Where is Hyacinth?
I fumble around, blinking crazily to banish the shadows from my eyes. I can’t remember a single thing about the dream, only a horrific sense of loss that felt like it would tear my heart in two.
“Hyacinth?” I call out, waiting to hear her answer or her step in the hall as she returns to me. When only silence answers my call, the fear from the dream comes back to me, prickling my skin with terror.
If I don’t find her, I will lose her.
I don’t know where this certainty has come from, but I have no doubt it’s true. I leap to my feet, only to stagger and almost fall as my head spins.
I’m still not okay. Without her, I’m weak, inside and out. How could she leave me like this?
A splinter of even worse doubt pierces my chest, and I rush down the hall to her room. All her things are still there, completely undisturbed, so she couldn’t have left me.
That would have broken me for good. To share this much with her, to come so far, only to have her run from me… I would rather die.
I rush down the hall, following her scent to the backyard. My senses still aren’t as sharp as they should be, and her scent isscattered all over the place, so I don’t even know if I’m tracking her current trail. Turning around slowly, I try to find a sign that she was here recently, anything I can use to follow her.
Towards the back of the garden, there is a small circle of flattened grass. I move over to it, and her scent becomes strong enough that I’m convinced she was here, and not that long ago.
Walking barefoot—I don’t see any shoe prints. She can’t have gone far.
I follow the thin scent around the house, and that’s when I see my car is gone. I glare at the empty space in the driveway as if my irritation could return the vehicle, the shock of Hyacinth being beyond my reach almost too much to bear.
Get help.
I race back inside, grabbing my phone off the table, and calling Rhys. He answers right away.
“What’s happening?” he asks. “Have there been any changes to your pack?”
“No,” I answer. “Well, maybe. I don’t know. It doesn’t matter right now. Hyacinth’s gone.”
“What? What do you mean, gone?”
“I woke up, and she’s not here!” I yell, my stress finally getting the better of me. “I don’t know what to do—”
“Hold on,” Rhys says, and I hear a rattle at the end of the line and muffled voices. After a few seconds, Rhys comes back on.
“Okay, Sadie says she thought this might happen.”
“What do you mean? How?”
“I don’t question anything my wife says,” Rhys replies. “She’s going to do a locator spell with Trina. I’ll call you back and let you know where to go.”
“You’ll have to come and get me,” I say. “Hyacinth took my car.”
“Okay,” Rhys affirms. “I’ll see you soon.”
I pace back into the house, wondering what I should do while I wait. The sense of loss I felt upon waking gets worse, scoring marks of grief into my heart. I can almost feel the curse trying to swallow me, an inky-black shadow infecting my blood and trying to weaken me until I can no longer fight.
I will fight. I don’t care if I have to keep fighting until after I’m dead—I will fight for her, for eternity, if that’s what it takes.
I end up sitting out front, staring at the ground while I wait for the others. Rhys hasn’t even fully stopped his Viper when I jump up and throw myself into the back seat.
“The gang’s all here,” Rhys says, nodding to Owen and the two girls. “Where are we headed?”
“The manor,” Sadie says, her expression grave. “I had a feeling that’s where the final fight would play out. I blame myself for this, Shane. I should have kept a closer eye on her.”
“What do you mean by that?” I ask.
