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suggested, then he looked at her again, cynically, indeed, almost coldly, with pity. And he cupped her cheek, in turn.
    For a moment, he gazed at her lips, as though remembering their kiss of a short while ago.
    Emily wanted another.
    "May you always keep your delusions, my darling," he whispered. "They might have survived if you had not come here."
    He started to move past her, but she scowled and stopped him, laying a stubborn hand on his chest and capturing his gaze.
    Then she tried bluffing the truth out of him. "I know the real reason you're here. Say whatever you like. But Drake, it's madness. There are too many of them, even for you."
    "Do you think I care what happens to me?" he breathed.
    "No, but I do. I'm not going to let you die."
    "You don't have a choice." He thrust her aside, reaching for the door handle, as if he could not get out of the room fast enough.
    Emily turned, impassioned. "That's what you really came here to do, isn't it? To die?" she demanded, her voice trembling. "And to take as many of them down with you as possible."
    One hand on the handle, he let out a low, world-weary laugh. "What, a suicide mission?"
    She nodded.
    "You still think I'm some sort of hero."
    "I know you are," she said at once from the bottom of her heart.
    "What a fool you are," he murmured slowly, staring at her. "My blind, beautiful, little fool."
    Her face fell, but his hardened as he glanced over his shoulder at her one last time. "Stay out of my way," he ordered. Then he pulled the door shut behind him.

Chapter 3
    D rake paused outside the door, but although his heart was pounding, he refused to give an inch to emotion.
    He could not afford to.
    He locked her in, put the key back in his pocket, and strove to ignore the panic throbbing in his temples. He could not think of anything worse than Emily's showing up here. She had no idea what she'd gotten into.
    How on earth she had made it so far alive, he could scarcely fathom; but, of course, the rural setting would have worked in her favor. The woodsman's daughter could defend herself expertly in the world of nature.
    When it came to the world of men, however, no.
    She had no concept whatsoever of the evil that he faced in this place. She had never been exposed to anything of its kind. Nor should she.
    He stared at the door. He could feel her on the other side of it, but he backed away, shaking his head slightly.
    She spoke of the beauty of trees and sky, hills and light, unaware that she herself was the most beautiful thing in the world, at least to him.
    He shut his eyes. Hating her for loving him. Hating himself for the kind of kiss he had taken from her for the first time their lips had ever touched and the degrading words he had spoken over her.
    But degradation, using a woman, was all the people here could understand.
    He had to get her out of here.
    As soon as it was safe.
    He'd find a way.
    Steely-eyed, he pivoted on his heel and marched down the corridor. Still, his awareness of her clung to him like a playful spirit haunting him every second, teasing him with those unearthly violet eyes. Trying to lure him back toward treacherous things like life and joy and all that pointless rot he had long since given up on. But did she truly think they had ever been apart?
    Did she not know she had been with him all the time in that unspeakable cell, the memory of her sweetness the one slender ribbon tying him to whatever had once been good in him long after pain and instinct had turned him into a demon? The one thing that had stopped him from becoming something far more monstrous than any Promethean.
    Like some silent, healing angel come to comfort him, she had returned to him after every beating, every cut, every broken bone. She could not touch him, but the thought of her had been enough to keep him alive, the bright memory of the sun on her hair, those freckles whose arrangement he knew as well as the constellations.
    The torturers had caused his mind to swallow up many of