Zaal stepped forward. “I am Georgian, the leader of my people in Brooklyn, New York. If you are Georgian and have nowhere to go, I will give you a place among our people.” Zaal looked at Luka. “Our two families are joined. It is your choice.”

Luka looked to Viktor, who was waiting at the rear of the pit. He nodded and Viktor disappeared. “Right now, we must leave.” Luka’s face frosted with coldness. “We are going to destroy this pit and all the dead will remain in it. You have thirty minutes to leave.”

Then the males turned and headed for the exit doors. A sound from behind caught my attention. When I listened harder, Maya said, “It is the monebi. They are being released, too.” Maya sighed. “There are children here, too. The chiri are getting them out. There has been housing made available for them by these males.” Maya pointed to Luka and Zaal. “For the monebi, too.”

My head swam with a thick fog. It was all too much to take in. Inessa moaned again, her eyes fluttering open. Spurred forward by her glazed gaze, I ran into the pit. Valentin saw me first. In no time at all, he rushed to me.

“Inessa,” he called. I stopped when he reached us. I saw Valentin’s expression darkening at the state she was in.

“We need to get her help,” I said. Luka nodded.

“We have a plane that can get us to New York. We have a doctor waiting for us on board.”

I stared at Luka in confusion. Luka placed his hand on my shoulder and said, “You have a home with us. Inessa is Valentin’s blood, you are her male.” He smiled over my shoulder at Maya and said, “And you are her new family. You all come with us. The males and females that need our help will follow later.”

Inessa moaned again and I held her tighter. A sudden rush of emotion settled within me as I stared at her. “Thank you,” I rasped to Luka, my chest tightening.

We were free.

This was real.

When Inessa moaned louder and shifted in my arms, Valentin leaned over her, pushing her matted hair from her face. “Inessa,” he said softly. It was strange to see such a brutal cold male so soft and caring with my Inessa.

As his voice carried to her ears, Inessa’s eyes flickered open. I could still see the weakness, the confusion in their depths. But my heart raced when she smiled and held up her little finger.

A pained sound left Valentin’s mouth, and he linked his little finger with hers. Inessa smiled, then whispered brokenly, “You … came for me…” She sucked in a breath, then sighed. “Big Brother Promise … my Valentin…”

Inessa’s eyes closed. When I looked to Valentin, he had tears tracking down his cheeks. In a soft voice, he said, “Let’s go home. I want to go home to my Zoya.”

I could tell by Luka and Zaal’s shocked faces that Valentin was never this way. This calm and … at peace?

“Let’s go,” Luka agreed, and we all followed behind. When we left the stairs to enter the night, I gasped when fresh air filled my lungs. Maya had found a blanket and placed it over Inessa. As the cool breeze caressed Inessa’s cheeks, I held her closer, needing her warm touch.

I scanned the outside of the pit, all metal fences and towers. A shiver ran down my spine. For a moment, I remembered being brought down these steps as a child. In a flash, the memory had gone. And I was glad. I never wanted to think of this place ever again.

Males dressed in black ran from a machine waiting in the grass. “A plane,” Zaal informed me as I stared at it blankly. “It will take us home.”

The machine brought me trepidation, but I climbed the stairs and entered the small space, driven by a single promise: It will take us home …

We would have a home.

I snarled when a male in a white coat tried to take Inessa from my arms. Valentin placed his hand on my arm. “He is a doctor,” he told me. “He will help her.”

Staring at the fearful male, I told him, “I will lay her down. Just show me where.” The doctor eagerly nodded his agreement. He led the way, and I laid Inessa down on a bed, chest against the mattress so her back could be treated. I sat down on the end of the bed, taking hold of her hand. The doctor looked at me with a raised brow. “I’m not going anywhere,” I told him plainly.

Maya moved beside me and patiently watched what the doctor was doing. I smirked when the doctor raised a brow at her, too. She lifted her chin to show she wasn’t leaving, either.

As the machine began to move and propel us into the sky, I kept my gaze on the doctor as he patched up moy prekrasnyy. As we sailed into the clouds, I glanced down at the pit. Flames were bringing down the towers. I could only imagine what it looked like inside.

Appropriate, I thought, as I watched the orange and red flames climb ever higher. The Blood Pit was my hell. Engulfed in flames with all its evil burning inside. Now it had been transformed into the hell I’d always believed it to be.

I watched it burn until it disappeared out of sight.

Then I watched my Inessa.

I watched her breathing.

I watched her sleep in peace.

The two of us now completely free.

15

LUKA

I breathed in deeply as I saw the bright lights of New York glitter in the distance. Zaal sighed beside me. “Thank God,” he muttered, and I nodded my head. I felt exactly the same.

I glanced to the back of the plane. The doctor had attended to Inessa for many hours. She had been cleaned, courtesy of Maya, and was now sound asleep. The doctor had given her drugs to help her sleep peacefully. He said she needed sleep to heal. Ilya had had to be restrained when he’d seen the doctor about to inject her with the needle. Valentin had been able to calm him, promising it was nothing like those Master administered.

The doctor had removed her bracelet, too. The drugs and medication he had given her, and would administer over the coming days, were designed to clear the Type B drug from her system. When she woke, she would be cleansed of the drugs she had been forced to endure for years.

I next looked to Ilya. For most of the long flight he had kept vigil by Inessa’s side. Eventually, he had washed and changed into spare track pants and a T-shirt. His hand still lay in Inessa’s, his head resting on her narrow mattress. Maya slept in a chair at the end of the bed. Valentin sat in the closest seat to his sister. The scarred male hadn’t said much on the flight home. Like Zaal and me, he had washed and changed. But then he had moved to be near his sister and hadn’t moved since.

I’d caught him watching Ilya from time to time. But it wasn’t in aggression. Valentin had always been an enigma. I had never, since the day I had met him, gotten a handle on what he was thinking at any given moment in time.

His eyes were always cold and assessing. The only time I had ever seen him soften was when he was with Zoya. Only that female seemed to be a balm to the torture he endured inside. Yet since Inessa had been found, since she had called his name in her delirious state, since she had wrapped her finger around his, something within him had changed.

Zaal and I had braced ourselves to hold him back from Ilya. But as Ilya never left Inessa’s side and he now slept beside her, his hand tightly hanging onto hers, Valentin had watched him with a new expression—acceptance … maybe happiness?

The male appeared happy. His sister had found love. Like he had with Zoya, Inessa had with Ilya. We had all learned that life was easier to adjust to when you had someone beside you, helping you along the way.

“We will be landing in ten minutes,” the pilot called over the speaker. I let my head rest against the seat.

My knee bounced up and down in excitement. In ten minutes I would see my Kisa. We would all be reunited. I allowed myself to sigh in relief that we had all come home alive. The chances that one of us would not had been high. I couldn’t have faced that person’s female lover if that had been the case. I knew that neither Zaal nor Valentin could have faced Kisa if it had been me.

I thanked God that we were all home safe.

Minutes later, the plane’s wheels touched tarmac. When we rolled to a stop, Viktor helped the byki open the plane. I looked out the window, and my heart flipped and swelled in my chest when I saw Kisa get out of a car. Her brown hair blew in the evening breeze. I could see her eyes searching for me through the windows. Several more cars arrived. I smiled when Zoya and Talia got out and stood beside my wife.