He groans, then grabs the blade and rips it free from his flesh with a wet, tearing noise. Blood immediately begins streaming down his arm and blending into his black suit.
Maybe this is why Malachi always says to only go for killing blows.
Way to prove Marco right, Kat. You’re being too empathetic in a life-and-death situation.
“Cute,” he says through a clenched jaw as crimson drips steadily onto the stage floor.
Maybe I should have risked strapping a bigger weapon to my leg. This guy’s arm is so enormous that my small dagger barely seemed to penetrate deep enough to cause any serious damage.
Without warning, he backhands me hard across the face. The strike whips my head sideways, and I pull my bottom lip into my mouth, tasting the blood on my tongue.
He turns my own dagger over in his bloody hand, pressing the sharp edge against my throat while his massive body presses harder against me, pinning me completely against the wall.
“Care to rethink your position?” he asks.
This is exactly when a power like Aurora’s would come in handy. I could light this fucker on fire and bedone with it.
“You don’t understand,” I say, staying steady despite the blade at my throat. “I don’t know what your wife looks like. I know nothing about her. It’s nearly impossible to summon someone’s spirit under the best of circumstances, let alone in the middle of this.”
I gesture as much as I can with my pinned arms toward the utter shitshow beyond the curtain.
“Look around you,” I spit, then do something incredibly stupid, I push harder against the blade, daring him to follow through on his threat.
I feel the sharp steel pierce my skin, drawing blood, and the bug-eyed, bloodshot stare he gives me tells me I should probably start taking him much more seriously. I need to stop pushing my luck because he clearly has nothing left to lose.
And if I learned anything from my time with Marco, it’s that people with nothing to lose are the most dangerous kind of all.
“I have a feeling you’re stronger than you let on. Marco Volkov wouldn’t keep a pet like you so close if you weren’t extraordinary.” He pauses, his eyes laced with scarlet veins, searching my features with disturbing intensity. “Then again, he wasn’t with you tonight, was he? Maybe you should have stayed on your leash. There’s no one here to save you now.”
The word “pet” hits a nerve, inciting me. I want to tackle this bastard to the ground and strangle him with my bare hands, but I force myself to take a shuddering deep breath. I need to focus and give him what he wants so I can at least get him off me and find Malachi.
“Do you have a picture of her with you?” I ask, hating every sound that comes out of my mouth.
“I don’t. Her name is Vivianne. Everyone called her Viv. She had strawberry-blonde hair and the most beautiful blue eyes, not too different from your own.” Hisvoice takes on a softer, more desperate edge when he talks about her. “Now you better make that work, because I’m losing my patience, and by the sound of it, things are only getting nastier out there.”
I can’t see much beyond the heavy curtain that shields us from view. It’s like we’re tucked into the one private corner of this entire chaotic hellscape.
“You’re going to have to let go of me if I’m going to try to reach her,” I tell him.
He removes the blade from my throat, dropping his hand to his side, but doesn’t move even an inch away from me. I can barely breathe with him pressed this close, his massive frame blocking out everything else.
“That’s all you’re going to get. Now, hurry up,” he growls.
I crack my neck to the side, trying to find some space, then close my eyes tightly.Focus, Kat. Clear your head of everything else.
I block out every sound in the room—the distant screaming, the crashes, the sounds of violence—and let my mind go completely blank. Then I reach for the Veil between worlds. I imagine a door, and instead of carefully peeking through it like I usually do, I kick it down with desperate force and scream into the void. “VIV!”
I will her to be here, to answer my call. I don’t know how to picture her exactly based on his brief description, so instead I focus on the red-haired man restraining me—his energy, his scent, his overwhelming grief. I hope she carries enough of him with her that it will pull her spirit to me.
Suddenly my eyes shoot open when I hear Malachi yell across the ballroom destruction, “Katja!”
But the man hears it too and immediately clutches my throat before I can scream back, squeezing hard enough to cut off my air supply.
“Time is running out for you, pet,” hehisses.
I squeeze my eyes shut, struggling to take even a partial breath. In desperation, I completely shatter the Veil in my mind and scream into the supernatural darkness with everything I have left.
Then an ice-cold presence pierces straight through my chest, and my heart jumps violently as all the breath gets sucked from my lungs.
