Chapter 27 · The Original Order

"Get your hand off her."

I shoved Kane away from Mara, but he caught my wrist before I could reach the knife at my belt.

"Touch that mark and you'll kill her," he said.

Mara thrashed against the iron table. Leather straps cut into her wrists. Black lines crawled from the mark beneath her collarbone, up her throat, and under her jaw.

Her fingers snapped open and closed.

Not by choice.

The tower shook. Dust rained over us. Somewhere below, metal shrieked as the lower vault buckled around the trapped carriers.

"Then let go," I snapped. "I can't save her with you pinning me down."

Kane's grip tightened. His palm was hot against my skin. Too calm. Too steady for a man standing in a tower that was coming apart.

"You're not saving her. You're cutting blind."

"And you've got a better plan?"

His eyes cut toward Mara.

Her lips moved. No sound came out.

"I pull the original order out of her mark."

I stared at him. "That's not an extraction. That's a death sentence."

"For her, maybe."

"You said you needed her alive."

"I need her alive long enough to answer one question.