the condition of the ceiling said there’d been considerable water damage on the third floor, perhaps from a leaking roof. She’d try her luck in the immediate area first.

      Six doors faced onto the hardwood hallway, including the room Nim had just left. A few stood open and one was missing altogether. Most of the rooms were little more than stinking burrows, telling the tale of how far these fae had sunk in their addiction.

      The fourth room she peered into was different. The window had been boarded up, but a single candle threw a pool of light over the space. Some attempt had been made to furnish it with a sagging sofa and a moth-eaten rug. Unfortunately, what it had acquired in fabric it had gained in the stink of mildew. Nim stifled a sneeze.

      One of the shadows moved. A male fae rose, holding Susan to his chest. Nim couldn’t tell if he meant to protect her or use her as a shield, but when she looked into his eyes all became clear. His expression was filled with fury—and that was only possible if he’d drunk from her soul.

      “Who the stars are you?” he rasped. He was shaking, a telltale sign of the damage addicts suffered. Next on the list was incurable madness.

      Nim kept the gun to her side, unwilling to risk shooting Susan. The violinist looked barely conscious, as if she would collapse if her attacker released the arm he clutched around her waist. The fae himself looked barely able to stand, overcome by the emotions swirling inside him.

      Nim kept her voice soft and calm, but she knew better than to beg him for Susan’s life. If the fae had still possessed a better nature, he wouldn’t be there in the first place. “I’m here to save you.”

      “Oh?” he scoffed.

      “From dishonor,” she said in the same even, implacable voice. “You blacken our people’s name.”

      “Does it matter?” His lip curled. “They call this house haunted. What are we fae but ghosts?”

      His barb struck home, echoing Nim’s darkest thoughts. But she took a step forward, knowing every inch closer to her target improved her aim. “Even so, remaining true to our best selves is the test of our worth.”

      Fine words, considering the suitcases already packed and waiting at her condo. They were both running in their own ways, this man with his addiction and Nim with her plans to vanish. They were both running to meaningless ends. The thought made Nim falter, and the fae must have seen it in her step.

      He thrust Susan forward. The girl stumbled forward, but Nim’s reflexes were too swift. She pushed Susan onto the sofa and stepped aside in the same moment. Susan fell hard into the dusty cushions, but now Nim had the opening she needed.

      She took aim, but was a split second too late. The fae had a gun, too.

Chapter 8

      They both fired, and though the fae’s hand shook, his aim was good enough. Hot pain scored Nim’s shoulder the same instant as she fired.

      The fae stumbled backward, crashing into the furniture. He hung there, clinging to the jumble behind him for a long moment. Finally, he collapsed a bit at a time, first dropping the gun and then folding limb by limb until he sank to the filthy floor. Nim stumbled forward, picking up his weapon and thrusting it into her belt. There was a neat hole in his forehead, assuring her that he was dead. She refused to look at the mess on the wall where he’d been standing.

      Only then did she look down at her own wound, feeling a wave of sticky heat rise to her skin. It was the second wound in two days, but thankfully it wasn’t deep. She bled, but the bullet had only scored her upper arm.

      “What happened?” demanded Lancelot.

      She spun to see him filling the doorway. Someone had brought him an ax, and he was covered in dirt and blood, his hair slicked back from his broad forehead. He’d lost his jacket, and his heavily muscled arms glistened with sweat. Tension slipped from Nim’s shoulders, making her wound throb afresh as her muscles released. There was no doubt that she could have got Susan out of the house on her own, but now that Lancelot was here everything would be so much easier.

      “I found her.” She pointed to the couch.

      His gaze was slow to shift from her bloody arm to Susan’s prone form.

      “I’m fine,” Nim said. “She’s alive.”

      “And he’s not.” Lancelot nodded to the body of the fae. “That was a clean shot.”

      With some surprise, Nim felt a pang of regret. “Perhaps it was a mercy.” Yet those words tasted false, so she tried again. “It was a tragedy.”

      Working quickly, Lancelot thrust the ax into a leather hanger strapped to his belt and carefully rolled Susan over. As Nim had suspected, she was gagged with a strip of cloth. Nim loosened the knots, cursing the fingers of her left hand. The wound was making them clumsy.

      “There’s fighting on the stairs,” Lancelot said, his tone brisk. “I had to fight my way up here. We can’t descend carrying an unconscious girl.”

      Nim finally got the knots undone and pulled off the gag, wincing at the angry marks the bindings left behind. Susan didn’t revive, even when Nim tapped the girl’s cheeks. “Stars!” Nim cursed. “After what’s been done to her, there is no telling if she’ll ever wake up, or if she’ll be right when she does.”

      She met Lancelot’s eyes, nearly falling into their deep brown depths. There was sadness there she’d never seen before. Whatever he’d endured since they parted had left traces behind. She looked away, the room suddenly feeling too small.

      “A house this size would have had servants,” she said. “Perhaps they had a back staircase for the staff to move about the house. We could take her out that way.”

      Glad to have a concrete goal, she returned to the hallway. Lancelot followed, Susan draped in his arms. Nim forced open the remaining doors. The smallest was in a recessed niche off the main corridor, and the settling house had jammed it shut. One slam of Lancelot’s boot sent it crashing open.

      It was indeed another staircase, but the opening showed a cobwebbed nightmare. Nim could almost hear the scuttle of spidery feet in the yawning blackness. “This looks old. It might not be safe,” she said.

      But then they smelled smoke. “Fire,” said Lancelot. “This place will go up like paper.”

      Nim looked over her shoulder and saw flickering light in the direction they’d come from. “There was a candle in the room where I found Susan. It must have tipped over in the fight.”

      Even as she watched, the flames licked the dry, crumbling wood outside the room. Lancelot was right. The old place would go up in minutes, and the fire was between them and the main exit.

      “Go,” he said, his voice firm. “We don’t have a choice.”

      One hand held up to protect her face, Nim took a step into the stuffy СКАЧАТЬ