But now…
Carefully, Luke lowered Mina to the dock. Her dark hair spread behind her. There were dry tear tracks on her cheeks. Just the sight of them made his heart ache. “Mina?” His fingers slid over her, moving carefully and then…pausing as he stared at the emerald on her throat.
“Are you even listening to me?” Leo blasted him. “Selfish bastard! You would destroy the delicate balance on this world because you think I betrayed you. You won’t listen to reason, even though I truly did just save your sorry ass—”
“Mina didn’t speak to me.” He remembered that now. He’d woken in the smoke and fire and Mina had been there, but she’d been pointing up in the air, obviously trying to get him to fly away. As if he would have left without her.
His fingers slid around the emerald. There was something about it that nagged at him.
“She didn’t speak to me, either.” Leo edged closer.
Luke’s fingers slid against the collar on her neck. “Someone put this on her.” He couldn’t get his fingers beneath it. When he touched the strange fabric, it actually seemed to tighten around her skin. “Mina?” He needed her to open her eyes. Those too bright eyes that had always seemed to bewitch him.
But she didn’t stir.
“That…emerald looks familiar to me,” Leo muttered.
Luke’s gaze focused on the emerald. It was familiar to him, too. But where had he seen it…When? And…
Oh, the fuck, no. “Mina!” he roared her name.
Her gaze flew open. For just an instant, she stared at him, happiness flashing in her eyes and then—then she started clawing at the collar, trying to pry it off her neck even as her face went first red, then purple.
“She’s choking!” Now Leo sounded worried. “Get that thing off her!”
Garrick did this to her. “It’s not an emerald.” It had been so very long since he’d seen a creature like that one. And it was a creature. A very distant cousin to the scarabs that had been so popular in Egypt with a long ago queen.
Leo let out a low hiss. “Not those buggers. Hate them. They’re made from—”
“Dark magic,” Luke finished as he curled his fingers around the creature’s back. Yes, the Ori was a dark beast, and that was why he could pull it away from Mina’s delicate neck. Normally, once an Ori latched onto its prey, it never let go, not even after death. But when he touched the emerald green back, the beast shivered. The Ori’s body trembled and Luke pulled it back. As he did, he saw the long needle that the Ori had discharged into Mina’s neck—a stinger, really, and he heard Leo muttering in disgust behind him.
By the time he’d pulled the Ori off Mina, the needle was easily three inches long. And it had been embedded in her throat. Oh, Mina, sweetheart, I am so sorry. The sting of an Ori was a hundred times worse than the bite of a snake. The beast was small, but so very vicious, one of Luke’s creations from a long time ago.
Several life-times ago. But he’d never, never meant for it to be used against someone like Mina.
When the needle finally slid free of Mina’s neck, the collar that had been wrapped so tightly around her throat snapped. The collar was a new invention—he was sure Garrick’s team had come up with that contraption so that it fitted into the Ori’s body.
“Get rid of that thing,” Leo snapped at him.
Luke crushed the Ori to dust in his hand.
Then he looked back at Mina’s face. Her eyes were on him. He realized they’d been on him the whole time he’d been moving that Ori out of her. How had Garrick gotten hold of that thing? “You’re going to be all right,” Luke assured her. “It’s gone now. It can’t hurt you anymore.”
Her lips moved.
But he heard no sound. “Mina?”
Again, her lips moved, but no sound emerged and as his heart seemed to constrict in his chest, Luke realized just what had been done to his beautiful Mina.
Garrick had learned how to steal her voice.
His gaze flew to his brother, then back to Mina. Did she know? Did she realize? Did she—
Mina smiled at him. That beautiful, warm smile. Then, very slowly, he saw her lips form the words. It’s okay.
No, no, it wasn’t okay. Mina was hurt. She’d lost her voice. She’d—
Leo grabbed him, hauling Luke to his feet. “She traded her voice for you.”
Luke shook his head. No, no, Mina hadn’t—
“That jerk—the one she called Garrick—he had some kind of device in his hand—must have been a remote for the collar.”
Luke’s head was pounding.
“I didn’t realize what it was at the time, but now it all makes sense! She could have taken it from him, but instead, she took his gun because she was trying to buy time for you.”
Luke’s hands flew to lock around his brother’s shoulders. “You were there…watching?” Just watching and not helping Mina? His rage turned even darker.
“I’d never seen you fall! I thought you were going to leap up at any moment and attack!” Leo yelled back. “But you didn’t. When I realized that…I got both of you out of there.”
Just not before Mina’s voice had been taken.