No matter what the consequences.
He stepped forward, ignoring Styx’s grim presence. Jagr had taken the Ravens to circle the warehouse, making sure nothing could escape, and Levet had thankfully remained at the lair with his odd demon friend. But it wouldn’t have mattered if they’d all stood between him and his goal.
He was getting to Sally.
Now!
He swung his arm, hitting the brick wall with enough force to make the entire building shudder.
“Dammit, Roke,” Styx growled. “You said that Sally warned us not to enter.”
“To hell with that,” he muttered. “I’m done waiting.”
“But . . .” Styx reached to grasp his wrist before he could widen the crack he’d just created in the wall. “You’re going to bring the entire building down on our head.”
Roke yanked his arm free, his fangs throbbing and his temper threatening to explode. “I don’t care what I have to do. I’m getting into that room.” His eyes narrowed. “Got it?”
“Yeah, yeah, I got it,” Styx muttered. “Stand back.”
Lifting his leg, Styx used his Sasquatch-size boot to kick the center of the door. Steel screeched in protest, but with two more kicks the stubborn door at last twisted off the frame, and before Styx could open his mouth to protest, Roke was leaping through the wreckage.
He had a brief glimpse of Santiago holding on to a vampire, or at least he thought it was a vampire—the pathetic male looked more like a rotting zombie. Then, just as he began to move across the floor, the two vampires simply disappeared.
Ignoring the bizarre vanishing act, Roke’s attention honed in on the tiny female who stood near the safe hidden behind the crumbling wall.
The tightness in his chest eased at being able to see her and catch the sweet scent of peaches. But the driving fury at the knowledge she’d been stolen from him, snatched from beneath his very nose, had him storming forward, not halting until he’d wrapped his arms around her slender body.
“Are you hurt?”
“No, I’m fine,” she said, but her voice quavered and her body shivered with the terror she’d been forced to endure.
“I swear, I’ll kill that bastard,” he snarled.
Her hand lifted to his chest. “Roke.”
He gave a low growl as he sensed she was about to pull away, burying his face in the curve of her neck.
“Don’t move.”
“What are you doing?”
Like he knew? He was running on a primitive impulse and gut need.
“Just . . .” His hands ran a compulsive path down the curve of her back. “Give me a minute.”
Styx cautiously moved to stand at their side, leaving enough space not to set off Roke’s possessive fury. No doubt he sensed that Roke was on a hair trigger. Or maybe it was his bared fangs that gave it away.
“Tell me what happened,” he said to Sally.
She gave another shiver and Roke tightened his arms around her, his head lifting to watch his Anasso with a feral warning.
“That creature—”
“Gaius?” Styx asked.
Sally nodded. “Yes, although it wasn’t really him. He was being controlled by something inside him.”
Styx glanced toward the safe just visible through the jagged hole in the wall. “He brought you here to get the book?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“It can harm him.”
Roke glanced down at her in surprise. “A book?”
She grimaced. “That or the magic in the book.”
Styx matched her grimace, shifting uneasily. Roke sympathized with his king. Any vampire would rather fight an entire tribe of trolls bare-handed than deal with magic.
“Why you?” Styx abruptly asked.
Sally blinked. “Me?”
“Why did he go to the trouble of kidnapping you if all he needed was a witch?” The towering warrior clarified. “He had to know it would alert us to his presence here.”
She hesitated, sending a covert glance toward Roke before she returned her attention to the Anasso.
“Because the spell is bound to my soul,” she at last revealed.
“Shit,” Roke snarled, a sharp fear spearing through him. He might be clueless when it came to magic, but he knew that having Sally’s soul bound to a spell was a very bad thing.
Dammit, why had he ever brought her to this warehouse? He should’ve had the sense to return her to Styx’s lair the second he realized he was susceptible to her magic.
Now . . . He swallowed a curse.
No. As eager as he might be to blame himself, he knew fate well enough to realize that if it intended Sally to be reunited with the book, there was nothing he could do to stop the inevitable.
But that didn’t make him any happier.
His dark thoughts were interrupted as Styx stepped toward the hole in the wall, his brows drawn together. “Sorcery?”
“Yes. I’m the last surviving heir.” She bit her bottom lip, the scent of her lingering terror making Roke twitch with the need to rip the spirit into painful pieces. Several painful pieces. “If he can kill me, then he can destroy the book.”
“No one’s killing you,” Roke snapped.
She flashed him a weak smile. “That was my hope.”
Their gazes locked. His filled with a bleak promise of protection; hers filled with a rueful regret.
“Why can this book hurt the spirit?” Styx intruded into their silent exchange.
Sally shrugged. “I won’t know until I manage to unravel the threads of sorcery protecting it.”
Roke went rigid. “No.”
“Roke.” She firmly pulled out of his arms, her chin set to a militant angle. “We have to find out what’s in that book.”
His hands clenched as he brutally squashed the need to jerk her back into the safety of his arms. Instead he turned his head to glare at his king. “And if this is a trick?”
Styx arched a dark brow. “What kind of trick?”
“Maybe the damned spirit pretended the book could harm him just so we would do everything in our powers to destroy the magic that guards it.”
“No.” Sally gave a shake of her head, her nose wrinkling. “There was no doubt it was being affected by its proximity to the book. It was rotting from the inside out.”
Roke folded his arms over his chest, his stance warning he was a male about to dig in his heels. “All the more reason to leave it alone until we know more about it.”
“Under any other circumstances I would agree with you, amigo,” Styx said, a hint of compassion on his face. “But in this case, neither of us is in a position to make a reasoned decision.” He nodded toward Sally. “Only our expert can decide what’s best.”