Jonas (Darkness #7) (6 page)

I wished I had his confidence. Jonas’ life was on the line.

J
onas shook
out his hands and stood in a rush. He swung his body around and rolled his shoulders. Being stiff was the worst thing for what was coming. He’d be dead before he ever got in motion.

He pulled up his sweats and tucked the phone in the pocket as Emmy hustled back to the rack of tools and took down two whips. She tied them around her waist and bent to the ground. Digging her fingers in the cracks, she worried one stone from the rest, revealing a small hole. Moving quickly and with fantastic economy, she pulled out a belt of knives. Working under the whips, she attached the lethal belt over her hips, overlaying her sheer gown.

“You are probably the hottest warrior I’ve ever seen,” Jonas said.

Emmy looked up with furrowed eyebrows. The worry cleared from her face for a brief, red-cheeked smile before she went back to her occupation. “We don’t have long. We need to get out of here.”

“Do you have a sword?” Jonas glanced at the wall of tools behind her. A paddle wouldn’t do much good against anything sharp, and he wasn’t about to go twirling a whip in public. That was something chicks did.

Emmy glanced behind her and refocused on him. Worry clouded her gaze. “No. I was never taught how to properly use one, so I’ve never kept one around.”

Jonas shrugged and stalked toward the door. “I’ll take someone’s off them. How long have we got before your captives come calling?”

Emmy replaced the stone and straightened up. She wiped her hands on her dress and retied her whips. “Any time. I caught Nathanial off-guard, but he would’ve unraveled my spell nearly immediately. He doesn’t think I can go far, so he’s probably not hurrying, but still…”

“We just have to stall.” Jonas couldn’t help moving toward her and gently putting his hands on her shoulders comfortingly. He felt her flinch lightly at the personal touch, but she didn’t shrug him off. “Sasha will get this bitch humming. If anyone can shake it up, it’ll be her. We just have to stall long enough for her to get pissed, and then make our escape.”

“She’s not as close as Nathanial, and my directions were probably not very helpful.”

Jonas moved his hand up to her face slowly. He touched her cheek as their gazes held. In a soft, reassuring voice, he said, “She’ll find a way in, and she’ll blow this bitch sky-high. I have the best mage on this planet because she is a true survivor. And I have the best leader, who will run circles around Nathanial. We just have to stall. Show me around this place, and I’ll keep it lively until reinforcements come.”

Tears glossed over Emmy’s eyes. One stray tear released and wobbled down her cheek before he wiped it away with his thumb. He bent, slowly, and lightly touched his lips to hers. He felt her hands wrap around his middle.

“Some warrior,” she said in a low tone. “I’m scared shitless.”

“That’s just because you’re thinking about it. C’mon.” He kissed her harder before stepping away. With a quick jerk, he swung open the door and prepared to rush a crowd of males with swords.

The dingy hallway waited, sleepy and empty.

He smirked back at her. “See? So far so good.”

“You don’t feel pain, and you’re not afraid of anything. What are you, Superman?” Emmy tiptoed around him on silent feet and peered to the right. A few bare bulbs dimly lit the old, stone hallway.

“I’m Superman’s kryptonite.”

Emmy huffed and took off at a jog to the left. “Well keep up. I assume you can run.”

“When I have to. I don’t make a sport out of it, or anything.”

“This is a serious maze down here. They mapped it out a long,
long
time ago, but very few people ever come down here. I bet I’m the only one that really knows how to get around.”

“What did this place used to be? Why is it here?”

Emmy shrugged as she turned left into a dark maw. She slowed to a fast walk. “I got the human affinity for the light, so I don’t have great night vision. Bear with me. Anyway, this was built by the Europeans a long time ago, I think. Like, first settlers era. Your race, obviously. To hide from the human settlers and whatever else. I think this below area was the dungeons, and then all the stuff above is for living. The stuff above has seen a lot of makeovers, but down here—well, who cares about prisoners, right?”

“And you’ve spent a lot of time in this place?”

They turned left and then right. Only one bulb every twenty yards lit their way, now. The darkness encroached on Jonas’ visibility, blurring the once-sharp lines. Emmy spread one hand in front of her, and one to the side, lightly skimming the wall with her fingers and hesitantly advancing. She probably couldn’t see much at all.

“I go where Nathanial goes,” she explained in a hush. “He visits this place once every couple years to check in with… whoever. People spying at the Council, mostly. I often acquire a captive, and spend the rest of my time wandering down here. Solitude is better than sneers or belittling. Hence my knowledge of the tunnels.”

“I take it you found one of the maps.”

“Yup. It was in the library. I took that, and a map of the surroundings. I have an American passport, so the idea was to eventually get free and disappear.”

“How’d you get—“ Jonas cut off as Emmy stopped in a drafty, dark void. She reached back blindly, groping for him. He took her cold hand and immediately threaded his fingers into hers. Electricity surged up through his arm and coursed through his body. An erection sprang to life, begging him to pull her onto his body. Instead, he took a deep breath and finished his sentence. “—a passport.”

“I’m not afraid of your contact. I figured I’d be scared of all males for… a great long time. It’s nice to know I’m not as screwed up as I thought I was.”

“That makes one of us.”

Emmy huffed and started walking at a right diagonal. “Can you see better than me?”

“Rough outlines.”

“Okay. Well, there is a tiny hole up here that leads into a different tunnel. I think someone must’ve gotten lost up here once upon a time and blasted their way through. It wasn’t on the map.”

“Secret tunnel?” Jonas saw a rough wall reaching to either side of them. The very faint light from a bulb distantly behind them lighted on the pockmarked and jagged stone that should’ve met at a corner. The hole was somewhat oblong and made a divot in the ceiling. “Never mind.”

“My dad was American and a doctor. He made up a birth certificate and got me a passport. It’s outdated, but… I’m a citizen.”

“What happened to him? Your dad?” They inched along five feet of pitch black. Jonas was as blind as Emmy was until they stepped around a corner and another distant light softly glowed down the corridor.

“Disappeared. He was here most of the time I was—he lived in the area, I think. He wasn’t a prisoner, or anything. I think he loved my mother. But soon after he gave me the passport he… stopped coming here. My mom was transferred out. I haven’t seen her since, either. Nathanial cut me off.”

“What’s the story with that guy? Why the obsession with you?”

Jonas could feel her hand trembling in his, but she kept silent. If she knew, she wasn’t willing to share. He could respect that, but he couldn’t stop a kernel of rage burning at what this monster had done to her life.

“Okay, just here.” They walked into a little alcove, followed a circular corridor away to the left, and found a shadowed door. If she hadn’t led Jonas directly to it, he wouldn’t have seen it. Not with the way it seemed to crouch in the shadows within the wall. A squeal of metal saw the heavy door swinging into a dark space. Standing at the doorway, there was no way to see how big the room was, its shape, or how deep it went. Given the nature of the corridor, though, chances were the room was round.

Emmy took two steps in, stopped, and sidestepped to the right. “Close the door behind you, then do as I just did. We’ll be blind, so you’ll need to walk around my traps.”

“What kind of traps?” Jonas asked as he pulled the door shut behind them. The click of the latch sounded unnaturally loud. Like he’d just shut them into a tomb.

“Just furniture positioned in the way. Enough to slow someone down so I could go at them with my whips.”

“But… you’d be trapped in here. What would be the point? Magic could take you out.”

“There’s a tiny door in the back. If we get a chance to run, we won’t be going the way we came. Nathanial will follow me with whatever tracking thing he has. That’ll take him in a straight line. He can’t get here in a straight line. This place was designed to keep prisoners in. If they tried to escape they’d be hopelessly running around the inside of this place. It’ll buy us time. Hopefully… it’ll buy us enough time.”

Emmy led them blindly through a series of steps, not unlike an elaborate dance routine, around the room. When she got to a place she deemed their goal, she stopped, about-faced, and sat down slowly. The creak of wood echoed around the stone room. Jonas followed suit, sitting right beside her on what felt like an old bench. This time the creak was more of a squeal. He paused.

“It should hold,” Emmy whispered.

“How do you know?”

“I don’t. But it sounded comforting.”

Jonas huffed and resumed. The bench wobbled, but held. “Okay. Now… we wait. I’m already bored.”

Silence descended on them like a heavy, suffocating blanket. Stagnant air prickled Jonas’ skin with implications. With what he knew was coming. He was sitting here, without a sword, with a woman he’d grown to really like, while warriors wielding buckets of magic wormed their way toward them.

He wasn’t good at this. This waiting for a battle to come to him. He wasn’t built for it.

“Is there room to pace in this place?” he asked in a gravelly whisper.

He felt movement next to him. Emmy took her hand from his grasp. It reappeared on his chest and slid up to his face. Her palm, strangely soft even though she worked with her tools, cupped his chin. “I can distract you.”

The bench groaned as she shifted her weight. Another little palm slid across his thigh and cupped his erection. He closed his eyes, since they weren’t any good here anyway, and let her pull his head toward her. He felt lips touch the side of his mouth lightly before repositioning fully on his. Her mouth opened, inviting him in.

He turned to her and gathered her into his lap. The feel of her, touching her—it was an exquisite sort of heaven. The electricity they’d known before exploded with the increased contact. He deepened their kiss and squeezed her body close. “Do I need to be gentle?”

“If you don’t want to break the bench.”

“No, I mean… are you worried about not being completely in control?”

“I am in control. If I asked you to stop, you’d stop. Immediately. I know that. I trust you.”

Jonas stood with her before setting her down on her feet and repositioning her body. He then pulled her with him to the hard stone floor, cold to the touch, and sat her on his lap. “So we don’t break that bench.”

Emmy laughed. A low, throaty sound that vibrated his bones. He put his arms around her and just held her for a moment, liking the feel of her delicate body against his. Liking that she curled up within his embrace and rested her face against his neck.

“Your problems have lived with you all your life,” Jonas said in a low hum. “Until today. I give you my word that soon they’ll be your past. And we can face that past with a smile and a sword. Or a whip. Soon all this will just be memories.”

“What about your past? What is it that haunts you? That makes you need to feel and own the pain until you come out blazing yet tranquil?”

“You’re way too eloquent for the likes of me—I should point that out. I’ll never hear the end of it from Charles. He’ll say it’s a green card situation.” Jonas gave a low chuckle. The darkness and hush of the room swallowed it up. “I was a runt when I was a kid. A tiny thing. Smaller than everyone. People thought I was deformed. Or that I was human. I didn’t have a firm grasp on my magic, which developed late, like the rest of me, and I couldn’t fight with any sort of strength. I was made fun of ruthlessly. My mom left me—which really is just not done—and my adopted father, who took pity on me, died a few years after the adoption. I was alone for most of my childhood—no friends, no respect, and no peers.”

“How did that change?”

Jonas ran his fingers through her silky hair. “I had a huge growth spurt. I packed on muscle, got a dose of magic, and nearly overnight became a giant. I’d practiced my sword work and offensive magic religiously because of the bullying, but it hadn’t been much good without strength and power. As soon as I got that strength and power…”

“You kicked ass.”

“Yes. Lots of ass. I earned a lot of notice, but didn’t accept it. Not from those people who’d been kicking me when I was down. I eventually met a couple guys that had lost parents in the same incident I did. They were a bit older, but ruthless. They had their own shit. We developed a sort of respect for each other, and then bonded. The three of us earned a name, and then we helped the strongest and smartest of us to become leader.”

“And he’s still leader.”

“Yes. One of the best. They want him for Regional, but he just became a father, so he’s putting elevated duties on hold.”

“And he’s mated to the mage? The human?”

“Yes. I hated her at first—you should know that. I hated that she was a human. After being taunted and ridiculed as being human half my life, and starting to believe it… Well, I wasn’t eager to accept her. Human, to me, was a dirty thing. A
lesser
species. Small and weak—helpless—like I was when I was a kid. Her presence brought back painful memories.”

“And she changed your mind? How?”

Jonas’ fingers stilled as he thought back. He remembered, very clearly, Sasha’s determination to learn her magic. Her fearlessness. Her valor. And, most importantly, her willingness to run into battle when she could’ve gone and hid. “She didn’t act like how I’d always heard humans acted. Like her sissy boyfriend at the time. Or other humans I’d run across. She had traits I admired. She was small, weak, untrained—yet she didn’t hide from bigger enemies like I had when I was younger. She always rose to the challenge and ran at danger. She didn’t need a growth spurt or a bunch of muscle to find her courage. She just goes for it. How can you not respect that? How can you not want to fight beside it?”