Page 90 of Liar

I take a step back. Shake my head. Tears stream freely.

I bump up against Thorne.

On an anguished wail, I recoil, glancing everywhere—at the silent members who all must be enjoying the show, a gleeful, maniacal Damion who goes to lengths of cruelty I could never have imagined, to Thorne.

Thorne.

Thorne.

“Oh, yes,” Damion adds once he notices where my agony’s landed. “Thorne was well aware of that as well.”

“I’m so sorry,” rips out of Malcolm’s throat.

“Ember.” Thorne raises his hand to me. “Don’t take him for his word. If I’ve taught you anything—”

“Taught me,” I sneer. “You fucking manipulated me!”

Dupris says, with a voice of calm, “Perhaps we should return to the proceedings while Ember processes—”

I swipe the branding iron from Thorne and mash it into Damion’s face.

Chapter 27

Ember

Sadly, the branding iron isn’t as hot as it was, but it does the trick.

Damion stumbles back, blood bursting from his nose.

Chaos erupts. The members break their circle, some to come at me, others to make a run for it before their king gets really mad.

I swivel to Malcolm with the thought of untying him and somehow getting him out of here.

His ties are cut, dangling on his wrists and laying flat under his ankles.

I glance up, meeting Thorne’s grim face as he pockets a Swiss Army knife. “Get him. Go. now.” He points behind me.

I’m yanking under Malcolm’s arms at the same time Jaxon appears on Malcolm’s other side, and we bring him up to a dragging stumble. Ducking under his arm, I do a terrified sweep of who is the closest threat to us. Savannah.

But I find her running to Damion’s side, uncaring about Malcolm or me.

Thorne blocks as many viscounts as he can by taking the branding iron I’d tossed aside and swinging for their legs and the backs of their necks. He spares Jaxon’s father, who regards us with a leer and a shaking head.

“Take the king’s quarters tunnels. And don’t ever let me see you do something this stupid again.”

Jaxon nods at his father’s advice, and since I have no other recourse, I allow him to swivel us in the right direction. With Thorne and Thaddeus at our backs, we’re able to slip through the melee and into a dark tunnel. The door is on a rusted, temperamental slider. Jaxon and I attempt to close it on our own, but it only gives a little.

Members stream closer to us, the more intrepid ones figuring out where we’ve gone. They start running.

“Harder!” Jaxon shouts.

“I’m—trying!” I grit out, clawing at the stone and bending my fingers backward at the knuckles.

A warm pressure comes up behind me, smelling like sweat, burned flesh, and blood. Malcolm provides the final push needed to jerk the door out of its rusted-over freeze and roll it shut with a boom.

The last thing I see is a robed wrist and hand getting caught in the seam before the door slammed us into blackness. I hope it was Aurora’s.

“It locks from in here,” Jaxon says, breathing heavily. “They can’t get to us.”