“Maybe. Maybe not.”
He snorted. “No one gets out alive.”
“There’s a first time for everything.”
He was silent. “Your father won’t like this.”
“It’s not up to him.”
We reached the main doors and I stepped outside to find Dillon chatting amiably to Peter and the other Lycan. They were smiling at something he’d said.
Was there anyone the sea god couldn’t eventually charm?
“Dillon!” I waved him over.
He patted Peter on the shoulder, then jogged over to join me. “How’d it go?”
“Not good.” Tarquin spoke for me. “Your woman is insane. Follow me.” He turned back into the castle and took us down a different corridor.
“What does he mean?” Dillon asked.
I filled him in on my conversation with Henrik, ending with my decision to play proxy.
“No,” Dillon said softly. “Let me. Let me be proxy.”
“You can’t.” I gave him a small smile. “Only a family member can be a proxy. It’s a bloodline thing.”
Dillon paled. “This wasn’t the plan, Quinn.”
“I know. But I can’t just walk away and leave him to die. He won’t make it. You might not be able to see it, because he masks it well, but he has a bad leg, an old injury that never healed, not even in Lycan form. I can do this.”
“No one has ever completed The Run,” Tarquin reminded us.
Dillon’s jaw ticked. “Maybe not. But Quinn can.” His eyes were alight with confident fervor. “I know you can.”
His confidence in me gave me strength. “Thank you.”
I’d been so wrapped up in my conversation with Dillon, focused on his words and his expression, that I’d barely paid attention to our route, and as if by magic we were descending a steep flight of stone steps lit by electric lights fixed to the walls.
The air grew chill and wet the farther we went. We stepped off onto flagstones in a room lined with cells. All were empty except one.
My father leapt up at the sight of me, hands balling into fists. “No…No, Quinn, why did you come?”
“Seriously?” I approached the cell. “How could I not?”
“That little bastard Ward.”
I pushed down the tide of anger that Ward’s name evoked. “You shouldn’t have lied, Dad.”
“I had to protect you.” He stepped forward and gripped the bars, lowering his voice. “I couldn’t let him know about you…about what…what you are.”
I scanned his face. “Dad…What do you mean? That I’m part fae and part Lycan?”
He squeezed his eyes shut. “And the rest…”
His words were a sucker punch. “What?”
His throat bobbed. “I knew. I knew she was different. I tasted her darkness, but I loved her, and then there was the other one. The one who hated you and wanted you dead. After she tried to…After she tried to hurt you, we decided it was best if she left. She was getting weaker, you see, her hold on the other one was slipping. We couldn’t risk you getting hurt.”
My heart was pounding so fast that I thought it would burst through my chest. “Have you any idea what you’re saying. Any idea who you loved? What you loved?”
He looked away. “I never asked. I didn’t want to know. But when you began to have the nightmare and hear the voice, I suspected…So I did what I could to protect you.”
“The tattoos?”
“Yes. I’ll always protect you. I couldn’t let Henrik have you. He collects oddities.” His eyes grew wide. “He keeps them inside the mountain. Only one ever escaped, and he’s been looking for her ever since.”
My blood filled with ice. So, my assessment had been wrong. “I’m not her. He checked.”
“You saw him already?”
“Yes.”
A wild look filled my dad’s eyes. “If he finds out how unique you truly are, then he’ll keep you. You need to leave now.”
“It’s too late for that. I agreed to be your proxy.”
Dad let out a strangled sound. “No. No. What have you done?”
Tarquin entered the room, boot falls echoing on stone. “She’s accepted the deal. The only way out now is through The Run.”
DILLON
“I’m going to kill Ward.” Quinn stares out the window of the tower room we’ve been locked in. “The snake. The fucking snake.”
Her rage is a palpable force and I sense the darkness inside her beating softly like a second heart. “We’ll deal with Ward once you’re safe.”
The tower room has only one exit. If I want, I can break down the door. I can get us out of here. I have enough power for that, but Quinn refuses to leave her father. She refuses to bow out of her deal and bring Henrik’s wrath down on her pack.
We must earn her freedom and her father’s by following the Lycan law.
“He knew…” Quinn says.
I join her by the window and look out onto the grounds bathed in the dying embers of the sun. There’s an epic maze below us, and from this height you can trace the paths and play the game of finding a way through. Quinn seems focused on it, her gaze flicking back and forth as she works it out.
I lightly touch her arm. “Who knew?”
She bites back a sigh. “My dad knew about the taint.”
“No, Quinn. Your father knew your mother wasn’t what she claimed to be. He sensed the darkness within her, but that doesn’t mean he knew what he was dealing with.”
“Falling in love with?” She shakes her head. “How could he have loved that…that thing?”
The way she says it is almost self-reflective, and it hits me that she isn’t questioning her father’s ability to be duped by and love the taint, she’s questioning her own. She loved her mother. Her mother who was the taint, who’d probably always been the taint. She’d voiced this suspicion on the journey here, but to have it confirmed…
“You need to focus on The Run. On staying alive.”
She nods. “I can fight. My Lycan is strong. I’m Faoladh.”
“I know, but you can’t let him see that.”
She stops pacing. “What?”
“Quinn, if what your father says is true, if Henrik does collect oddities, then you can’t let him see what you are. A Faoladh with fae and Lycan blood is pretty unique, not to mention…”
“My taint genes.” She worries her bottom lip. “But it’s inside the mountain. He can’t see me.”
“We can’t be sure of that.” I sense her panic. If she can’t rely on her beast, then what does she have to fight with? “You have me, and you have your mates. We’re connected. You don’t have to shift to draw on our power.”
She nods, taking even breaths to calm her nerves. “I have my daggers and I can partially shift if need be.” She raises her hand and it morphs, elongating into a lethally taloned appendage. “I won’t give him anything.”
There is so much more I want to say. Things to warn her about the darkness inside. What if in her desperation she latches onto it and taps into it? What if the taint in her genes takes over?