“Have you?”
She nodded.
“What pulled you out?”
“Kostas,” she said.
Leo looked at his phone. “Do you want to call him?”
She shook her head. “When we’re safe. When it’s happy news. Not worrying.”
He wasn’t sure it was the right decision, but it was her decision. “If you’re sure.”
“I’m sure.”
He stood and lifted her in his arms, carrying her to the bed where he laid her down and slid behind her. He took his usual position. One hand under her shirt and flat against her skin. His arm cradling her head. “We need to sleep,” he said, already drifting in the warm afternoon. “It’s less than twelve hours before we attack the compound.”
To Kyra’s credit, she didn’t seem nervous at all. “I’ll stay with you. I’m not foolish.”
“I know.”
She grabbed his hand and put it on her breast. “Love me before we sleep.”
“It won’t be too much?” He’d been careful with her since arriving in Bagan.
“You are never too much.”
Leo crouched in the forest, his dark clothes blending with the deep shadows surrounding him. He listened for the telltale footsteps of the night guard who had already passed by four times now. He was waiting for Rith’s signal.
Arindam’s compound in the hills was comprised of a dozen smaller buildings surrounding a temple with a familiar winged idol at the door. The Fallen lived inside the temple. His men lived and worked in the smaller buildings around it. During the day, much of the activity seemed to revolve around the angel. Women were brought to him. Food was prepared and offered. His sons came and went. Leo and the others had seen them stalking in the city below, but they had done nothing to confront them. They wanted the element of surprise. It was their best weapon against an angel and a superior force.
At night, a dozen guards patrolled the grounds, but none of them seemed particularly alarmed or watchful. Irin presence had not been detected.
A low birdcall sounded in the still air.
Leo nodded and Kyra tucked herself behind him, drawing her knives. The next time the guard passed by, Leo leapt on him, muffling any cry with his hand and stabbing a quick silver dagger into the spine of the Grigori. There would be no survivors here. There were no innocents among these men. They would spare the children and young men if they could, but the grown Grigori could not be allowed to live.
“On the right,” Kyra whispered. “Coming down the path.”
Leo ducked back. The first Grigori was already dissolving.
Kyra whispered, “Leo, there’s another—”
“I know.”
Within moments, the second guard passed by the steps of his friend. Just as he was bending down to examine the dust, Leo leapt again. This time the guard let out one sharp cry before Leo took his life.
“Damn.” He dropped the body and let it dissolve.
“How did you know?” Kyra hissed.
“What?”
“About the second man.” She closed her eyes. “The guards are all gone. I don’t hear any minds but our people along the perimeter.”
“Good.” He wiped off his knife. “I heard you the first time. About the second man.”
She frowned. “I only spoke once.”
“No, I’m sure I heard you twice.” He took her hand and jogged down the path. “Unless I’m reading your mind now.”
“I wasn’t trying to push my thoughts to you,” Kyra said. “I’ve never done that on purpose. Only when I’m searching.”
Something about the accidental intrusion pleased him. “Perhaps it’s because we’re reshon,” he said. Then he thought, Perhaps you’ll be able to hear this.
Her eyes lit, and Leo grinned.
“This is going to be fun,” he said. “And today it will be useful.”
Can you hear this?
“Yes!” he whispered. “More later. For now we need to move.”
They walked quickly down the path, aiming for the reinforced grey building where Sura reported that he’d seen Prija being held. In Kyra’s backpack was the weaving Intira had done. Their job, according to Rith, was to find Prija, kill her guards, then evacuate the women and children from the compound. Kyra had the most experience with Grigori children, and the others were hopeful the women and children would follow her with Leo translating. If nothing else, she knew the spells that would knock them unconscious. She’d used them before and was more than willing to use them again.
Leo heard a few sounds of struggle in the distance and knew the others were making progress.
“They’ve taken out… maybe fifteen so far,” Kyra said. “No, sixteen.” She sucked in a breath and gripped his hand. After a long pause, she said, “They must have found the sleeping quarters.”
Leo held her hand carefully and tried to imagine what it would be like to hear lives being snuffed out. He’d seen them. He’d killed them. But to hear multiple lives ended, multiple souls released to heaven at once… That, he couldn’t imagine. They were evil lives—the Grigori here showed no signs of tempering their soul hunger—but they were lives.
“The children,” he said quietly. “The women.”
Kyra nodded and began to jog.
They crouched behind a clump of bushes and watched the cinder block building. It was clear that the two guards knew something was going on. They chatted back and forth, one pointing toward the temple while the other shook his head. Some argument took place, but the one pointing toward the temple did not relent. After a few minutes, he walked off in that direction.
“Leo!”
“Wait here!”
She nodded, and Leo forced himself to leave her. He ran after the guard and intercepted him before he reached the temple. He pulled him behind another clump of trees in the garden, muffling the Grigori as he tried to shout. As soon as he had a clear shot, he plunged his knife into the man’s spine and waited for the body to dissolve.
He crept back to the edge of the compound, knowing that the rustling and struggle must have been heard. Within seconds, more Grigori were coming out of doors.
The element of surprise was gone.
He ran toward Kyra, grabbed her hand, and dragged her behind as he rushed the last guard at the women’s quarters. The man dodged Leo’s blow and ducked under his arm, punching Leo in the kidney with quick jabs. This Grigori was not a helpless opponent. The man’s elbow snapped back and caught Kyra in the nose. She cried out and blood poured from her nose. She fell to the ground and rolled away from his quick feet.
Leo roared at the sight of her blood and swung around, hooking the man around the neck with his massive arm. He snapped the Grigori’s neck to the side with one sharp jerk, then watched the man fall under his own weight. Leo looked down.
Kyra was reaching toward the Grigori, her knife out and slicing the man’s Achilles tendon at both ankles.
Leo grinned. “My woman.”
“Is he dead? He’s not dissolving.”
The Grigori was spitting up blood and jerking in Leo’s arms. He spun the Grigori around and plunged the knife in, tossing the body to the side as he helped Kyra up and wiped her face.
“Can you see?”
She nodded. “It might be broken.” She stuffed a rag under her nose and pointed to the door. “But I’m fine. Let’s go.”
Without another word, Leo yanked at the doorknob, but the solid metal door didn’t budge.
“Wait,” Kyra said. She went to the dust of the last Grigori and scattered it with her foot. “Here.” She bent down, grabbed the keys, and tossed them to Leo.
He tried three keys before he found the one that worked. Then he shoved them in his pocket and opened the door. Kyra kept behind him.
Leo kept his knife out. You never knew if kareshta would be hostile or not.
No males, Kyra whispered in his mind.
That is very handy.
A hallway stretched before them, four doors on each side. Leo tried one. Locked.
He tried the keys. No luck.
“Stand back,” he said quietly. “These open in. I can work with that.”
“How—”
Leo spoke to the first door in a loud firm voice. “Stand away from the door,” he said in Burmese.
He heard scuttling and waited for it to stop before he drew on his magic and kicked in the first door. It swung in with a crash, but there was no sound on the other side. Peering inside, he saw two young women and a small girl huddling in the corner. The room smelled like human waste and urine.
“Kyra?”
She ducked under his arm. “Hello,” she said quietly. “I’m Kyra. My husband and I are going to take you out of here and make you safe. Will you come with us?” Leo translated her words in Burmese as she spoke, hoping the women spoke the majority language of the region. By their relieved looks and quick nods, they did. They both scrambled to their feet, and one of the women picked up the little girl, who began to cry.
A quick burst of power filled the room with the little girl’s cry.
Kareshta.
Leo looked at Kyra and knew his mate had felt it too.
The woman holding the girl soothed her as they moved to the room across the hall.
That room held a heavily pregnant woman who was nearly skeletal.
Grigori baby.
Leo and Kyra moved up the hall, gathering the women and children from Arindam’s harem, but they did not find Prija.