I had no idea what she meant. Karmen hadn’t even looked at me since she’d come back, and who the fuck could blame her? Not me, that was for damned sure. All I’d been able to do while our nest was under attack was feed my sister. Otherwise, I’d been completely worthless.
I knew I’d fucked up. I’d failed to answer my queen’s Call.
She had needed me. She needed a Blood to protect her. If I’d not been so hung up on my own fear, I could have helped her step into her power easier than the nuclear detonation she’d released facing Sepdet. Alone.
Fucking hell. She wasn’t alone. She had ten skeletons from fucking Heliopolis with magical burning weapons all pointing at me. Absently, I rubbed my still-throbbing shoulder. I could feel the heat inside my flesh. Still burning and itching like an angry bee. I had the feeling it was only going to get worse. My only hope was that shifting to my wolf might allow me to push that lingering poison out.
I felt like literal shit, and I could only blame myself. Frustrated, I went back out on the deck and gripped the railing, trying to get a grip on myself. My wolf was completely, uncharacteristically silent. I was almost afraid that I wouldn’t be able to shift when I tried. I didn’t know how to make up my failure to Karmen. I didn’t know how to make up for all the hatred and vitriol I’d heaped on my father, if he was even still alive.
I’d fucked up everything.
The door opened behind me, making me whirl with alarm. Without my wolf senses, I hadn’t even heard anyone approaching.
A few skeletons stepped outside, followed by Karmen. She wore some of my old sweats and a T-shirt that hung midway down her thighs. Her hair still had clumps of gold sprinkled in the strands, making it glitter even in the setting sun. She was barefoot, which seemed so wrong. Everything was wrong.
She didn’t even have fucking clothes of her own. I’d left her here to fend for herself in a hospital gown, for fuck’s sake. A fucking queen. How could I even begin to make up for that?
The rest of the skeletons filed out, glaring daggers at me despite their lack of eyeballs. The unholy flames burning in their eyes told me all I needed to know. They were Blood. Her Blood.
I was nothing. I had my chance, and I’d fucked it up.
“I have Detective Harris’ phone.” Her voice was carefully light. Not expecting anything from me, because she’d already learned that lesson all too well. “I’m not sure if it’ll work where we’re going, but we’re going to try. That way I can keep in touch with Helayna.”
“Oh. I thought his phone burned up in my car.”
She frowned, as if she had no idea what I was talking about. “He called it his burner phone.”
I nodded, not surprised in the slightest that the cop had a couple of spare phones on him. No wonder he didn’t mind leaving the other phone in my car as a tracker. “Where are you going?”
I regretted asking as soon as the words fell out of my mouth. Her eyes tightened ever so slightly, her hesitation speaking volumes.
“It’s hard to explain,” she finally said. “It’s not a real place.”
Nodding, I clenched my jaws, holding back my tongue from saying something stupid. Of course she didn’t trust me with the location of her nest. The silence stretched uncomfortably long, so I finally said, “Not Heliopolis, I hope.”
“Goddess, no. I hope I never have to go back there.”
I had the feeling her Blood said something through their bond. She didn’t say anything but accepted one of the skeleton’s arms and started walking down the stairs.
She was leaving, and I had so much left to say. So many wrongs to right. But how could I even start?
I opened my mouth, but no words would come out. I wanted to tell her that I was wrong. I wanted to explain about the arrangement my family had made with the Triune without my knowledge. That I’d been wrong from the beginning. But that all sounded like a weak-ass excuse. Nothing took away from the fact that I’d brought her here and left her to fend for herself.
Even when the skeletons and sunfires were hot on her trail.
With each step she took from me, I felt the gut-wrenching urge to follow. I couldn’t not go with her. I still felt the same pull that had dragged me kicking and screaming back to her side, as inescapable as the fucking black hole that had sucked my car into the lake.
I picked up my foot, determined to follow. I couldn’t stay here without her.
A burning spear tip poked me in the side hard enough I grunted, though it didn’t break the skin. Not like the arrow.
A skeleton whispered in my ear. “Do you know why they call me Impaler?”
“You’re shitting me, right? You’re Vlad? Like Dracula Vlad?”
“I am indeed, wolf king. Give me a reason to see you squirm on a spike, slowly impaling yourself while I roast you like a marshmallow over a nice, slow fire.”
Well, that’s fucking great.
I could only watch in silence as the skeletons filed after her. The sky split open like a shimmering mirror, and in a heartbeat, she was gone.
She didn’t look back once. How could she, when I had not dared look back at her?
As the last pair of skeletons neared the portal, they blurred and shifted into… bodies. Livingmen.
A man with dirty-blond hair turned at the portal and gave me a sardonic wave before he stepped through and the hole disappeared.
