Bloodline (27 page)

They drew nearer and nearer to Oberon, and Inigo saw him glance over his shoulder a few times and change direction. Somehow Star managed to get ahead, and Beauty reared up, forcing Oberon to wrap his arms around the horse’s neck. Before Inigo could reach them, Star had set off again on a diagonal path to cut between him and Micah, but when Inigo urged Blade to follow, the horse came to a stop.

Just ahead, he saw Beauty come to a grinding halt, and Oberon flew over her head to land on the sand. Micah cheered and cantered closer, but Blade refused to move.

“What is it?” Inigo asked.

The horse whinnied.

“I don’t understand anymore. Sorry.” Inigo slipped down from Blade’s back and set off across the sand toward Oberon, who’d struggled to his feet. Inigo was jerked back and almost fell as Blade tugged at his shirt. He wriggled free, but when he tried to get closer to the faerie, the horse stepped in his path.

Micah and Star reached his side, and Micah tumbled off the horse’s back.

“Blade seems fairly insistent we don’t go any nearer,” Inigo said.

“Oh fuck. Look.” Micah pointed, and Inigo saw Oberon was having trouble pulling his feet out of the sand. “This must be Belor Sands. My mother used to tell us tales about it. There are areas of quicksand exposed at low tide.”

“Help me,” Oberon shouted. “Please.”

“Stop struggling,” Inigo shouted. “You’ll sink faster.”

He was up to his knees and panicking. His wings were out, but they were quickly caked in wet sand and pulling him down.

“Serves him right,” Micah muttered.

Inigo glanced at him. “We can’t not help.”

“Yeah, we can.” Micah crossed his arms. “He staked you, cut my wings to ribbons, and fucking ate them. Let him die.”

“What about Ellie?”

Micah paled. “Oh shit.”

“Where’s Micah’s sister?” Inigo asked.

“Help me and I’ll tell you.”

“Tell us or we won’t help you,” Micah snapped.

Oberon struggled and sank deeper. “Get me the fuck out of here.”

“Where’s Ellie?”

“If I tell you, you’ll just leave me.”

“I won’t,” Inigo said.

“She’s in the castle. I swear it.”

“Still alive?” Inigo asked.

“Yes. She’s fine. I tied her up and gagged her, but she’s okay. There’s a secret space off my changing room. She’s in there. Please.”

“How do we know you’re not lying?” Micah asked.

Oberon clutched at the mud sucking at his thighs, trying to push it away. “I’m fucking not.”

Inigo hurried forward across the wet sand and dropped to his knees.

“What the hell are you doing?” Micah yelled.

Inigo held out his hand to Oberon. He was in a patch of quicksand, he could feel it pulling at his legs, but with his weight spread, he had a chance of pulling Oberon free before he sank too deep.

“Inigo, get out of there,” Micah shouted. “The bastard’s probably lying.”

Oberon grabbed his wrist and yanked before Inigo had a chance to tug, and he fell forward. Oberon pushed down on his back, trying to lever himself out of the wet, sandy mud. Micah was screaming, Oberon yelling, and Inigo sank deeper. He managed to twist out from under Oberon, who was now in deeper than his waist, but so was he.

Inigo looked at Micah. All three horses were working together to prevent him getting nearer.
Oh damn. They know he can’t help me.

“Inigo!”

He tried to lift his leg and break the suction, but he was held tight. He didn’t panic. There was no point. He was reassured by the knowledge that it was impossible for anyone to drown in quicksand. It was twice as dense as a body, but once you were trapped, it was very difficult to get out.

Close to him Oberon was yelling and wailing and thrashing around and sinking deeper. But then Inigo was sinking deeper too, and he wasn’t moving. It felt as if his legs were encased in tightening lead. He tried lying back to spread his weight, but he still couldn’t move his feet. Reluctant as he was to go facedown, he threw his upper body forward and then back in an attempt to break the suction.

He couldn’t.

“Inigo, get the fuck out of there,” Micah yelled. “This is not normal quicksand. It’ll swallow you.”

Oh shit
. If he’d still been a pure-blooded vampire, that wouldn’t have necessarily been a problem because vampires didn’t breathe, though the weight of the sand would probably crack all his ribs. Even that was survivable. But he didn’t think he was a pure-blooded vampire anymore. His heart was beating. His pulse racing. Breaths he’d once taken to fit in with everyone else now seemed rather more important. Or was that just his mind playing tricks?

“My wings won’t come out,” Micah yelled in fury. “They’re not fully healed. Oh shit. Let me help him. For fuck’s sake.”

“No,” Inigo said. “If you come any nearer, you’ll be trapped as well.”

“Keep still. I’ll go and get help. A rope. Some boards.”

“Don’t go,” Inigo whispered. “Don’t leave me.”

Micah gave a muffled sob. Inigo glanced at Oberon and shuddered at the look on the faerie’s face. Pain, fury, and fear. The sand had reached the guy’s neck. Inigo was only in up to his chest. Oberon struggled to breathe. He tipped his head back to try and keep his mouth clear, but it was going to be over soon.

“You’ll. Never. Find. Her.” The bastard grunted out each word.

Inigo watched in horrified fascination as the faerie’s head slowly sank. The sand covered his mouth, his nose, and then his eyes closed and the next moment, he was gone.
Oh hell.

“Inigo, hang on. There are faeries in the air. They’re coming. Don’t give in. Please.”

All these years spent longing to breathe, and now he wished he didn’t have to. The sun wasn’t burning him—well, not in the wrong way. He’d had a good life really. Some of it had been shit, but not all of it. Especially not Micah. The sand touched his neck, and he shuddered. If there was a bottom to this pit, maybe he’d sink down to it and then be able to worm his way out.

Idiot. If you can’t get out of it now, you won’t manage that. You’ll be in here forever
. He did panic then. The idea of being trapped alive, unable to move, freaked him out more than actually dying.

“I love you,” he blurted. He hadn’t intended to say it, hadn’t wanted to burden Micah with that, but he couldn’t help himself.

“And I love you. And if you fucking die, I’ll never forgive you. Hang on.”

Inigo managed a smile. “To what?”

“To my love.” Micah broke free of the horses and flung himself facedown on the wet sand. He dug frantically with his hands around Inigo’s head, but the quicksand flowed back into place.

“Back,” Inigo forced the word out. “Please. Not you. Don’t make this worse.”

“Fuck off.” Micah kept clawing at the sand, but it crept relentlessly up Inigo’s face.

He kept his eyes open as long as he could, wanted the image of Micah to be the one he took with him, and then with Micah’s screams ringing in his ears as Blade tugged him back by the seat of his pants, the sand swallowed him and he swallowed the sand.

Chapter Seventeen

Micah stared in disbelief at the point in the sand where Inigo had disappeared. He couldn’t believe he’d gone, that he was dead. He refused to accept it. He rushed back and kept digging, but there was nothing there and when he drew enough sense into his head to register he was sinking too, he crawled over to where the horses stood and pulled himself up, his legs shaking.

Faeries landed around him, Kit and his father among them, and Micah wanted to scream with fury. If they’d got here sooner, Inigo wouldn’t have died.

Kit came to his side. “What happened?”

“The horse threw Oberon into the quicksand.” He spoke in a monotone, numb with grief. “He said he’d tell us where Ellie was if we helped him. She’s in a space off his changing room. So he claimed. I wanted to leave him, but Inigo wouldn’t. The bastard had tried to kill him and yet Inigo still wanted to help him. Except Oberon pulled Inigo in too and used him to try and lever his way out. They both went down.”

His father put his hand on his shoulder, and Micah shrugged him off. “Don’t touch me. You’ve got what you wanted now. No more son and vampire.”

“Micah—”

“Just shut up.”

“He’s a vampire. He doesn’t need to breathe. We can dig him out,” his father said. “He’ll be muddy, but he should be fine.”

Hope flared, and Micah’s heart jumped.

“We can’t dig him out,” Kit said. “The quicksand will flow back into place.”

Micah didn’t take his gaze from the spot where Inigo had gone down.
Don’t be dead.

There was lots of activity around him as people came and went with various pieces of equipment and advice. Blade rested his head on Micah’s shoulder and waited with him, and Micah kept sending the same message.
Don’t be dead. Don’t be dead.

By midafternoon, they’d sunk a wide circular pipe into the sand and begun to suck out the contents using hand-powered pumps. But it seemed to Micah that no matter how much wet sand they pumped out, more took its place. More pumps were brought, and gradually the level inside the pipe began to fall. Before someone could stop him, Micah leaped onto the rim and straddled the top of the pipe.

“Micah,” his father called.

“Throw me a rope.”

“Let someone else do it,” his father said.

“I’ll do it without a rope.”

He caught the rope thrown to him and tied it around his waist before he began to descend, his back wedged against one side of the pipe, his feet against the other. Too narrow for any faerie to fly down; no way was anyone but him doing this. He inched his way lower.

“Keep pumping,” he shouted.

He could see the wet sand ten feet below, but there was no sign of Inigo. His heart pounded. This was the spot he’d gone down. Micah was sure of it. They were reluctant to push the pipe too far in case they hit him or the vampire, but Micah thought they needed to go deeper.

When he reached the surface of the sand, he sank his hand into the middle. Micah couldn’t lose him. This sinkhole had to stop somewhere.

“Don’t you dare take your feet off the sides,” his father shouted.

How the fuck did he know?
Micah put his feet down and began to sink. But as he crouched and dug with his hands, he touched something.

His heart soared. “More rope,” he yelled.

It landed next to his head, and he grabbed it before the sand swallowed it. The level of the ooze next to him was still decreasing as it was pumped out, and the top of Inigo’s head emerged.

“Be alive,” he muttered. “Please.”

In the struggle to loop the rope under Inigo’s arms, he sank deeper himself but dragged his feet out and moved the suctioning pipes closer to Inigo so they surrounded his body.

“Pull him up really slowly,” he yelled. “And keep sucking the sand out.”

Little by little Inigo emerged from the mud. Micah wiped his fingers over Inigo’s face and found his mouth limp.

“Water,” Micah yelled, and a bucket was lowered. He tipped it over Inigo’s head and almost cried out when he saw no sign of life.

“Stop fucking around and open your eyes,” Micah whispered.

They were winched out of the pipe together, and Micah held him tight, willing Inigo alive even though his heart told him he was too late.

At the surface, more water was tipped over both of them. Inigo lay on his back on firm sand, his eyes closed, unmoving. Micah knelt by his side, squeezing his hand, urging him to wake.

He didn’t.

* * * *

Even after they’d returned to the castle, he kept expecting Inigo to open his eyes and wink. When people came up and said they were sorry, Micah growled at them. Inigo wasn’t gone. He wouldn’t let him be gone.

“Micah.” His mother put her hand on his arm, and he forced his gaze away from Inigo for the first time to look at her. “We can’t find Ellie. Are you sure Oberon said it was a hidden place off his changing room?”

Her face was tear-streaked. Behind her stood Jago, who looked pale enough to be a ghost.

“You can’t help Inigo now,” she whispered. “But you can help your sister. What else did Oberon say?”

Micah pushed himself to his feet and dragged muddy fingers through even muddier hair. What had Roman told him when he was trying to solve puzzles? Go back a step and think.

How had Oberon’s hunters known where Ellie was? The family had all been careful, so who had given her away? Or what? He strode out of the room and headed for the court. Kit was in there talking to Maryse and Asher.

“Micah, how are you feeling?” Kit asked, a look of pity in his eyes Micah didn’t want to see.

“We need someone to go across the Divide and bring back Cavan or preferably the hunter he was with,” Micah said. “We need to know how they found Ellie.”

“I’ll go.” Asher was out of there in an instant.

“What does that have to do with where your sister might be now?” Kit asked.

“Because we can use the same method to find her.”

“That’s a very good point.” Kit put his hand on Micah’s shoulder. “Why don’t you take a shower, rest, have something to eat.”

“No.”

“At least have the shower. You’re frightening people,” Maryse said.

Did she honestly think he cared? But he let himself be led away. He was handed clean clothes and left alone. Once he stood under a torrent of hot water, the knowledge of what he’d lost hit him fully. He braced his hands on the wall and locked his knees to stop himself from collapsing. As muddy water swirled away, his imagination dragged him into thoughts of what Inigo had endured as the sand rose around him, and the pain in his heart made him cry out in a long, mournful howl that echoed around the room.

Yet by the time he’d emerged, he was back to being convinced that Inigo was merely sleeping, his vampiric system thrown out of whack by the—
oh fuck, the unicorn blood.

He raced back to the throne room and skidded to a halt at Kit’s side. “The unicorn blood. We can give him some.”

Kit patted his pocket. “We can try.”

He and Maryse followed Micah, but they moved too slowly to the bedchamber where they’d laid Inigo. Micah ran and willed them to hurry. He dropped down at Inigo’s side and stroked his cheek. The hope flaring in his chest enabled him to ignore the doubt on Kit’s face, but when the contents of the flask trickled back out over Inigo’s chin, Micah groaned.