Elias.
Gods, I could feel him. He was across the city, probably back under control and opening the bar by now, and I could feel him like he was standing right next to me. The bond was formed. Connecting us in a way that was permanent and inescapable and absolutely terrifying.
I stripped off my coat and threw it across the room. But I left my vest on for now, because if I took it off, then I'd have to look at myself in the mirror. Have to see the truth of what I was.
Or, rather, what I wasn't.
I pressed my hand against the fabric, feeling the familiar uneven shape of my body underneath. The scar. The absence. The proof that I was broken and magic couldn't fix it.
He was going to see it eventually. There was no way I could stop this. He was going to see my body. He was going to see what was missing, and the desire in his eyes—the hunger, the need, the possessive certainty—was going to turn to pity.
Or worse, disgust.
I threw myself onto my bed and buried my face in my hands. This was exactly what I was afraid of. This was why I never let anyone get close. Why I deflected and joked and kept everything light and superficial. Because the moment someone saw the real me, they left.
Just like Elias left.
The tears came hot and fast, and I hated myself for them. Hated that I was crying over a vampire I barely knew. Hated that his reaction affected me this much. Hated that some small, pathetic part of me had hoped?—
No.
I wiped my face with my sleeve and stood up. I wasn't doing this. I wasn't falling apart over a man who looked at me like I was everything for the first time in my life, and then ran away the second he realized what the universe had saddled him with.
I needed to focus. Needed to think about something else. Anything else.
Alex.
The name hit me like a bucket of cold water. Alex, my cousin, still trapped somewhere with Marcus. Alex, who'd been missing for days while I'd been too distracted by a dark-eyed vampire to do my job properly.
My magic stirred restlessly under my skin, threads of power flickering at the edges of my vision. I'd been trying to work with Elias because my visions were clearer when he was near. Because his steady presence somehow stabilized the chaotic mess of my Threadwalking abilities.
But I didn't need him. I didn't need anybody. I could do this alone.
Sitting cross-legged on my bed, I closed my eyes and reached for my power. The threads appeared almost immediately, dozens of them, hundreds, crisscrossing through the air like a spider's web made of light. I could see connections between people, between places, between moments in time. Blue threads, red threads, gold and green and purple.
And silver. Always silver, that one bright thread that led directly to?—
No.
Nope.
Not thinking about him.
I focused on the blue thread instead. Alex's thread. It was dimmer than it should be, a little frayed at the edges, but it was still there. Still strong enough to follow.
Mentally, I reached for it with my magic, wrapping my power around the glowing strand, and pulled.
Pain exploded behind my eyes.
The vision hit me like a freight train, and I saw Alex. Or pieces of him. A stone floor. Shadow chains. Red threads wrapped around his wrists, his throat, binding him to something I couldn't quite see.
I tried to follow the threads further, tried to see where he was, but they tangled. Twisted. Knotted themselves into impossible shapes that made my head throb and my stomach lurch.
Focus. I needed to focus.
But without Elias's steady presence anchoring me, the threads wouldn't behave. They slipped through my mental fingers like water, reformed into different patterns, showed me glimpses of places and people I didn't recognize. Marcus's face, twisted with rage. A warehouse. A house. A street corner. Images that flashed too fast to process, too fragmented to make sense of.
I pushed harder, forcing my power to obey, and the pain intensified. It felt like someone was driving nails into my skull. Like my magic was tearing itself apart trying to show me something I couldn't quite reach.
