Free Beyond the Darkness by Alexandra Ivy

“Perfect.”
    Levet tilted back his head and tested the air. “There are six curs in the house and three more outside.” He stabbed Salvatore with a questioning glance. “Can you overpower them?”
    “No.”
    “Some king you are…” Levet bit off his words, his gaze sliding toward Harley as he belatedly recalled the reason for Salvatore’s lack of power. “Oh.”
    “Precisely.”
    “What?” Harley frowned. “What’s going on?”
    Salvatore ignored his companion as he concentrated on the small gargoyle.
    “Can you reach Styx?”
    “ Non, we are too far away. I attempted both Tane and Jagr, but I could not locate either of them. I could perhaps reach your curs.”
    “No, I won’t have them rushing here on a suicide mission,” Salvatore said without hesitation.
    “Oh, but it is fine for me to risk my neck?”
    “Absolutely.”
    Levet sent him a raspberry, but before Salvatore could reach through the bars and rip out the gargoyle’s tongue, Harley straightened and sent him an impatient glare.
    “Can we just concentrate on getting out of here?” she snapped. “Caine might be a lowly cur, but eventually he’s going to smell a gargoyle in his basement.”
    Salvatore swallowed a sigh of resignation. If it was ever discovered he’d been rescued by a pint-sized gargoyle, he’d never live it down.
    “Can you blast a hole big enough for us to get through?” he grudgingly demanded.
    Levet glanced toward the thick ceiling. “Not without the possibility of the house falling on our heads.”
    “Not up,” Salvatore corrected. “Down.”
    Levet paused, sniffing the air. “A tunnel.”
    “More than one.” Salvatore shifted his gaze to Harley. “Do you know where they lead?”
    “No.” She shook her head. “I was never allowed in them.”
    “We’ll have to risk it,” he said, knowing even as the words left his mouth he was going to regret this. The gargoyle was a walking disaster. “Levet?”
    The tiny demon lifted his hands. “Stand back.”
    Wrapping his arms around Harley, he hauled her to the back of the cell, doing his best to protect her from the silver bars, as well as the coming explosion.
    “What are you doing?” she muttered. “The silver…”
    “Trust me, the silver is the least of our worries,” he said, tucking her head in the hollow of his shoulder.
    He had a clarifying instant to recognize just how perfectly she fit against him before the shocking concussion hit, the air filling with a deadly bombardment of silver shards as Levet burst open the cell. Hastily spinning, Salvatore used his back as a shield, grinding his teeth as tiny slivers of silver lodged in his shoulder.
    “Holy shit,” Harley breathed.
    “Hold on,” Salvatore growled, already knowing what was coming next.
    There was another explosion, this one sending powdered cement rather than the deadly silver pelting against him, thank God, and tightening his arms around Harley, he braced himself as the floor beneath them disappeared and they tumbled into the tunnel below.
    The jarring impact of the landing wrenched Harley from his arms, and cursing the pain of the silver digging into his flesh, Salvatore crawled forward, using his hands to search for his mate through the thick cloud of dust.
    “Harley.” His hands found her sprawled on the hard dirt. “Are you hurt?”
    She coughed, sitting up to brush the dirt from her face.
    “I’m fine.” The dust began to clear and she glanced up at the gaping hole above. “Levet?”
    “I am here, ma belle. ” With a delicate flap of his wings, Levet stepped off the edge of the hole and floated down, landing beside Harley with a small bow. “Your magnificent knight in shining armor in all his glory.”
    Salvatore rose to his feet, inwardly contemplating the pleasure of roasting the gargoyle over an open fire. The damned demon didn’t have a speck of dust on him, while the rescue had left Salvatore covered in a new layer of filth, his back aching from the fall, and a