Granted, it ended in absolute fucking disaster. But for the first time in my life, it felt like I had a grip on something real. Somethingmine.What if I could...
What I did to that vampire. That wasn’t an accident. My curse can stretch beyond touch, beyond my body. I cancontrolit.
Even now, I feel the tether. Like a muscle flexing under my skin. Coiled, waiting. Fueled by fear, by rage, by hunger...and by my need for him.Talon.
I jump to my feet when Rap comes back. She shakes her head. “I put some feelers out but most of my contacts have their phones on Do Not Disturb and are asleep right now. We’ll have to wait.”
“We can’t wait,” I snap. “We need to go over to that cemetery and start searching the area. Mal had one of her vampires slice a scale off Talon. Whatever she wants from him, it can’t be good. She could be torturing him. Or worse.”
“You’re not wrong,” Rap says, pushing back from the counter. “But we don’t charge in blind. We plan. We arm up. We think this through.”
“There’s no time.” The words rip out of me—too loud, too sharp. “They have him now. They took him for a reason.”
Rap crosses her arms, gaze narrowing. “And running in half-cocked will get you killed. Then who’s going to save him? You’re no good to him dead.”
I jerk like she slapped me. “You think I don’t know that? You think I don’t know how dangerous this is? I don’t care. I can’t sit here and drink coffee while he’s—” My voice breaks. “I can’t do nothing.”
“You’re not doing nothing. You’re regrouping. You’re surviving long enough to fight smart,” Rap says, her tone steel-edged but not unkind. “He’d want that.”
“That’s easy for you to say,” I fire back. “You’re not the one who left him behind.”
“You didn’t leave him. They took him. That’s different.”
It doesn’t feel different.
Rap’s phone rings. She picks up, murmurs, listens. Her expression hardens as she hangs up.
“There’s only one crypt in this area pulling power right now,” she says, pointing at the map Ariel’s built on her phone. “An abandoned burial site in the old district, under St. Ignatius. City records show a power reroute a few weeks ago. It’s too quiet. Too clean. That’s your center.”
“We should wait for Snow,” Ariel says, trying to steady the room. “She’s getting Kai. He’ll talk to his sister. Maybe we can avoid bloodshed.”
I nod. “Okay. You’re right. I’m going to shower and change at my place. Be back in twenty.”
“Wait,” Rap says, stopping me with a hand on my arm. “Take the stairs around the corner. My place is unlocked. You canshower there. I don’t want you wandering off alone when you’re this…raw. Stay close. Take any clothes you need.”
She thinks she’s keeping me safe. Keeping me from doing something reckless.
She doesn’t know me well enough to understand I’ve already decided.
“Thanks,” I say softly, meaning it. Because this is the last kindness I can take from her before I walk into the dark alone.
I head outside and walk right past the entrance to Rap’s apartment.
I can’t risk them. Not for this.
Talon has always been the one to protect me. To drag me back from the edge when my hunger, my curse, my shame tried to devour me whole. He’s bled for me. Burned for me.
He’s not here to protect me now. That means it’s my turn to protect him.
My heart pounding. My hunger roaring. My feet carrying me toward the crypt. Toward Talon.
They’ll forgive me later.
If I survive to earn it.
Chapter 34
Mal Drinking Mages
