Caine hadn’t been feared among curs far and wide for no good reason. He could be cold, cunning, and calculating. He could also be brutal when the occasion demanded.
But something pierced his heart as he gazed down at the fragile woman. Something rare and perilous.
Without thought, he was kneeling in front of her, reaching to grab her chilled fingers.
“Who?” he rasped. “Who will be mad?”
“He’ll kill you.”
“Are you a prisoner?” he demanded. She ducked her head, and he hooked a thumb beneath her chin, forcing her to meet his searching gaze. “Look at me. Are you being held here against your will?”
“He won’t let me out.”
“Tell me who it is.”
A shadow crossed her face. “I’m not allowed to say his name.”
“Is it Briggs?”
“The dead Were? No.” A small smile touched her lips. “He’s frightened of me.”
Caine couldn’t hide his surprise. Briggs was the sort of nightmarish creature that would terrify any demon. Why would he be frightened of this tiny Were?
“Frightened?”
She shrugged. “He shouldn’t have asked if he didn’t want to know.”
“Know what?”
“His future.” She pointed toward one of the swirling glyphs. “There.”
Caine frowned in confusion. “What is it?”
The pale green eyes stabbed him with an unnervingly piercing gaze. As if she could see into his very soul.
“Death.”
“Christ.”
Caine jerked in shock. Dammit. For decades he allowed himself to be blinded by a vision that his rational brain told him was impossible. Not only would it take nothing less than a miracle to turn him from a cur into a pureblood, but Briggs’s claim that his black magic gave him the power to reveal the future was beyond crazy.
After all, most of the known prophets were under the control of the Oracles, and they possessed only random flashes of the future. Enough to grasp an overall image of various possibilities or pivotal events, but not a detailed revelation for an individual.
And now, when he’d at last accepted that he’d been a total putz to fall for Briggs’s scheme, he was confronted by the most extraordinary of all creatures.
“You’re a seer,” he breathed.
She shook her head. “I don’t see. I dream.” She glanced toward the shimmering glyphs. “I dream and they appear.”
Gently he shifted his hand, cupping her cheek. “Did you dream of me?”
The green eyes were abruptly veiled with a disturbing white as she gazed blindly at the wall over his shoulder.
“Your blood will run pure.”
Caine didn’t feel elation at the soft words. In fact, the chill that had been snaking up and down his spine now spread to lodge deep in his gut.
“You’re certain?”
She placed her hand flat on the stone floor, her eyes still clouded. “Here.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Your blood. So much blood,” she husked, shuddering. “It’s everywhere.”
“Shit.” Surging to his feet, he yanked her upright, his instincts on full alert. “We have to get out of here.”
With a blink, her eyes cleared, revealing a poignant sadness that shook him to the very core.
“He’ll never let me go.”
“I don’t intend to ask his permission,” Caine growled, tugging her toward the crack that led to the outer cavern. There had to be a way out of the damned caves. “Let’s go.”
He only made it a few steps before she dug in her heels. Literally.
“I can’t.”
She was tiny, but she possessed all the strength of a pureblood. Snarling in frustration, Caine turned to glare at her.
“Can’t or won’t?”
“Can’t,” she said, her expression composed. “I’m tied to these caves until he’s banished.”
Well, of course she was. Hell would freeze over before luck was on his side.
“So who are you?” he demanded in frustration. “Cassandra or Repunzel?”
Seemingly indifferent to the danger that pulsed in the air, the female Were flashed a smile that arrowed straight to his heart. Damn the female. What was she doing to him?
He was a man who appreciated a beautiful female. Especially when there was a bed so conveniently nearby. But he wasn’t the sort of sucker who allowed a woman to bewitch and bedazzle him.
With a shake of his head, he squashed the irrational thoughts. He’d puzzle out his idiotic behavior later.
Like when death wasn’t actually looming.
“Cassandra.” She said the name like she was testing it on her tongue. Her green eyes glowed with a sudden pleasure. “Yes, I like that name.”
“Fine, you’re Cassandra.” He cupped her face in his hands and pretended he wasn’t completely charmed. “What mysterious man keeps you here?”
Her brief happiness faded as swiftly as it had arrived. “Demon lord.”
Caine dropped his hands, a bolt of fear nearly paralyzing him before he gained control of his rattled nerves.
No. Demon lords had been banished centuries ago. Someone had to be screwing with the poor female’s brain.
“Impossible.”
“Nothing is impossible,” she softly countered. “Although some things are more probable.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Just how long have you been down here?”
“An eternity.”
“You…” His words were bit off as a chilling scream ripped through the caves, followed by a violent earthquake that sent Caine sprawling on the hard floor. Pressing a hand to the lump on the back of his head, he regained his feet and glanced warily at the ceiling. It was nothing less than a miracle that they hadn’t been buried beneath an avalanche of rock. “What the hell was that?”
Standing in the middle of the cave as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred, the pureblood pointed a finger toward the swirling glyphs.
“Crossroads.”
Caine’s sharp laugh echoed through the suddenly still air. The woman might be beautiful and fascinating, but she was as crazy as a loon.
“Is it in the prophet handbook that seers have to mutter complete crap?”
She blinked. “There’s a handbook?”
“Christ.” He shook his head. “What do you mean by crossroads?”
She again pointed at the designs that had started to pulse and churn with a nauseating tempo.
“Leave now and you have a chance of altering your future.”
“And if I stay?”
She met his gaze squarely “You die.”
Even expecting the prophecy of doom, her simple words hit Caine like a punch to the gut.
You die…
For the past thirty years he’d believed that immortality was in his grasp. Hell, he’d become downright cocky, taking insane risks.
Like trying to kidnap the King of Weres.
Now he smiled wryly as his mortality smacked him directly in the face. Obviously he should have been paying more attention to his rotten karma, rather than placing all his bets on a vision he’d completely misread.
“Of course I die,” he muttered. “And what happens to you?”
She shrugged. “Fate.”
Caine’s brows snapped together. The thought of his imminent death pissed him off. The thought that this woman might be harmed…
Unacceptable.
“Well, screw fate,” he growled, kicking off his running shoes.
Her green eyes widened with something that might have been female appreciation as he stripped off his T-shirt.
“What are you doing?”
He tugged off his jeans, tossing them aside. “I’m done trying to make an impossible dream come true.”
Perhaps sensing his reckless determination to go down in a blaze of glory, Cassandra moved to frame his face in her hands, her expression troubled.
“I told you, nothing is impossible.”
Her touch sent a shocking blast of awareness through Caine, nearly sending him to his knees. Christ, it was like being struck by lightning.
A damned shame he could sense something very large and dangerous charging through the tunnels toward them.
A gruesome death might be worth a night with this woman.
“Maybe you’re right, Cassandra, my love.” He savored the beauty of her delicate features, lingering on the vulnerable curve of her mouth. “After all, you’re about to witness a miracle.”
“What miracle?”
Bending down, he kissed her with a fierce regret.
“For once in my miserable life, I’m going down a hero.”
He stole one last kiss, then, with a defiant howl, Caine shifted and prepared to meet death.
When Harley opened her eyes, she was briefly bewildered by the cupid-painted ceiling above her.
Lying on the oversized bed with silk sheets and a fluffy comforter that was perfect to burrow beneath, she battled through the fog still clinging to her brain.
She remembered being in the caves. Kind of tough to forget. It wasn’t every day a woman had to fight a demon lord. Not even in her crazy world. And then there had been a mad dash through the caves, barely staying ahead of the thunderous cave-in.