Page 32 of Great Falls Rogue
Coal stayed still, his gaze locked on the floor. “Let her go.” His voice was rougher than usual, as if he’d used it up talking—or screaming.
“Let who go?” Had Coal actually lost his mind overnight? River swallowed a curse. “Coal.” Shoving his own frustration aside, River spoke softly, as if soothing an anxious stallion. “I’m going to open this door now. Then we are going to walk out of here. Do you understand?”
Coal’s face snapped up, his blue eyes so dark, they seemed tinged with purple. “Leralynn. Let her free, and then you can deal with me as you wish.” Coal’s voice was strained but fully lucid despite the absurdity of his words. “She was caught up in the fray, nothing more. Punish me, not her.”
“Leralynn and Tye were released yesterday,” said River, a shiver running along the length of his spine. “They were left to sit a few hours in the questioning chamber, but no more than that. I assure you.”
“She is still here,” Coal snarled, uncoiling smoothly to his feet. His hair hung loose to his shoulders, matted with the same splotches of blood that covered his torn black tunic and bare arms. The knuckles on both his fists were raw and bleeding, as was his lip. His chest rose and fell with quick breaths.
Quickly calculating the path of least resistance, River decided that nothing he could say was likely to make an impact. Phantoms. Coal was imagining phantoms, he had to be. And you didn’t talk someone out of that. “I will make you a bargain, Coal. We go check the interrogation chamber, and once you see for yourself that no one is there, you and I will have a different conversation. One in which you will cooperate fully. Is that agreed?”
“Yes.”
River clicked open the lock, the intensity of Coal’s insistence making his heart patter in his throat. As Coal moved to stride out the door, however, River blocked the male’s path with his arm. “Have I your word?”
Coal’s nostrils flared as he pushed past River’s hand and sprinted down the corridor to the stairs, as if following some internal beacon. Down, down, down, the man’s soft steps took the crumbling stairs two at a time, River following close behind to the lowest level of the hold. The one where air was even more precious, from which not one sound escaped.
The heavy door to the questioning corridor opened with a screech of rust, releasing the sound of a girl’s whimpers into the dank air.
River’s face drained of blood. Quickening his pace, River rounded the final turn to find the questioning room not empty at all. Lera knelt on the floor, one of her arms in a too-high shackle, blood covering both the metal and her skin. As if she’d been pulling against the shackle all night, until her strength finally waned.
Her normally vibrant auburn hair hung in lank strands over her blanched face.
“Good stars, who did this?” The words spilled from River’s mouth before he could stop himself.
Coal’s ice-cold eyes cut River off at the knees. “You.”
Shoving past him, Coal rushed into the cell and crouched beside the girl with a slow gentleness that River had never seen in him. Instead of yanking Lera into his arms, as River would have, Coal shifted her just enough to take the pressure off the overstretched joint and examined the bloody manacle.
Leralynn whimpered but didn’t cry. Perhaps she had no tears left to shed.
River shifted his weight and felt Lera’s eyes lift to watch him over Coal’s shoulder. Fury and fear and pain saturated her chocolate gaze, though she was fighting like hell itself to put up a facade of strength.
It took all of River’s self-control to play along, keeping his face schooled and seemingly unaware of her state, all while bile rose up his throat, threatening to make him vomit.
He’d done this. Ordered Leralynn held without following up to ensure the instructions were executed as intended.
The pang of envy at watching Leralynn lean trustingly against Coal’s chest squeezed River hard enough to take his breath. Shuffling the key ring, he pulled up the small one for the manacle and took a step toward the pair. At least he had something to offer, late as it was.
Coal’s head snapped around, a low primal growl filling the room. River raised his hand to show the key, but the fevered glaze in Coal’s blue eyes was as clear a warning as a tiger’s roar. River wasn’t to come any closer. For any bloody reason.
Moving slowly, River slid the keys along the stone floor and backed out of the cell. He wasn’t welcome beside Leralynn. Not now, and very possibly not ever.
10
Lera
Iam afraid to breathe too quickly; the rhythm of slow steady inhalations has warded off the night terrors for hours now. My body is numb. Separated. So long as I don’t move, the world feels distant, as if a curtain of thick cotton has settled around my senses. All I taste are mouthfuls of stale air. In and out. In and out.
Hinges squeak.
With excruciating slowness, my gaze focuses. The cotton keeping my senses at bay disappears as I blink at the figure rushing inside my cell, bringing unwelcome reality with him. A heady metallic musk fills my senses, drowning out my own stench of stale sweat and dried blood.
“Leralynn.” Coal crouches beside me, leashed violence simmering behind his devastatingly beautiful face. His usually bound hair hangs down to his broad shoulders, framing a strong jaw and blazing blue eyes. On the stone floor, lines of sunlight speak of morning well on its way. I’ve been here all night, and I wager Coal has too. No, I know he has—I felt him. Despite Coal’s slow movements, his muscles—the very air around him—vibrate with tension.
Our gazes lock, the connection powerful enough to make nothing else matter for a moment.
Then Coal reaches for me, sharply carved muscles moving with liquid grace beneath the thin black cloth of his tunic.
