Still, guilt tightened her throat. She was leaving Tammi and the others at the hands of the psychopaths.

With a final glance at Caine, she pushed on a glass door, but it didn’t budge. What the hell?

Caine pushed another door, with the same result.

Locked.

The security guard’s voice broke the silence. “You gotta use the scanner. When the alarms are going off, no one can leave without scanning.”

Chapter 28

“Of course.” Caine kept his voice even when he spoke to the guard. “The scanners.”

Any minute now, they’d be found out. She couldn’t let herself imagine the torture they’d endure after an escape attempt that left a trail of bodies.

“Get ready to run,” she whispered to Caine.

She took a few steps back before pulling the gun, aiming it at the glass doors. If she couldn’t scan her way out, she’d have to shoot her way out. She squeezed the trigger and broke into a sprint. Glass shattered all around them. Shards blasted against her skin as she bolted to the pavement outside. They cleared the door’s entrance just as the guard unleashed a round of bullets. Caine pulled her out of the crossfire, taking shelter behind the building’s brick facade.

He folded her in an embrace and pulled off her ring. In the shadows, he began chanting in Angelic. The mage joined in as their mingling auras whirled through her body. Panicked shouts echoed from within the building, but the magic was already rippling over her skin, and a thick, protective mist enshrouded them.

Caine slipped the ring back on her finger, and the mist thinned. Rosalind let out a long, slow breath. They stood in Mount Auburn Cemetery, dwarfed by Abduxiel Mansion. Blood streaked Caine’s neck.

Pain splintered her shoulder. She pressed her fingers to her collarbone, wincing. “I’ve been shot three times in two days. This is not how I imagined my life turning out.”

Caine slipped his arm around her waist. “Let me get you inside. I’ll heal you.”

As they approached the tall oak door, it swung open, revealing a cavernous hall. Moonlight shone through a stained glass window—an image of an angel. Twinkling lights hung suspended in the air like stars, flickering over an empty marble floor. If she weren’t half-dead, she might actually enjoy this place.

Orcus rushed from a darkened archway. “I tried to keep her here. She wouldn’t listen,” he hissed. “Are you injured, Master? And what is happening with Bileth?”

“I’m fine, but she’s badly hurt.”

Orcus pulled off his hood, revealing black eyes and a pale, bald head the color of bone. “Take her into the celestial room. Try not to get blood everywhere. I’ve just cleaned up. I’ll draw a bath in the adjacent washing room.”

She leaned into Caine, and agony burned through her shoulder. He led her through an archway, pushing open a door into a candlelit room. Midnight-blue wallpaper, marked with silver stars, surrounded them. A silky, blue bed stood in the center of the room, and a twinkling chandelier hung from the ceiling.