Page 79 of Anchor

Taland looked okay.

“You really, really?—”

I didn’t give him the chance to finish speaking. I ran and basically jumped him, hugged him like I used to before, with my whole being. Hugged him like I wanted him inside my skin. Hugged him like I never wanted to let go.

His arms wrapped around me, too. He lowered his chin onto my shoulder, and he sighed, then whispered, “They saw you, Rosabel. They will testify. I have to kill them.”

This guy.

“No, you won’t.” We were not going to kill anybody because we didn’t have to.

“They saw you,” Taland insisted, not smiling for a change when he pulled back to look at me. “You shouldn’t have done that. You should have let them take me. You should?—”

“Is it just me or are you in a talking mood tonight?” I said.

He was legit shocked.

“That’s better. Here’s what we’re going to do. You’re going to put on one of the guards’ hats on your head, and a pair of cuffs around your wrists, and you’re going keep your head down and not look anyone in the eye. I have a car in the garage—you’regoing to get in the trunk, and we’re going to drive out of here. Understood?”

My grandmother’s car—oh, how I was thankful that I hadn’t yet taken it back to the mansion since that first day I came back to work. How I was thankful that I’d been too lazy to bother.

“Oh, I understand plenty,” Taland said, grabbing my chin in his hand. “Butdoyou?”

I gave him a peck on the lips. “Move.”

He did. I grabbed the hat that was more like a ski mask from the guard I’d knocked out and put it on Taland. It did a great job hiding his messy hair and his jaws and his neck. Next, he grabbed the cuffs of that same guard from his holster, put the key in his pocket, and the cuffs around his wrists. If he kept his head down like that, nobody was going to know it was him.Goddess, please don’t let anybody recognize him…

“Do you…you know, look likeyou?” I asked and he smiled.

“I do.”

“But what about that illusion you wore in the Iris Roe?” He’d looked like a completely different person in the game, and even the cameras had fallen prey to his magic.

“That doesn’t work in here, I’m afraid. Only outside,” Taland said, and I flinched. Of course, his illusion magic wouldn’t work in Headquarters. The wards stripped everyone of any spell that wasn’t cleared when entering here.

“And you’re sure nobody saw you?” I asked because now that we were almost to the doors that led out of the maze of corridors, I was starting to get nervous. Spells kept popping in my head—my mind trying to prepare itself for when they caught us.

They won’t,I thought, trying to calm myself down.Nobody will catch us.

“I am,” he said. “Is somebody going to search you?”

“No,” I said, and I sounded very sure. More sure than I felt. “Just keep your head down.”

“If they see us, you will say I forced you to take me out.”

Again, “No.” No way in any hell—no. I would not betray Taland again, not for anything.

Because that first time, I couldn’t fight alongside him. Neither of us could, not with our bodies or with weapons or with magic.

Now, it was different. Now, I was ready to kill for him without hesitation, goddess help me. Whatever that made me, I was ready for it. I could fight. I could do magic. I wasn’t going to spare any expense.

“Sweetness, think about this. Your reputation, your freedom, your whole life?—”

Is you,I wanted to say, but I wasn’t ready for that yet. So I said, “Let me worry about it, Taland. We’re getting out of here one way or another.”

“Then just tell me you’ll say I made you.” We stopped in front of the doors and I looked back at the corridor, half expecting the guards to be running after us, though they wouldn’t. Because we’d done another spell on them, Taland and I, one that put them into a coma-like sleep. One they wouldn’t wake up from for at least an hour, or until somebody shocked them awake with magic. To do that, they had to find them, and I wanted to believe that nobody would until we were out of here.

“I won’t.” I grabbed the handle.

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