Barricade this place. Someone check the secret passages and the tunnel.”
Shay shook her head, looking around as wild-eyed as the guard. “Cody? What are you doing? Where are we?” She looked confused. “Where is… he?”
“Who?” Cody asked.
She looked toward the woods. “I don’t know,” she said, and her body slumped into a faint. Cody caught her, swinging her up into his arms. He ran with her toward the castle, shouting out to the warriors swarming the place.
Coira was waiting in the infirmary, readying her medical supplies. “Put her here,” Coira said.
Cody placed Shay on the bed and stood back as Coira checked Shay’s pulse. “She seemed fine an hour ago.” What the hell was happening?
“Pulse is slow. What’s this?” Coira asked, looking at the red scratch on Shay’s pale skin. It looked even angrier.
“She said she scratched it. I was going to get you to look at it.” He leaned down and sniffed. It didn’t smell sulfurous, like a demon scratch, but it probably wouldn’t, since it was several days old. “Is it infected?”
“I don’t think so, just inflamed. Her pupils are normal,” she said, shining a light into Shay’s eyes. “That’s good.” The blood pressure cuff beeped. “Blood pressure is low.”
“Maybe we should take her to the hospital,” Cody said. They tried to avoid hospitals if possible. It opened the door to too many questions they didn’t want to answer.
“I think she’ll be okay. Let’s let her rest for a bit. What was that out there, Cody?”
“All I saw was a shadow with black hair.”
“You think it was the same thing that attacked Jamie?”
“I don’t know.” Jamie hadn’t been able to remember much about the attack. “Why didn’t he hurt Shay? He just stood there, like he was waiting for her.”
“This is unnerving. Those things getting inside the castle wall, even inside the secret passages. I’m starting to wonder if Angus was right about the traitor.”
She wasn’t the only one wondering it. The castle had two lines of guards around the perimeter. How had this —whatever it was—found the place and gotten through?
“Go find it, Cody,” Coira said fiercely. “Before this thing finds Shay.”
Cody bent and pressed a lingering kiss to Shay’s forehead, and stood, his face set tight, prepared for the hunt. He knew what had to be done. He would destroy Malek, at least weaken him, even if it meant his own death. But there was one place he needed to stop first.
***
“Malek? Hell, are you sure?” Cody asked.
“My memory was cloudy before, but now I’m positive,” Jamie said, his face gray. “How did he find her?”
“He must have followed us from the airport or from Shay’s house. I suspect the fire was a trap to draw Shay into the open, but if someone followed us, he was invisible. We had another breach earlier. Someone tried to lure Shay outside, but it wasn’t Malek. This guy had black hair.”
Jamie threw back his covers. “Is she okay? What happened?”
“Coira’s taking care of her. She’ll be fine.” He couldn’t consider anything else. “The three guards closest to where we found her were unconscious. All they remember is hearing the wind. Next thing they knew they were waking up. The other guards farther away were unaffected, but they didn’t see what was happening. Ronan and Niall are tracking it. I’m headed out now.”
Jamie swung his feet to the floor and went pale with the effort. “I’ll come with you.”
“You still need rest.”
“I’m sick of rest.”
“You need to heal,” Cody said, putting his hand on Jamie’s shoulder. “You’re lucky to be alive. Not many can say they’ve battled one of the old demons hand-to-hand and lived to tell about it.”
“You said another warrior was killed before I was attacked. It must have weakened Malek. That’s probably the only reason I’m alive.”
“Maybe, but you are alive, and you’re a good warrior, and we’ll need you when you’ve recovered.” He hoped Jamie took the words for the apology it was. It wouldn’t make up for his jackass jealous behavior, but it was a start. “We have other warriors coming to help.”
“I feel like a bloody invalid, lying here while the castle is attacked. Are you sure Shay’s okay?” he asked stiffly. It was still awkward for the two of them to mention her.
“She’s okay, thanks to that damned cat. It darted between Shay and whoever was in the woods. It might’ve saved her life. Matilda’s too. You don’t know about Matilda. She said she killed a man in the secret passage. We found a pile of dust.”
“Vampires? Inside the castle!”
“Must have entered through the tunnel. Matilda thinks the cat attacked whatever she saw. Hell. That cat probably saved all our lives. If the vampire had waited until we were asleep, he could have killed us one by one.”
“Maybe it’s a vampire-killer cat. So a castle that’s remained a secret for centuries has been breached three times in a matter of days, by a demon and a vampire and who knows what else?”
“I don’t know what that was outside, but he must be powerful, to knock out three warriors without even
