“I don’t intend to find out.”

Her lips tightened. “So your plan is to charge off like the Lone Ranger to capture the bad guy?”

A hint of amusement sparkled in his eyes. “Lone Ranger?”

“Do you prefer Batman? Hellboy? Incredible Hulk?”

He framed her face in his hands, peering deep into her eyes.

“Does it matter if I do charge off?”

“You’re damned right it matters.”

“Why?”

“Because…” She licked her dry lips. “Because it’s stupid to take such a risk. You’re supposed to be a king. You have an endless number of Weres and curs who can kill Briggs.”

“Hardly endless.”

“You know what I mean.”

His gaze lowered to her mouth, his thumbs teasing the corner of her lips.

“I could send others in my place, but I won’t be satisfied unless I watch him die with my eyes, preferably by my own hands.”

Her heart faltered. Not at the jolt of need that clenched her stomach. Being near Salvatore would always stir her desire. No, it was the melting tenderness of his touch that was doing all sorts of dangerous things to her heart.

“Fine.” She was forced to halt and clear the huskiness from her voice. Just like a starry-eyed romantic. Damn. She determinedly squared her shoulders. “But you can forget going by yourself.”

His thumb feathered over her bottom lip. “Are you giving me orders, cara?”

“I’m a queen, aren’t I?”

He stilled, his gaze sweeping over her upturned face with an unnerving intensity.

“You said you didn’t want the position. Have you changed your mind?”

“I…” Her mouth was dry, parched.

With exquisite deliberation, Salvatore slowly lowered his head, brushing a soft kiss down the line of her nose.

“Harley?”

“I’m going with you.”

“Why?”

“Because.”

Salvatore pulled back, regarding her with lifted brows. “That’s your explanation? Because?”

She ignored the hint of smug pleasure in his voice. She didn’t want to dissect her violent reaction to the thought of Salvatore leaving her behind.

All that mattered was that she kept him from doing something stupid.

“My explanation is that you’re not going alone, and that’s final.”

“Hardly a reasonable argument,” he countered.

“Fine.” Her chin tilted. “Either I’m worthy of being your queen or not. If you insist on going after Briggs, then we’ll go together.”

He stilled, as if caught off guard by her words. Then, with a slow smile he bent his head.

“Si.” His kiss was soft and savoring, as if she were the most precious treasure. “Together.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

Caine didn’t know how long he had been unconscious.

Actually, he didn’t know how he became unconscious.

He remembered shifting as a black, malevolent fog had entered the cave. There had been pain. Not the someone’s-going-to-pay-for-this kind of pain, but the holy-shit-I’m-going-to-die kind of pain.

He had wanted nothing more than to curl into a ball on the floor and whimper. Just like a beaten pup. And that might have been his fate if he hadn’t seen the strange mist headed directly for Cassandra.

Instinct had taken over, and with a howl of fury, he had leaped directly into the path of the advancing fog. He didn’t care what the hell the thing was, it wasn’t going to touch the female pureblood.

And that’s when things got fuzzy.

Groaning, he forced his eyes open, wishing he hadn’t when the flickering candlelight sent a stab of pain through him.

“Am I dead?” he croaked.

There was a sweet scent of lavender and then Cassandra’s face appeared above him, her hair tangled around her face.

“Not now.”

Caine’s heart forgot to beat at her somber words. “Is that a joke?”

“No.”

“Christ.”

He shivered, trying to laugh off her impossible claim. He was a cur, not a pureblooded demon. When he died, that was it. Sayonara, baby. End of story.

A part of him, however, wasn’t in the mood to laugh.

Something had happened to him.

Something vast and earth-shattering.

He could feel it to his very bones.

“Now I really know what it feels like to be ‘death warmed over,’” he wryly muttered, laying his hands flat on the hard stone to push himself to a sitting position.

His head spun with a sickening dizziness, nearly sending him tumbling back into oblivion. With the speed of a pureblood, Cassandra had her arm around his shoulders, holding him steady.

“I’m not sure you should move,” she chastised, her lips brushing his ear, sending an electric shock of awareness through him that proved that despite his recent introduction to death, everything was still functioning as it should.

“There are a lot of things I shouldn’t do, but I never let that stop me. As I have so painfully proven,” he muttered. Then his eyes widened as he caught sight of where he’d just been laying. “Oh…shit.”

“Blood,” Cassandra whispered.

“Yeah, I noticed.”

He swallowed the urge to vomit at the sight of the thick red stains that spread across the floor and splashed obscenely up the wall.

It wasn’t that he was squeamish. Hell, he’d slaughtered a pack of hellhounds who had attacked one of witches with his bare hands. But it didn’t take a doctor to realize that no creature could lose that amount of blood and survive.

“I told you to leave,” Cassandra murmured.

“No one likes a know-it-all,” he retorted, grateful to turn his attention to her pale, beautiful face. “Was it the demon lord who attacked?”

“Yes.”

“Charming guy.”

“Not particularly.”

He smiled, ridiculously fascinated by her habit of taking his words quite literally.

“I have a vague memory of a dark shadow entering the cave, heading directly toward you.” He shook his head, hoping to clear the remaining cobwebs. “Then the world exploded.”

“I think the demon was injured. He tried…”

Caine frowned as her voice faded and her eyes clouded with a painful memory.

“Cassandra? Cassie?” He turned to grasp her shoulders and tugged her against his chest, relieved to discover his strength returning. Laying his cheek on top of her head, he sucked in her delicate scent of lavender, feeling it flow through him with a healing calm. “Hey, it’s okay.”

She burrowed against his chest, shivering. “He tried to use me to keep his essence anchored to this world, but you attacked him and he had no choice but to leave.”

Caine ran a soothing hand down her back, caught off guard by his fierce urge to protect this female.

She was a Were, for God’s sake. A pureblood.

Way above a worthless cur like him, even presuming Salvatore hadn’t put out a death warrant on him.

With a shake of his head, Caine thrust aside his inane thoughts. The only thing that mattered was getting out of the hellhole.

“So he’s gone?” he demanded. “Really, truly, never coming back gone?”

“He’s gone.”

“And you’re not hurt?”

She pulled back, and before Caine could guess what she intended to do, she lifted her shirt to study the flat plane of her stomach.

“I don’t think so.”

Caine choked back a groan at his instant, painful reaction to the sight of her smooth alabaster skin and the lower curve of her bare breasts. God, if he could just get that slender body beneath him…

His erotic fantasy was brought to a rude end as his gaze caught sight of the small tattoo that marred the skin just beneath her belly button.

He leaned forward, studying the crimson hieroglyphic that flickered with the same unsettling shimmer as the designs on the wall.

“What’s this?” he demanded, cautiously brushing a finger over the tattoo. His muscles clenched in alarm at the unpleasant chill that clung to the mark.

Whatever it was, it couldn’t be good.

Her grimace confirmed his suspicion. “The mark of the demon lord.”

“Bastard. What does it do?”

She turned her head, as if attempting to hide her expression.

“He used it to keep me bound to these caves.”

There was something more.

“And?”

“It allows me to…”

He captured her chin between his thumb and finger and turned her back to meet his searching gaze.

“You can tell me.”

“It’s hard to explain.”

“Try.”

“I can touch the other side.”

“The other side?”

“Heaven, hell, another dimension…” She shrugged. “Whatever you want to call it.”

Unease snaked down Caine’s spine, and with an abrupt movement, he was on his feet.

Dammit. He had to get them out of there.