Inked

Were would smell me coming a mile away.
    The tunnel curved abruptly, bending around to the right again, and dim light stained the walls ahead. It was enough to let me see the dark streak coming at me, flying down the corridor. I fired two blasts from the shotgun and threw myself to the side. A large Were slid to a stop at my feet, half his head missing, a swath of red painting the floor behind him.
    I leapt over the body before it stopped moving and, a moment later, the tunnel dead-ended into a small chamber. An electric lamp threw a single pool of light in the otherwise dark room. I had a split second to notice a large shape slumped by a chair, then I was grabbed from behind.
    I spun, forcing my attacker into the wall. I pressed up against his back, my forearm locked across his throat, a knife in my hand, coming up—
    “Lia!”
    I froze for an instant, then my tat managed to focus on my assailant’s face. I spun him around and stopped, staring. For a second, I didn’t get the whole picture, just pieces here and there. Dark hair stuck up in wild tufts, sweat gleamed at a temple, a bruise decorated a tightly clenched jaw. And there, finally, what I’d hoped to see most—whiskey dark eyes glittering in the low light. Cyrus.
    And then I started noticing other things, like the fact that his skin was gray from exhaustion, his lip was split and half his face was a yellowing bruise. But none of that mattered next to the fact that he was unquestionably, miraculously here and alive . He pulled me to him, slowly, careful not to startle the half-crazed war mage, and then his hands were in my hair and he was kissing me with passionate hunger.
    He drew back after a few seconds, and the series of expressions crossing his features—disbelief, incredulity, outrage—was pretty impressive. “What the hell are you doing here?”
    I licked my lips, trying to make the transition from making out to making up. “I came to rescue you?”
    “Rescue me?”
    I glanced around. Cyrus looked pretty beat up, but he was in one piece, which was more than I could say for the Were slumped on the floor behind him. A set of manacles had been ripped out of the wall and the chain wrapped around the creature’s neck, hard enough to half sever it from the body.
    “Well. It seems awkward now.”
    “I warned you off—twice! And I know you received the messages!”
    “What messages? I haven’t heard from you since—”
    “The memories!”
    “Oh.” Those messages. “I thought you were sending me clues how to find you.”
    Cyrus threw up his hands. “How is sending you Danger/ Ambush an invitation to come closer?”
    “You never sent me—”
    “The garden hose?”
    “What?”
    “You ambushed me.”
    It took me a moment to get it. “Oh, come on! That’s hardly the same thing as—”
    “At that distance, there was no way to send anything but memories, and the most powerful are the ones we both shared. That’s why I sent the soufflé for Disaster. As in, coming in here would be a very bad idea?”
    I blinked. “You used my cooking to mean disaster?”
    “It was a metaphor.”
    “And what was the scene at the bar supposed to tell me?”
    “What bar?”
    “Never mind.” It sounded like I’d been picking up on a little more than was intended.
    Cyrus bent to relieve the dead guard of his gun and his shirt rode up. He looked as though he’d been stitched together out of spare parts, his belly livid with bruises. I drew in a sharp breath. “You’re hurt!”
    He shoved the gun in his waistband. “They used me for a punching bag for the last twelve hours, hoping Sebastian would sense it and come looking for me.”
    “Sebastian?”
    “This was a trap for him. Luckily, he was smart enough not to fall for it. What I’d like to know is why you weren’t.”
    I did a little reciprocal glaring, half-pissed, half-scared. You had to do a lot of damage to Weres to outstrip their healing ability, but his body clearly hadn’t been able to keep up. I strongly suspected that he was on his feet out of pure stubbornness.
    “I came because Sebastian asked me,” I told him. “He showed up at Central this morning, after patrol hauled Grayshadow’s body out of a ditch—”
    “Grayshadow is the one behind this! He was here until a few minutes ago, torturing me. Then you showed up instead and now he’s gone to challenge!”
    Cyrus strode back the way I’d come. I caught up with him edging around the body of the Were. “I think I’m a