Page 93 of Crown of Tides and Fury

“Let go!” I tried again, and Griffon squeezed my knees so tightly the pain made me gasp.

“If we fall, mine won’t be the only neck broken. Be still.”

“Turn back and I’ll cooperate,” I said, and kicked my legs again.

“You’ll cooperate or I’ll punish Fallon for my trouble.”

I gasped again, tried to read his face. His jaw was set, his concentration on the steps. There was no way to tell. If I believed this was the same man I’d fallen in love with, I would have sworn he was incapable of cruelty. Now…I wasn’t sure of anything.

I held perfectly still and waited for him to look smug, but his face was lost in shadow now. If he could see the walls around us, it wasn’t with human eyes.

Somewhere, far above us, wind whistled into the stairwell and bumped around--a bombastic ghost trying to scare away intruders. The only thing keeping my damp body warm was my rising temper and the sinewy arms that carried me without faltering.

The shushing of the rain was replaced by the shushing of his leather shoes on the steps, taking us deeper into darkness, deeper into silence, seven inches at a time. Neither of us spoke. I could barely hear his breathing. And just as I was about to come down with an hysterical case of claustrophobia, a hint of light made me wonder if I was hallucinating.

Carefully, I turned my head and watched the outside wall begin to lighten. I checked Griffon’s face. If anything, his jaw was set even harder than before. His expression warned me not to speak. His hands gripped me just a little tighter.

In a matter of three steps, we were out of the tight, narrow spiral that had delivered us to the center of the earth. I resisted the urge to guestimate just how deep underground we were and tried to appreciate the fact that I could see again.

The light danced on the walls around us—firelight from torches set in the stones about every ten feet.

Finally, Griffon lowered my legs and set my boots on the ground. I glanced over his shoulder and wondered if I could get past him and beat him back to the top of the stairs. In the dark, I’d be stumbling on my hands and knees, but it might be worth a try.

He stepped into my line of sight and shook his head, then looked behind me. I turned and found we were very much alone, standing in front of a short line of metal bars. Individual cells were separated by stone walls. Each were about eight to ten feet wide. Four feet of bars, four feet of gate.

I’d been there before, with Wickham, but we hadn’t used the stairs. “Holy shit.”

Caught off guard by a nudge, I stumbled forward. Griffon reached around me and opened the gate of the first cell, but when he tried to nudge me a second time, I resisted, spun around him. He spun too and ended up between me and the stairs all over again.

“You son of a bitch! You’re not putting me in there!”

He bent forward and grabbed me around the thighs, carried me into the cell and dropped me on the narrow bed, then slammed the cell door between us, all in a matter of seconds. I knew he could shoot through the sky like Superman, but I had no idea he could move that fast without his wings.

Fae,I reminded myself.Nothing should surprise me.

He took a deliberate step back from the bars. “You’ll have plenty of time to curse me after I’m gone.”

My heart froze in my chest. “You’re not going to leave me here!”

“Not for long. But I have pressing business.” He gestured to the nearest torch. “I won’t leave you in the dark.”

I shook my head and no matter how badly I wanted to act cool at that moment, my freakout flag was about to unfurl. I came up off the bed and grabbed the bars, wishing I could grab him instead and hold on for dear life.

“The fire will go out,” I said, my voice breaking as I tried to hold back a sob.

“They will be replaced.”

“I…I…I have questions.” My thoughts sputtered like the flames as I tried to think of anything that could change his mind.

“I won’t be long,” he said, and plucked his wad of clothing off the floor. In three long strides, he was in the stairwell. “I’ll answer them all when I return.”

He ran up the stairs, light as a feather without my weight to slow him down. I counted his steps—each one of them echoed loudly, like someone chopping wood on overdrive. But I stopped counting when I realized he was taking them three or four at a time.

Those last steps, though, sounded a mile away.

“I can’t believe he left me here.”

One of the torches flashed and the orange fire was replaced by tight blue flames that danced to the top of the stick and disappeared. I very carefully moved back to the bed and sat on the edge, trying to stir the air as little as possible.

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