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My brows furrowed. “What do you mean?”
“I mean,” she purred, drawing out the word as she let a devious smirk settle on her lips. “I love feeding on shifter souls the most. How they fight and struggle to the very last moment. All that pent-up energy keeps me fuller longer.”
Horrified at the very sound of it, the words evaded me.
I pictured Rowan’s wolf struggling like it had when it was pulled from his chest, and it looked much more sinister, knowing what she intended to do with it.
My blood froze over.
She laughed again at my reaction and took a step closer to the edge of the perimeter. “Better yet, I’ve always wanted to harvest a whole town at once.”
I swallowed against the lump in my throat, afraid of what the answer to my question would be. “Have you—”
“Consumed them? Not yet, I’m afraid. I’m savoring every moment before that happens, and until I can finally have my fill.”
Her response made me pause. “Why can’t you eat them yet? And why didn’t you just kill everyone the first time you showed up?”
Keres sighed. “As the ancient laws say, I cannot cause the deaths myself, or else I lose access to the souls altogether—the best part, too. In the case of a shifter, both of them. I can only store the wolves until their human side has capsized, or risk getting neither. I can only wait on the sidelines until death approaches. Then, I get my chance to swoop in and harvest them myself.”
The thought of it made my stomach turn, but at least that was semi-good news. Their wolves were still alive, and she had them somewhere.
Pulling myself together again, I didn’t look away from the demon. “So, you took their wolves with the hope they would get angry enough to kill each other?”
“You’re a bright one,” Keres crooned, inky eyes glimmering under the low light. “I’ll give you that.”
“Is that why you took the other group’s wolves first?” I asked, making the connections in my mind.
Keres laughed at the very sound of it. “I needed to pit your two measly towns against each other to quicken the process for me so that I could have the feast I desire. Good enough for a queen.”
Angered by how simply the demon put it, completely unaware of the complex lives it planned on reaping, I felt a pulse in my magic. “That won’t be happening—not while we’re still here.”
Keres snorted, then narrowed her eyes at me while they darkened. “Don’t get ahead of yourself.”
As I went to begin the exorcism, since we got all the answers we needed, my words stuck to my throat at another presence.
Rather than one, there were hundreds of figures emerging from the darkness around us. They walked on four legs as they examined us, snarling with their implied fangs.
Like a wave of dread, they approached our double circle.
The manifestations of the wolves that belonged to our friends and family. She sicked them on us.
Straining at the danger of it, I caught a glimpse of something around Keres’ neck that I hadn’t noticed. A black pendant.
The tendrils of smoke poured from it and morphed into those wolves. That was where she was storing them and using them to her advantage.
“Keep chanting!” I shouted, pushing back the fear from within my chest.
We couldn’t let the circle break, even if the wolves were advancing.
But the demon’s echoing voice called out to us, “It’s only a matter of time.”
Chapter 28 - Rowan
Those ominous clouds hung heavily over Rose Valley as we drove in, pushing our motorcycles as fast as they could go.
With urgency coursing through me, I wouldn’t let up until I knew what was going on. Whether I had been banished from Rose Valley or not, I’d be damned if I didn’t make sure Willow was all right.
Not long before, we had felt that shift in the weather all the way from our town over. Like night and day, those low-hanging clouds, darker than any storm I had ever seen, shrouded everything in its menacing fury. The wind whipped against us as we rode, but we didn’t turn back.
